Re: The Labour party leadership thread : Sun Jul 26, 2015 5:29 am  

Dally wrote:

Tories believe they have a strong mandate with a 25% vote. Even Corbyn could get that! I think it would be a breath of fresh air to have a leading politician who isn't a PR-based non-entity but says what he / she thinks.

Corbyn may be even more grey than John Major but there's no doubting his sincerity. He's one of the very few MPs who entered parliament to effect change as opposed to simply wanting to become an MP and get to play games with other people's lives and living standards. He's also unique in the ranks of Labour MPs because since being elected, he has managed to increase his majority at each successive election. If nothing else, his constituents appear to believe in him.

Since Blair, Labour have all but abandoned those at the bottom of society, they need to re-engage and mobilise them to vote: that could be their path to a future victory.

What I do find disappointing about this leadership contest is that since the start, none of Corbyn's opponents have managed to offer a coherent argument against him. Instead they and their teams have continually briefed against the man and not his politics. That alone suggests that they don't have the intellect to lead a party

Re: The Labour party leadership thread : Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:56 am  

Heard Corbyn interviewed on the radio on Friday (Jeremy Vine I think) and was quite impressed with the man and his sentiments which were refreshingly honest and not obviously read from a spin doctors list of "This is what we think they should hear", in particular his ideas on affordable and social housing and how the current restrictions on local authorities prevent them from providing a solution were quite enlightening - they shouldn't have been because they are just common sense solutions and not the ravings of some communist madman and they leave you thinking "Why is no-one else saying this" and they are actually only the same sort of housing planning and budgeting that the country did 20 years ago and yet he stands out in the crowd for saying these things, I hope he becomes the next leader of the Labour Party if only for the fact that an opposition should be a genuine opposition and not a slightly paler colour of the party in power.

Re: The Labour party leadership thread : Mon Jul 27, 2015 9:35 am  

I agree Gary. Liz Kendall and the Thick Of It Labour types are still stuck mentioning wealth creation as one of the major issues. For me, it goes without saying that ANY government has in its interests wealth creation. There is NO elected government that has not had this as part of their manifesto. With Labour though they don't seem able to say that along with the progressive policies. It's like their stuck on a record of austerity. They have let the Tories dictate the discussions since they went into opposition.

Miliband got elected on the back of challenging that but as soon as he was suited and booted for the leadership all that talk disappeared, replaced by the kind of talk that comes from letting opinion polls decide what you do. Corbyn knows what the vision is. He's not talking about nationalising everything, thrusting up taxes to 80% etc. He's talking about stop wasting money on defence, sorting out tax evasion by multinationals, public services that provide more than a bare minimum and a country led by respect for the people that live in it. Whether he's got the intellectual clout to compete in debates I don't know. In addition, he's probably going to hampered by the Blairites, who think the way to win elections is to be caffeine free Tories who steer away from the difficult discussions because they have no conviction in changing anything.

Re: The Labour party leadership thread : Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:18 pm  

The current Labour party is a joke and wholly unelectable and incapable of running anything, let alone the UK economy. They can't even organise a way of voting for their own leader! They have now decided the current one person one vote system is undemocratic because they don't like the way its going. Before that Ed got elected on the basis of union votes against the will of most. They are an utter, utter shambles.

Re: The Labour party leadership thread : Mon Jul 27, 2015 6:30 pm  

Dally wrote:

The current Labour party is a joke and wholly unelectable and incapable of running anything, let alone the UK economy. They can't even organise a way of voting for their own leader! They have now decided the current one person one vote system is undemocratic because they don't like the way its going. Before that Ed got elected on the basis of union votes against the will of most. They are an utter, utter shambles.

As usual 100% out of your depth.

I appreciate your determination in the face of adversity.

Re: The Labour party leadership thread : Mon Jul 27, 2015 6:53 pm  

Leaguefan wrote:

As usual 100% out of your depth.

I appreciate your determination in the face of adversity.

WTFHIT?

Re: The Labour party leadership thread : Mon Jul 27, 2015 8:39 pm  

Dally wrote:

WTFHIT?

He's correct. Most of what you wrote is total bollox.

When did the Labour party decide that the current leadership voting system was wrong?

They didn't?

Oh, OK then

Re: The Labour party leadership thread : Tue Jul 28, 2015 12:47 pm  

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... are_btn_fb

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... are_btn_fb

Re: The Labour party leadership thread : Wed Jul 29, 2015 7:13 am  

The Labour Party is certainly in a mess. Having been routed in the general election any leader of stature would have resigned but remained in office long enough for the party to regroup and agree what went wrong and plan for how they should go forward before electing a new leader. Instead the humiliated Ded Ed just ran away abdicating all responsibility and still believing he was right and the public were wrong. To think he was standing to be our Prime Minister!

So Labour rushed into a leadership election with a rag bag mix of candidates made up of those tainted by Labour's former economic incompetence and others destined to remain as just others.

They now seem rudderless with no credible policies. Having been against an EU referendum they now vote for one having stated that they back the government in seeking changes to our membership but will back the vote to stay in at any cost.

The Labour party have deserved all they have got and I think they will take a long time to recover in the future be it with the over ambitious Burnham or the more genuine but off the wall Corbyn.

Re: The Labour party leadership thread : Wed Jul 29, 2015 12:15 pm  

The problem with Labour as I have been saying for along time is they need to decide what they stand for, who they represent and what policies they will adopt. The fact that they cannot or will not say what they are for in simple, easily understood tells the electorate all they need know - ie the parliamentary Labour party are a self-serving rabble.