I read a tweet today, a link to a Guardian article by Jonathan Freedland, that was titled, ‘With each misstep, Jeremy Corbyn is handing Britain to the Tories.’
I think it’s a bit late for that since the significant changes during my lifetime – the decline of manufacturing, the rise of service industries, the pre-eminence of financial services, the fall in trade union membership, the sell-off of public assets, the rise, then fall in home ownership, the internet, globalisation, Islamism, China, the fall of the Berlin Wall and more – have effectively created a different environment that Westminster and the London media have yet to catch up with. They’re still playing Pong with the Conservative and Labour parties as the bats.
At the moment, the Tories are the single biggest party still standing, obviously, but they don’t have a huge majority and there are significant internal splits over Europe. Depending on how the Euro referendum goes, UKIP will start to look more and more attractive to a good number of anti-European Conservatives. (UKIP should be also taken seriously, as a blog by SNP strategist Gordon Guthrie argues; they’re not just a bunch of clowns – see link below).
Meanwhile, back at Labour HQ, Corbyn isn’t so much a causal factor in the great scheme of things – his ‘principles’ or his ‘incompetence’ damaging the party and its chances – as much as a symptom of it (also see the Scottish independence referendum last year). The certainties of the post-war British state have fallen away and the political structure on top of that is shaking.
Labour’s old base (manufacturing, council house tenants, unions and more) has faded over decades. Blair brought the popular vote back to 13.5 million in 1997 after years of Thatcher and Major but by 2010 it was down to 8.6 million and even after five years of the Cameron and Clegg show, Miliband only achieved a dead cat bounce to 9.3 million. It’s the second most significant political party in the British Isles but it’s neither as popular nor as representative as it used to be. This much has been discussed on this website before in the lead-up to #indyref and its aftermath, also #GE2015.
‘Sensible opinion’ would see Corbyn as worse than Miliband – although neither thought bombing Syria was a great idea – but how much better would Burnham, Cooper or Kendal do in electoral terms? They need to kill off the SNP in Scotland, oppose UKIP in the blighted north of England, attract Tory voters in marginals across the more prosperous parts of England and put up a leader who won’t offend the Daily Mail. The game’s a bogey. Currently the Tories benefit from the contingencies of FPTP, a handily uniform spread of support across England, also into Wales and southern Scotland, and a united front, in public at least. Throw a European crisis or moves towards proportional representation into the mix and they look a lot less commanding.
In that sense, we’re moving towards a very different kind of politics. The Tories as the biggest single party, buttressed by the media in terms of the respect afforded to the systems and offices of state, will start to look like the person with all the hotels on the Monopoly board while the rest of the household tries out GTA V. We’re moving towards a new set of alignments, playing a different game. So the reply to Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian is, ‘What do you mean by Britain these days, and how long do you think the Tories – or Britain – will endure in current circumstances?’
https://medium.com/@gordonguthrie/labour-s-result-was-much-worse-c1b2e342659d#.ydwx0fc5h
Very good, and sure to be passed off as my own in conversation in the near future. But yes, I agree. Labour have to win back Scotland from the SNP and England from the Tories simultaneously, which seems impossible, particularly when their leader has broad support from the membership but not his parliamentary party, while the Conservatives risk tearing themselves apart on Europe, and meanwhile younger people seem uninterested and disenfranchised from politics. It’s certainly a long way from a system of two parties, each with mass support.
The issue the Labour membership has is that they think the PLP should be serving the members rather than the electorate and they don’t appear to understand how unrepresentative of the genpop their current crop of Stop The War entryists are.
Corbyn is in tune with the membership, the majority of whom are against bombing in Syria. The public, generally, was also against until Paris. Now, the public is in favour but that ‘opinion’ is volatile.
Has the case for bombing Syria been made. I’m not convinced. Are you?
1. Bombing is what Daesh want. They commit acts of terror, partly to provoke bombing.
2. Will bombing get rid of Daesh? I don’t think so. They are prepared for it. They hide amongst civilians. There are no real ‘training camps’ or ‘headquarters’ to destroy.
3. Civilians will die. A recent bomb killed twelve people, five of whom were children. Syrians, ‘moderate’ Syrians, are being bombed by Assad, Russia and, soon, France and the UK. In the past, the carnage has been used by Daesh to support their recruitment.
4. Russia and Turkey need to be ‘on-side’ and they aren’t. Turkey seem more worried about the Kurds than Daesh. Russia is busy perusing its own agenda.
5. Both Hollande and Cameron talk about 70,000 ‘moderate’ troops already on the ground to secure territory. Really? Are they on ‘our’ side?
6. How will increased bombing help UK citizens to be safe? In the short term, it will do entirely the opposite, increasing the threat from ‘internal’ terror. In the long term, bombing hasn’t done us much good so far since ‘the war on terror’ began.
It is inevitable the UK will stand by France and bomb in Syria. I doubt it will do us much good. Syria is a complex mess that requires negotiation, co-ordination between many countries and many different factional groups plus a coherent plan. Phew! That’s a ‘big ask’.
Shouldn’t the opposition be posing difficult questions? Is it not possible that the UK may be better served by not bombing in Syria?
I don’t know what I think about the bombing issue yet. Corbyn did before the issue even came up. That’s my problem.
I’m commenting on his and his supporters’ dogmatism, not whether or not they’re right on this issue (which, as I say, I haven’t made my mind up about yet).
Isn’t that true of all the parties? The Tories have been in favour of bombing Syria well before Paris. The SNP have been against. Why pick on Corbyn for being dogmatic?
Because the suspicion is that there is virtually no scenario in which Corbyn would back military action of any stripe.
His pacifism is very high minded. It’s also completely incompatible with leading a modern nation state.
Also, like it or not, the Tories are aligned with public opinion on the question of bombing. What Corbyn has done since Paris may be very noble and possibly even correct, but it’s terrible politics, and he’s a god awful politician.
But then, he wasn’t elected to be a leader, or a politician. He was elected to be a martyr.
Trouble is, he’s right about what’s being discussed. Bombing is a waste of time, money and the inevitable collateral damage.
Put 30,000 troops on the ground, round up and kill the whole nest of jihadidiots, every last one buried in the desert by Army bulldozers and trucks full of quicklime; that’s a military intervention that might just work. Would cost a lot of lives, ours and the those of the innocent locals.
Never going to happen. Too much like a proper war.
Ergo, stop pissing about talking about bombing and face facts. Bugger “public opinion”, which I don’t believe is necessarily aligned as you claim anyway.
Since when was it “terrible politics” to say what you believe and stand up for your principles – to be correct, as you put it – when innocent lives are involved?
I’d rather have a god awful politician who says what he means and means what he says than any of the two-faced twisters we’ve had in power for the last two governments.
“Bugger public opinion”.
Terrible politics.
So you’re in favour of bringing back the death penalty?
Terrible logic.
Come off it, you know what I’m getting at.
And while we’re at it, please don’t quote me as if I had said “Bugger public opinion”, as you did above.
If you look at my post you’ll see that I wrote “Bugger “public opinion””.
There’s a big difference, as you know perfectly well.
Moving the quotation marks around makes no difference. Ignoring public opinion is terrible politics, and suggesting that if you’re opposed to ignoring public opinion you must support the death penalty is terrible logic.
“Moving the quotation marks around makes no difference. ”
I can’t believe you meant that; it’s laughable.
The only reason we don’t have the death penalty is because politicians don’t dare put it to the public. So bugger public opinion there, then. Thankfully.
Fair enough – it’s laughable. Let’s just agree to disagree.
The Tories have only been aligned with public opinion for two weeks. Since Iraq, there has been no public appetite for any involvement in the Middle East until Paris.
Is there not the suspicion that there is virtually no scenario that the Tories wouldn’t want to bomb? That means lots of money for their friends in the arms industry, the military and the secret services and gives them the excuse to push back on privacy, freedom of speech and habeus corpus.
Bing, old chap, I normally enjoy reading your political insights as I find them generally pretty smart. but you seem way off the mark to me re Corbyn. I’m not even sure what you mean by “he was elected to be a martyr”. He was elected because so many people (like me) finally found a politician whose values resonate with them. Wether you agree with him or not, whether you think he’s a good politician or not, whether you think he’s electable or not, it’s ridiculous to deny that the thousands who joined the Labour party to vote for him did so for any other reason.
I’ll have to be ridiculous, then. They voted for something different. They didn’t really care what it was, as long as it wasn’t more of the same. So they got a man of unyielding principle who will never be in a position to effect the change they want.
It’s not that complicated – Corbyn will spend a few years in office frantically virtue signalling and chortling along while Mao is quoted in the Commons, steadfastly refusing all the while to consider the political reality beyond his own extremely limited based, before being pulverised at the polls.
We’ll then all get to hear about how his crushing defeat is a damning indictment of our electoral system, how he can’t be judged on election results and politics really isn’t worth bothering with anyway.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives can do what they want with the country.
I’m sure every single person who voted for Corbyn (all 400,000 of them in a nation of 65 million) did so because his values resonated with theirs. Unfortunately, they were electing a potential leader of our country, not online dating.
OOAA
Listening to Norman Tebitt on Radio 4 this morning it was clear that the internal fight over Europe in the Tory party is a war without end and to the death. They are every bit as split as Labour.
And they and UKIP will never accept a ‘stay’ vote, especially if there’s a margin of less than 10%.
“Things will change”, to quote Iain M Banks’ great works of leftist propaganda.
We certainly live in dark times and the current situation is not sustainable, north or south of the tweed. Clearly Labour cannot get rid of Corbyn soon. Even if a mechanism existed, it wouldn’t be enough – he has to do so badly that the people who voted for him (at, least those who actually expected him to win an election) are left in no doubt of their folly.
So really, there’s nothing to be done except to pull up a chair and watch the Corbyn car crash, alongside the Nats becoming mired in corruption (allegedly) and incompetence.
The question is whether the Corbyn car crash will be so bad that there’s nothing left for Dan Jarvis or Keir Starmer to take forward.
The May 2016 local elections will bring it to a head. If it goes badly for Labour then Corbyn is toast. If it goes well then he is there through the next General Election.
I can’t remember the source of the Banks quote but I’m really hoping it was said by a long-lived, bulbous, floaty creature from a gas giant planet. Probably from State Of The Art though? (Guessing.)
Motto of the Culture at some point. Could well be one of the State of the Art stories. possibly even the one that ends “The future is bright, bright red.”
I think you underestimate the STW brigade’s capacity to never, ever blame anyone but the neo liberal conspiracy for any mishap, Lando. Even if every Oldham elector personally wrote Corbyn a note on their ballot paper explaining why they didn’t vote for him, it’d still be Blair’s fault or something.
If the internet has taught me anything (and it hasn’t), it’s that although the former PMs name is pronounced ‘BLAIR’, it’s actually spelt ‘BLIAR’…
That’s true, and anyone who refers to the Chancellor as ‘George’ Osborne rather than ‘Gideon’ is a closet Tory.
I’m taking that as a given, Bob! However STW are a relatively small but vocal minority (are they still a wholly-owner subsidiary of the SWP? I haven’t kept up.) I suspect that the forthcoming byelection may be a reminder to that majority of members who chose to take a temporary trip to la-la land, that what plays well in meetings of the faithful may not play as well out in the real world. The lesson will sink in eventually.
‘things will change’. True. Not necessarily for the better, though.
Working in advertising, we play to people’s fears.
Such as the fear of missing out or the fear of feeling left out.
There is something similar happening in regard to the bombing of Syrian targets and or ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
There is no conceivable clear benefit to Britain’s interests in joining the air strikes.
Yet, we fear the fear of missing out.
Fear of being left out.
Corbyn may well be, a what? Plonker. That will do.
But on this I agree with him.
As the Private Eye Cover this week has it:
It’s complicated I understand that.
But…
There are two issues here.
1) is it right to bomb Syria?
2) is Corbyn an even halfway competent leader of the opposition?
The problem is that, even if he’s right on this issue – and he may well be – he’s not any kind of a *leader*. Many of the people who answered in the affirmative to his “who’s with me, guys?” poll would be with Clyde from Any Which Way But Loose if he ooked a couple of ooks which could be construed as pro-Palestine and anti-America.
Corbyn is a terrible LOTO because he can’t persuade to save his own life. When he addressed the PLP the other night – about, let’s not forget, whether the Labour Party should support a military intervention overseas – he read from a prepared statement and didn’t take direct questions. For me, that exemplifies a man who has never changed his mind about anything at all and thus lacks the equipment to change anyone else’s. And that’s supposed to be the entirety of his job description: to change minds. He doesn’t know how, and – worst of all – doesn’t appear to be particularly bothered by that. He seems happy to be right in his own head and sod anyone else. That’s not leadership. That’s lamentable.
He changed his mind on withdrawal from Nato after accepting that public opinion was against it.
Cameron wants to earn his stripes. He wants to be able to give it the big “I am” at the UN & international head of state summits.
He wants to strut up to the podium at the annual party conference with his chest pushed out giving it big potatoes.
He wants to be a “war” leader so badly because Tony Blair has got that badge & he wants one of his own.
I have told this before, but some twenty odd years ago when I was still serving in the Royal Navy, I attended a briefing for all senior ratings (FWIIW, I was a Chief Petty Officer), in the build up to the first gulf war.
The senior officer briefing us told me something that has always stayed with me. Any use of force (Bombing, ground invasion whatever) has to have a desired objective, this also makes the mission quantifiable – ie, Iraqi forces are driven out of Kuwait. Achieving this objective also enables a planned withdrawal/reduction of our armed forces.
If we go in dishing out death & destruction just to be seen to be doing something (supporting our allies f’rinstance) without a definable objective, then we will quickly find ourselves in a position where more death & destruction is inevitable.
I know what I am about to say maybe little more than a soundbite/cliche, but this will not end until the children of senior western politicians return home in a box draped in a flag.
OOAA.
Good point Jack. Cameron et al would say that the defined objective is bombing ISIS into the Stone Age, but then they would.
But there are still 200,000 civilians in Raqqa, including the brave souls of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently. Things you may not want to look at on their website.
I didn’t know that. I’d say that doesn’t count because he wasn’t persuaded, he just weakened, but it’d be fair enough to accuse me of totally moving the goalposts. 🙂
Here is his letter in full:
Dear Colleague,
The Prime Minister made a Statement to the House today making the case for a UK bombing campaign against Isis in Syria. A copy of my response has already been circulated.
We have all been horrified by the despicable attacks in Paris and are determined to see the defeat of Isis.
Our first priority must be the security of Britain and the safety of the British people. The issue now is whether what the Prime Minister is proposing strengthens, or undermines, our national security.
I do not believe that the Prime Minister today made a convincing case that extending UK bombing to Syria would meet that crucial test. Nor did it satisfactorily answer the questions raised by us and the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.
In particular, the Prime Minister did not set out a coherent strategy, coordinated through the United Nations, for the defeat of Isis. Nor has he been able to explain what credible and acceptable ground forces could retake and hold territory freed from Isis control by an intensified air campaign.
In my view, the Prime Minister has been unable to explain the contribution of additional UK bombing to a comprehensive negotiated political settlement of the Syrian civil war, or its likely impact on the threat of terrorist attacks in the UK.
For these and other reasons, I do not believe the Prime Minister’s current proposal for air strikes in Syria will protect our security and therefore cannot support it.
The Shadow Cabinet met today for an initial discussion and debated the issues extensively. We will meet again on Monday, when we will attempt to reach a common view.
I will get in touch again when we know the timing of the debate and vote.
Yours
Jeremy Corbyn,
Leader of the Labour Party
Seems perfectly reasonable to me. It doesn’t say he wil never support military intervention ever whatever, does it?
There’s the thing with Corbyn: pretty much everything I’ve heard (or read) him say sounds so reasonable, yet he gets constantly portrayed in the media as some extremist looney.
On the other hand, there is this:
“This is a man who sympathised with violent Irish republicanism in the 80s, invited IRA representatives to the Commons a fortnight after the Brighton bombing in 1984 and at a Troops Out meeting in 1987 he stood for a moment’s silence for eight IRA terrorists killed in an SAS ambush”
Oh I’ve read loads of accusations like that in the media. But I was talking about his actual words, what he says or writes himself.
I don’t know where you got that quote from, JC, but one crucial word is incorrect. That word is ‘violent’. He is an Irish republican sympathiser who would like to see a United Ireland. However, he abhors violence. Perhaps, he was trying to persuade those IRA representatives to peruse a peaceful, political resolution? Those representatives included Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams. I think lots of politicians have discussed Irish politics with those two since then.
It was from the Belfast Telegraph who were quoting the Daily Telegraph.
I see.
For some reason my spellchecker can’t ‘pursue’.
Sorry to be so late to the party on this one. I know not of Corbyn as a very long term ex-pat, but I do know that anyone consistently portrayed as a looney by the vested corporate interests of media corporations is invariably much more nuanced, reasonable and sensible than they are portrayed, eg. Ken Livingstone, Noam Chomsky and Tony Benn, to pick 3 completely random examples…in fact it became a tell-tale sign that I should move beyond the press headlines to what they’re actually saying to make up my own mind rather than have it made for me. As a shelf full of Chomsky books will attest.
© The Daily Mail
There are good reasons to oppose bombing as far as I can see, reading about the subject. Corbyn seems pretty clear in his opposition and expects his party to vote against. If the government were defeated that could be a good thing. Other possible Labour leaders would have probably supported the government, for political expediency. So far so good. Question is, will his MPs do as they are told? There is fairly open rebellion within the party. The outcome of a vote is uncertain. Also Corbyn has said he opposes all military action ever. That is a problem for a prospective PM. Then again Corbyn has said he won’t agree to certain things only to be persuaded otherwise. So his supposed strength in being principled is actually in doubt.
The Tories have big question marks over their future, like Europe, that could bring them down. But the autumn statement opposition statement farce shows that they can get away with anything at the moment, such is the shambles that is Corbyn’s party. He may well have some entirely reasonable views and ideas. That in itself make him an effective leader. The Tories get away with some terrible policies while the opposition make the story all about their gaffes and ineptitude. There is the actual possibility of losing a safe seat to UKIP in Oldham. Some honeymoon period. It’s a disaster, no question.
There is no obvious escape route for Labour from the party’s agonies
http://gu.com/p/4ej3q?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
Posted in haste there. Corrections: “Autumn statement oppositon response” would be better and missing word “That in itself doesn’t make him an effective leader”. Oh, for an edit facility.
Why is the outcome of the vote uncertain? The Tories have a majority, a small one, but a majority nonetheless. Even if all of Labour and the SNP vote against, they should still win. Perhaps, some Tory MPs are in doubt, too. Maybe, they want every party to vote in favour.
The Labour leadership is never going to convince the right-wing press that they are competent. However, read the actual text of their speeches, listen to what they actually say and you will find that they aren’t the raving loony lefties as portrayed.
Oldham has a history of flirting with anti-immigration parties. In a by-election, that ‘protest’ gets louder.
The Tories themselves are not sure they’ve got enough votes.
Labour’s desperate state of affairs is illustrated by such nonsense as the Mao little red book incident and the foolish appointment of Ken Livingstone, a bad decision proven almost immediately by Ken’s headline-grabbing ill-advised comments. They are not fit to govern as they stand, not that they will get the chance. Any reasonable content of speeches and interviews is undermined by this kind of idiocy.
As regards Oldham, you are clutching at straws.
This extract from an article sums it up. The current leadership are rubbish at politics.
Take a look at @jamesrbuk’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/jamesrbuk/status/670931736193335296?s=09
Every front page is ‘Labour Divided’ when the government, with a majority, to which you can add some Irish MPs, isn’t sure it has enough votes. That tells me more about the media than the Labour Party.
That article is absolutely spot on. Up arrow.
Cuh! We’re judging a full article on the basis of a tweet now, are we? No-one listens to a complete sentence any more. No wonder Jeremy Corbyn is doing badly. Everything he says is mangled through the Murdoch (et al) prism and retweeted in chunks. ?
Can’t work out if you’re serious or not, Tigger, but the full article was linked to in the tweet.
It is spot on,
Only partially serious. I don’t do Twitter and didn’t even realise there was a link. However, I recognised the paragraph, being a fully paid up guardianista bien peasant, or whatever it is.
I enjoyed the article but you could mirror the argument against the Tories (bullying, sexual assault, ministerial resignation, U turn over tax credits, stealth taxes, cash for new laws, libel losses and they can’t even guarantee winning a vote in parliament despite having a majority). You may say they get away with it because the opposition are inept. However, the press made its mind up about Corbyn long before he was elected and is only interested in dissing him regardless of reason or sound argument.
On this site we have had many discussions, disagreements, meltdowns & hissy fits about politics in general, the labour party (direction & leadership election) & Jeremy Corbyn in particular.
I think we are now seeing what a lot of people forecast, although, to be fair, although it was a lot, it was still a minority. I remember someone saying (although, sadly, I dont remember who said it), that if Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader of the Labour party, he would lead the party to a principled but massive defeat at the next general election.
My love for the labour party has gone, probably forever. I always considered myself a Blairite & if he were leader I would vote for him without hesitation, but we are where we are & big jez is the party leader, & it must be said that he won the leadership election convincingly.
I actually think that a lot of what he has said is not as bad or radical as it first seems, but he doesnt stand a chance against the predominantly right wing press in this country.
AFAIAC, Government is everything, opposition counts for nothing.
I believe his legacy will be turning the Labour party into an articulate, highly principled protest voice. I see politics as being about achieving things & I cant see a Labour forming a government in whats left of my lifetime (I am 59).
IMHO, The way they have behaved since Tony Blair resigned they dont deserve to.
As ever, OOAA.
Now please excuse me while I put on my tin hat & arse kicking preventive trousers.
No need to duck, Jack, that was pretty much what a lot of us said before he was elected, and nothing has happened to suggest different. A principled but divisive Labour leader will, on the face of it, hand the Tories a free pass to do as they like for the next ten years.
It doesn’t have to be terminal, though, as there’s time for the party to go through this soul-searching and still become a credible alternative for the electorate in 2020. The Tories have their own divisions, and the big issues, such as this war, the EU and the increasingly likelihood of another global financial crash will play a part. Don’t give up on us!
Ha! I’ll see you your Blair praise and raise you an Alastair Campbell. We’re now seeing exactly why the Labour leader needs a take-no-prisoners Head of Communications who can (out)play the press at their own game.
While it is heartbreaking that a majority of Labour members chose feel-good opposition to actually having a chance of power, do stick with it. The wheel will turn. Unfortunately, those paying the price for this self-indulgence will be those who can least afford to.
I cancelled my membership. I’ll rejoin when they remember what political parties are for, but for the time being I couldn’t see any virtue in pouring money down the trousers of a party which doesn’t want to win anything (elections; arguments – you name it).
That makes two of us then, except I cancelled mine when Clause Four got the heave-ho.
Really? Wow. I never understood the attachment to Clause IV: it seemed to me to commit the Labour Party not just to equity (admirable) but to out-and-out statist Communism.
That’s a very particular and partisan interpretation of a phrase that was coined in 1918, way before anyone had understood what “statist Communism” might be, or what it might become.
A more generous interpretation (and how I always understood it to be) is as a wholehearted rejection of the profit-driven interventions of the Thatcher and Blair years – the privatisation of our public infrastructure and our utilities, and the ongoing debacle that is PFI.
I’m joining Labour for the first time, having pretty much always voted for them in the past. I admire Jezza, I think he’s a decent man and, like Gary, find myself agreeing with most of what he says.
Now’s the time to show support.
For good or I’ll, public opinion seemed to be in favour of bombing prior to Paris. The Independent published a poll to that effect at the end of July.
The Independent poll excluded Don’t Knows. Include those and only 48% are in favour with 25% against. The terms ‘overwhelming’ and ‘majority’ are statistically incorrect, although they would apply in a general election (but not a vote to go on strike). Truth is, a substantial number of us are unsure.
You Gov poll last week. In favour 58%, Against 20%, Don’t Know, 22%.
Number of paid up Labour Party m
Oops. Meant to say – Percentage of Labour Party activists who took the trouble to reply to JCs request for views: about 25%.
Thing is, fully paid up members appear to be the only people whose opinions count in JCs interpretation of democracy.
Just read this in Al Jazeera (highly recommended, by the way, for an alternative view, plus all sorts of news that never makes it into western media).
Deadly ‘Russian air raid’ hits market in Syria’s Idlib
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/20-killed-russian-air-strike-syrian-market-151129082103978.html
I’d be interested to know what the figures are that have been calculated as acceptable collateral damage for this sort of mission creep. As I said up there, there are still 200,000 civilians in Raqqa, although Daesh seem to be picking them off one by one. These are the people, remember, who don’t have enough dosh to make a break for it and incur the wrath of the Daily Mail. If this sort of thing is being factored into Jezza’s calculations (assuming he’s doing any) then more power to his elbow.
Since Al Jazeera is owned/funded by the ruling family of Qatar, that “alternative view” you speak is inherently pro-Islam and has often been accused of anti-America and anti-Israeli bias.
Sigh…I meant what I said. It provides an alternative view, which I sometimes find valuable. Since it’s a Middle East-based organisation it’s hardly surprising if it’s inherently pro-Islam; the Sun has recently demonstrated what happens when a news organ is inherently anti-Islam. And it doesn’t take much to get accused of anti-America and anti-Israeli bias. We would all like all news media to be completely and utterly impartial, but that doesn’t seem to be possible.
Is that a Paxman-style sigh Mike, possibly accompanied by the trademark incredulous horse face?
That’s the ruling family of Qatar who, together with the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, are directly funding ISIS and propagating Wahabi extremism worldwide.
Highly ‘alternative’ view.
Yes, you said. Being too naive and/or stupid to have anything to contribute to threads like this I shall stick to the easy stuff in future, like headphones and tv programmes.
Hold on. In what way is it either pro or anti-Islam to report civilian casualties? Either civilians were killed or they were not.
I think the issue is less that it is “pro-Islam” than that its Qatari owners are supporters off the Al Qaeda group that the Russians were attacking in this incident.
It’s a bit like reading the Daily Telegraph for a balanced view on Jeremy Corbyn.
Oh F*r F*ck’s S*ke, innocent civilians were either killed or they weren’t, who cares? You know what? F*rget it.
Of course you are right. I was being inappropriately facetious. Sorry.
Not aimed solely at you, see above. But thanks anyway.
I think Corbyn and McDonnell are doing an exemplary job and I wish them many years of success in pursuing their goals.
Posting it in.
Oy! They’ve got a huge mandate. Show some respect.
Now there’s a thought. If previous Labour leaders had been chosen the way this one was, would there have been a single Labour government since Harold Wilson’s? Think about it. We certainly would never have had Callaghan or Blair as prime minister. And even Neil Kinnock might never have had his chance to be humiliated at the polls, because Eric Heffer (or perhaps Denis Skinner) would have been more the grassrootsrankandfile membership’s cup of tea and so been given the task of leading the party to an even more resounding disaster than the Welsh Windbag managed.
Bob’s right. The only job of a political party in opposition is to win enough support, not among the card-carriers but among the general population, to win power and put their programmes into practice. Anything else – such as pointing with a self-satisfied whine to Corbyn’s “overwhelming support in the party” – is, quide liderally, preaching to the converted, when they only have one job: to convert the many millions of people who think the Labour Party right now is about as viable a proposition to form a government as, say, the Jehovah’s Witnesses would be. After all, their faithful number about a quarter of a million too.
Up arrow.
For me, it’s not so much that they only have one job. It’s just that the job of convincing the public they’re a viable party of government is what determines whether they’ll ever get the chance to do any of their other jobs – y’know, making the country a better place and all that.
Just being a lovely man doesn’t cut it. You have to lead – that means coming down from your ivory tower and engaging with views other than your own. It means a bit of give and take. And it means getting your hands dirty with the filthy business of politic, not just sounding dog whistles to the faithful.
Yes, beautifully written as always Archie.
Corbyn has the Student Grant demographic sewn up. It’s the country at large he needs to worry about now.
In fairness, the constituency parties voted for both Blair and John Smith before him
You’re right, of course. But wasn’t that system weighted so as to give the PLP a third of the vote rather than their say being limited to only 232 voices out of 400,000?
Indeed. However Blair won over half the constituency votes and over half the affiliated members (trade unionists etc.) votes.
Full stats here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_%28UK%29_leadership_election,_1994
Everything you say is true, Archie. Except for one thing. The Opposition has another job and that is to oppose the government when that is the right thing to do.
When you actually get a chance to hear Corbyn speak on Syria, without all the media noise, he makes a coherent, rational case. There are even people in the Tory who agree with him.
In the end, he is allowing Labour MPs a free vote. I don’t know if that is good politics or not but it strikes me as fair.
Things may look bleak for Labour’s electoral chances right now. I don’t believe the UK would tolerate a Tory government for ever. At some point, a worm would turn.
Frankly, I’m sick and tired of screeching, weasly politicians. Maybe, Corbyn is just the same. For now, he seems refreshing. The hysteria from the media makes me think that the right actually fears him. The PLP should stop bitching and sniping, accept that there isn’t going to be a leadership contest for a while and get on with it. The public will be more impressed by a united opposition than a fragmented one.
The negativity from the media (and it’s not just the right wing media – see the excellent Guardian article posted above) may have something to do with Corbyn having essentially told them all to go fuck themselves as his first act in the job.
Presumably he has a plan to bypass them, or that was a monumentally stupid thing to have done, no?
I like the fact he only speaks to the media when he is ready & not when he is door stepped on his way to buy some milk!
Also, Corbyn would not have been able to stand without the generosity of his fellow candidates. He didn’t get enough support from the PLP in the fist place.
When you actually get a chance to hear Corbyn speak on Syria, without all the media noise, he makes a coherent, rational case
Of course he does. But so do his deputy leader, the shadow foreign secretary and the shadow defence secretary, and the hundred-plus other Labour MPs who apparently think Cameron has got this pretty much right. This mess has arisen because the Labour members voted to be led by a man who is an ideological figurehead, not a leader. I expect we’ll agree that the main mission of the Labour leader is to lead the PLP in opposition or in government. This is counterbalanced by the main mission of Labour MPs, which is not simply to follow that leader but to represent their constituencies, including the people who didn’t vote Labour, as best they can.
Corbyn would have made a great party chairman. He’s proving – as expected by most – to be a disastrous party leader. If you’re still not convinced, and think the criticism of his performance to date has just been “media noise”, read this piece – none of which has been denied by the Corbyn camp – and say “Oh god oh god oh god” as many times as it takes until you reach the end, despairing of any hope of effective opposition to the Tories for as long as Jeremy Corbyn is in charge of it.
Will he even last beyond Christmas? Probably, but doesn’t the fact that the question can reasonably be asked say enough about his prospects (and Labour’s, with him as their leader)?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/12026058/Labour-civil-war-How-Jeremy-Corbyn-failed-to-make-his-party-oppose-Syrian-air-strikes.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/12026058/Labour-civil-war-How-Jeremy-Corbyn-failed-to-make-his-party-oppose-Syrian-air-strikes.html
Any “Oh Gods” that article prompted in me were a result of the Telegraph’s subtle-as-a-brick bias. How can anyone take that level of reporting seriously?
So, the shadow cabinet had a very heated debated (good – so they damn well should!) resulting in Corbyn accepting the compromise of giving his MPs free rein to vote against his will.
Twenty four hours earlier he went on television and declared that he was going to impose a three line whip, because “the leader decides”.
Is there any serious debate that this has been anything other than a bad couple of days for Corbyn’s leadership?
Of course the Telegraph has a Tory bias but which parts of that do you think were exaggerated or untrue, Gary?
I could’ve done with less of the “ashen-faced” picture-painting but the sequence of events seems to be the one corroborated by all media, including the BBC (there is no doubt that the nauseating Abbott was heavily hinting a whipped vote until it became obvious that half the PLP would scream bloody murder and defy the whip).
A compromise is where both sides get something and both sides give something. Corbyn’s gauche inability to manage a consistent message or lead his subordinates means that the people he’s supposed to be leading won’t follow him.
A leader without any followers, as someone on the West Wing once said, is just a guy taking a walk. And you’ll argue that he does have followers, but as Archie and I and Uncle Tom Cobbley have argued, that constituency isn’t the one that counts.
I was referring to all the “ashen-faced” picture-painting, by someone who wasn’t there.
Actually I think we agree that someone like Corbyn has little chance of succeeding in modern politics. Where we perhaps disagree is that I find that extremely depressing.
It’s not that long since someone with an iron will and an inability to compromise their own ideology for the good of others had a significant hold over politics in this country. But no one liked her either.
I thought the criticism being leveled at Corbyn over the ‘bombing Syria’ debate was that he has a weak will and is too willing to compromise his ideology to appease others.
Forced into it by a cabinet rebellion and threats of resignation. Sounds familiar…
Blair was a popular choice amongst the membership – he wouldn’t have been elected on the support of MPs alone.
And a word about the much-under-rated Neil Kinnock. He saved Labour from oblivion. he was the only one who could have done so. He saw off the SDP (Who? Exactly.) and the RSL (ditto). He kept the party together and dragged it into the modern era. Blair and the subsequent 3 election victories could not have happened without him.
All true, Lando. But the fact remains that the Kinnock-led party failed to convince the electorate that they would do a better job than the Thatcher-led Tories – a spectacular failure that can’t be blamed solely on Rupert Murdoch or the “Falklands effect”. Would John Smith have done better? We don’t know, just as we don’t know what would have happened if Hugh Gaitskell hadn’t died or if the Gang of Four hadn’t jumped ship. The party’s history is what it is, and if Neil Kinnock’s only real achievement was to have stopped the party from destroying itself – which seems to be what you’re saying – then my original point still holds. The stark fact is that the British electorate have repeatedly made it clear that, since Harold Wilson’s miserable end (not all his fault, but that’s another discussion), they don’t want anyone else who gives off the slightest whiff of being – or even, in Kinnock’s case, of once having been – a “lefty” to lead the country, as Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband learned the hard way.
He didn’t just stop it from imploding, he turned it into an efficient credible election-winning machine. He just wasn’t the man to take it to the next stage (cue Dropping the Pilot cartoon).
I’m not so sure about the ‘lefty’ aversion. People like politicians they can identify with, in some way. That is not necessarily incompatible with ‘leftiness’.
Interesting that YouGiv announced preliminary polling on this on Today this morning. Essentially, the much vaunted 75%+ against bombing in the Labour membership appears to be turned more or less on its head when polled in the general population.
I’m still hugely sceptical of the rush to drop high explosive on Raqqa but it’s a useful demonstration of how the closed bubble of Corbynism persuades itself that it’s the voice of the people when it’s really the voice of a very small number of people. Similar to how Twitter persuaded itself that Miliband had a shot at No. 10 in the run-up to May.
If you only listen to people who agree with you, you’ll end up thinking you represent more people than you do.
We agree with Bob!
See also all the nonsense about who Labour leaders should represent. They should represent the people who elected them – including those who voted for other parties – not the few who selected them. That’s the way parliamentary democracy works. Even if candidate selection were relevant for the future of the PLP in opposition – and only those threatening the imminent deselection of non-Corbyn-line-toers, à la Stalinist purge, think that it is – the current sitting MPs were selected by the party that was led by Ed Miliband, in which Jeremy Corbyn was a mere footnote in pale, tiny print. How can it be a “betrayal” for them to ignore Corbyn and hold to the principles that got them both selected and elected?
YouGov. Damn typos. Edit please!
This is a very mature, intelligent and worthy discussion.
May I lower the tone by taking the piss out of Corbyn’s twee little socialist hat?
Two words: shell suit.
As Neil Kinnock might say:
“Well alright!”
followed by
“Well alright!”
and concluding with
“Well alright!”
I just don’t buy the notion of a Conservative Government sailing through the next election (or even the next few elections), and neither do they. They’re already on a very small margin and they’re about to have their own almighty internal battle over the EUref; it’s going to be biblical and who’s left standing after that – and how Ukip emerge from that – remains to be seen.
Also George Osborne’s personal ratings have dropped from first to third among Tory voters, and collapsed to 11% among general voters, so they also have a leadership contest coming up.
Labour will either get their act together or – more likely IMO – some of them will do the maths and a coalition/alliance will emerge to form an effective opposition.
In a way it’s FPTP coming to an end. A “majority” Government on 37% of the vote is ludicrous, as is everyone aiming their pitch at a few voters in a few marginal seats. The idea that another Blair/Thatcher figure is going to emerge is over – even at their peak they didn’t get more than half the vote.
One of the most striking features of the whole episode has been the focus on getting and responding to the views of Labour Party members. Not Labour voters. Not people living in the MPs constituencies. Just the members. Chairman Mao certainly would have approved.
The survey was simply a box into which you could write your views. This means that the responses will have been very difficult, probably impossible, to collate and analyse within such a short timescale. A tick box approach would have made this analysis much easier, but a lot of effort would have to gone into framing unloaded questions. Apparently a “random sample” produced the result.
So it was either a dishonest or bungled exercise, possibly both. As to who was invited to respond, well, I was one person, and I left the Labour Party six weeks ago. The main reason I left was that I felt that the current leadership lack both integrity and competence, and the conduct of this survey hasn’t made me change my mind.
So that’s two posters here who’ve left the Labour Party because of the Corbster’s “new politics”. Has anyone here joined it because of him or them?
Nobody?
Hello?
How can we be sure that “David Kendal” isn’t just a media invention? Eh? Eh?
They can’t answer you, Archie. They’re out threatening the staff of Labour MPs.
I think you’ll find they are all too busy sympathising.
Interesting that Corbyn’s resolute belief that bombing does no good and must be opposed with every resource at his disposal is not one that he applied to Northern Ireland.
Truly Labour are getting more and more like the Tories then. Can’t wait for the resultant suicide that has bad career implications for the Chairman of the Party.
Yes. Had I been living in the UK I would have given it serious consideration. I probably wouldn’t have, because if Corbyn goes, the next leader will be some kind of apparatchik that led to the Milliband era bollocks.
Well, I’ve stayed despite him. I wasn’t sent the absurd poll though, for some reason. Particularly odd, as Corbyn’s campaign had access to my contact details during the leadership election campaign.
I have Archie. So Jez now has an approval rating of “minus one” on the Afterword forum. That a 100% upswing in real terms.
Hey man, the media invents us all – just some of us know it and some of us don’t.
Up arrow.
Another Up arrow;
That could be the great lost line from Withnail and I; probably by Danny the Drug Dealer.
*starts pious finger wagging* see Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” for the manual on how it’s done.