Corbyn will never be Labour leader. Michael Foot was nearly as left wing and as old, but he was a better orator and more importantly, was unfailingly polite when being interviewed.
Corbyn showed himself to be a mardy arse when he wasn't getting his own way - a deadly failing in a politician. Even Livingstone could hide his anger when necessary.
Lord Hailsham and George Brown were far worse if you remember them.
Given he has such a small base within the parliamentary party, it is interesting to consider how long Corbyn would survive as leader if he did win.
I'd imagine an IDS type tenure. Labour wouldn't be stupid enough to let him run all the way to 2020, would they?
It is rather doubtful that Corbyn could pull together a shadow cabinet team such is his marginal role in the party. He'll have to resort to the Beast of Bolsover, Dianne Abbot and the like.
You know this all a legacy of the party not having the guts to defenestrate a joke of a leader- according to the Guardian's post polling feedback, previous Labour supporters laughed at the prospect of Ed becoming PM.
And Ed is the legacy of the party not dealing appropriately with the Gordon problem- knowing full well that Brown's temperament and personality were singularly unfit to be PM, the party still gave him the keys.
We used to subscribe to the Times but my wife gave up on it in the run up to GE2015, she liked to try and debate with Montgomery, Rifkind, Reid etc when they produced off beam SNP/Scotland stories but they weren't interested - which says it all I guess !! =================== Unfortunately, the Times now picks its news stories based on its politics. It never used to do that, but has become just like all the other papers. It is a real shame. That said, the sports coverage is superb - head and shoulders above the rest - and there is a decent range of columnists. It's probably still the best of a bad lot, but nowhere near as good as it was three or four years ago.
I gave up on the Times 20-odd years ago. Oddly enough, the last straw was personal number plates. Clearly, the piece was only written to attract advertising but what annoyed me is it made no mention of the then-new market in Asian names. It just seemed to sum up a lazy style of cut-and-paste journalism serving the same warmed-over articles year after year.
As I mentioned up thread - I never thought in my lifetime we'd see Labour doing this to themselves again.
Hollobone is rated as the Conservatives' most rebellious MP.[13] He argues that his job is to "represent constituents in Westminster, it's not to represent Westminster in the constituency".[14]
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the United Kingdom) Bill
Immigrants will be forced to prove they have had police background checks or be banned from entering the UK, under plans for a sweeping crackdown on foreign criminals.
Great, so you're trying to start a business in Britain, you clear all the hoops showing it's good for UK employment etc, but you lived in Kazahkstan for 6 months in 2007, so now you've now got to schedule a trip to queue up in a police station in Almaty before you can give British people jobs.
Alternatively you could start your business somewhere else.
I think the UK economy must just survive if the number of rich entrepreneur's from Kazakhstan who want to start a business in the West decide to go elsewhere. The problem with the policy is however that it is one designed for headlines and not effect.
It will only apply to those seeking a Tier 1 visa, i.e. those that are already wealthy. The number of such people seeking entry each year who have a criminal record such that it would debar them from obtaining a visa can probably be counted without having to actually take one's socks off. However, it enables the Daily Mail to say that the government is clamping down on foreign criminals without actually having to do so.
Well of course it is, anything to try an disguise the fact that he has made another pledge on immigration that he doesn't have a earthly chance of meeting while we are in the EU. He can big up this sort of nonsense change all he wants, he can cut benefits to EU immigrants (assuming the French/Poles/Bulgarians don't veto it), hell, he could completely stop all immigrants from outside the EU, and he would still fail his immigration target by 70% or so given recent figures. One day he will stop making promising he has no chance what so ever of keeping, but I am not holding my breath.
Agreed, but I suppose my point is do the others want to lead a party that has clearly seriously considered him?
Corbyn-style policies have little support in the parliamentary party, which is why he did not get close to being nominated before some rather silly and misguided MPs took pity on him. This matters because the Labour leader now has a lot more power than in the past to set policy and to guide the party's direction. Once the new person is installed, the opportunities for the Corbynite left to make mischief are limited because they do not have that many high-profile Parliamentary figures around who to build a concerted internal opposition. It'll be left to people like Owen Jones shouting from the sidelines, which is not really a big problem. The one area in which it is possible to make trouble is in nominating or renominating Parliamentary candidates, but in many of the CLPs where Corbyn came out on top most activists did not vote for him. This is why I think it is all rather pointless making judgements on Labour until the autumn.
Given he has such a small base within the parliamentary party, it is interesting to consider how long Corbyn would survive as leader if he did win.
I'd imagine an IDS type tenure. Labour wouldn't be stupid enough to let him run all the way to 2020, would they?
It is rather doubtful that Corbyn could pull together a shadow cabinet team such is his marginal role in the party. He'll have to resort to the Beast of Bolsover, Dianne Abbot and the like.
You know this all a legacy of the party not having the guts to defenestrate a joke of a leader- according to the Guardian's post polling feedback, previous Labour supporters laughed at the prospect of Ed becoming PM.
And Ed is the legacy of the party not dealing appropriately with the Gordon problem- knowing full well that Brown's temperament and personality were singularly unfit to be PM, the party still gave him the keys.
The SNP is to spend nearly £600,000 of taxpayers’ cash on a backroom team to boost the profile of its new MPs. Each MP is to hand over a proportion of their staffing budget to pay for the initiative, which will include PR opportunities designed to woo voters.
The move will protect any underperforming MPs and will raise concerns among constituents over ‘identikit’ politicians. Policy briefings will be provided for the 56 MPs to ensure they appear knowledgeable during Commons debates.
My take on the right wing press and the SNP/Scotland:
How about a take on the left wing press and the SNP/Scotland ?
Mild left : Mirror-Record, Guardian, Indy Hard left (nationalist socialist) : The National.
LOL, Harry do you not see your buddies showing who the nationalist socialists are , it is limited to a certain sect who are prone to using the same wave as the Royals and who still live in the 17th century.
PS, none of them will be purchasing the National for sure , right wing trash only for those numpties.
Osborne's cleverness remains to be seen. A living wage has to be just that. If it turns out the IFS is correct and millions of families have less disposable income than was previously the case, then whoever is Labour leader (Corbyn excepted) will have something to build on.
According to the living Wage Foundation the amount needed outside London is £7.85 per hour. Well, I would like to see someone from the Foundation come down here to Sussex and try and live on that, let alone support a family.
Osborne's cleverness remains to be seen. A living wage has to be just that. If it turns out the IFS is correct and millions of families have less disposable income than was previously the case, then whoever is Labour leader (Corbyn excepted) will have something to build on.
According to the living Wage Foundation the amount needed outside London is £7.85 per hour. Well, I would like to see someone from the Foundation come down here to Sussex and try and live on that, let alone support a family.
That is a parallel to the argument about young people complaining that they couldn't afford to live in the same nice suburbs of London that their parents do. Are we saying that the state should pay, in extremis, for the roof over someone's head so they have somewhere to live and are not cast onto the street, or that it should pay for the roof over someone head amongst some of the most desirable real estate property in the country? What applies to the state applies to some extent to the state mandated wage, for the same reasons.
It is rather doubtful that Corbyn could pull together a shadow cabinet team such is his marginal role in the party. He'll have to resort to the Beast of Bolsover, Dianne Abbot and the like.
You know this all a legacy of the party not having the guts to defenestrate a joke of a leader- according to the Guardian's post polling feedback, previous Labour supporters laughed at the prospect of Ed becoming PM.
And Ed is the legacy of the party not dealing appropriately with the Gordon problem- knowing full well that Brown's temperament and personality were singularly unfit to be PM, the party still gave him the keys.
Whilst I don't disagree with that, it's worth remembering that the Guardian article on 'Labour's lost voters' was specifically limited to focus groups involving people who voted Labour in 2010 and Conservative in 2015.
Now, by definition, that is about as skewed a sample as you could hope to find. It's hardly surprising that, of that particular sample, "These voters are a hair’s breadth from becoming Conservatives". You'd have got a similar result after any election defeat if you studied a similar sample of voters. Whilst the results are interesting, they do require very careful interpretation and in particular are (by definition) not representative of all of Labour's target voters.
Looking at the actual catastrophe the Labour party is, it seems quite remarkable in hindsight that the membership even elected Tony Blair as leader against Margaret Beckett. This was the extraordinary event in itself considering the members comprise of clueless, lefty stick in the mud dullards.
Nobody has given David Cameron an ounce of credit, but the fact remains that from quite a weak position he has not just defeated his opponents, but utterly routed them. Yes, Scotland has helped him, and his opponents too, but I think his achievement is nevertheless underrated.
There's an amazing book in there somewhere for political journalists.
What's impressing me is George Osborne's deadly patience. In common with many others I was expecting him to raise the minimum wage before the election to shoot Labour's fox and I was surprised when he did not do so.
By keeping this in reserve for the post-election budget, he's ensured that the attention is on the commitment to the living wage rather than the reduction in tax credits, and at a time when Labour is in no position to respond sensibly. Under the guise of centrism, he is pushing Labour to the fringes of the debate while balancing the books primarily at the expense of the poor.
In a few days time, politics will shut down for the summer and the public will leave for their holidays with the general impression that the Conservatives are economically competent, open-minded to good ideas from other parts of the political spectrum and that Labour are all over the shop with no coherent position except to oppose what the public see as perfectly sensible restrictions on benefits.
Unless a strong Labour voice is heard today in response to George Osborne's cheeky challenge in the Guardian, Labour will be depending on events to get to a winning position in 2020. Of course, events do happen but Labour's chances of getting a coherent coalition-building ideological position capable of confronting the Conservatives head-on are rotting as we speak.
'Events' are what almost bring about a change of Government - indeed it is quite difficult to think of an example when that was not the case. Thatcher probably owed her 1979 win to the Winter of Discontent - the 1997 Labour victory owed so much to the ERM debacle and Tory sleaze - the 2010 result a consequence of the 2008 crash with a bit of Cleggmania at the end. A very good chance that the economy will have gone tits up again long before 2020 - already unemployment is going up! Osborne will lose his smirk in the fullness of time.
It is rather doubtful that Corbyn could pull together a shadow cabinet team such is his marginal role in the party. He'll have to resort to the Beast of Bolsover, Dianne Abbot and the like.
You know this all a legacy of the party not having the guts to defenestrate a joke of a leader- according to the Guardian's post polling feedback, previous Labour supporters laughed at the prospect of Ed becoming PM.
And Ed is the legacy of the party not dealing appropriately with the Gordon problem- knowing full well that Brown's temperament and personality were singularly unfit to be PM, the party still gave him the keys.
Whilst I don't disagree with that, it's worth remembering that the Guardian article on 'Labour's lost voters' was specifically limited to focus groups involving people who voted Labour in 2010 and Conservative in 2015.
Now, by definition, that is about as skewed a sample as you could hope to find. It's hardly surprising that, of that particular sample, "These voters are a hair’s breadth from becoming Conservatives". You'd have got a similar result after any election defeat if you studied a similar sample of voters. Whilst the results are interesting, they do require very careful interpretation and in particular are (by definition) not representative of all of Labour's target voters.
Labour's primary fight is with the Conservatives. Not the SNP or Liberal Democrats or Greens.
If Labour want to regain power they are going to need to take votes and seats directly off the Conservatives. Anything else is a distraction.
Whittingdale explained that for "conditional access" to work, non-subscribers would have to be excluded. Technology allows a service to cut off non-payers painlessly, rather than dragging them through the court system, but the minister thinks “the technology isn’t there yet” to make the jump from a household fee based (in practice) on possession of a device, to a conditional fee based on access.
Is Whittingdale right that we lack the technology? Yes, pretty much.
Osborne's cleverness remains to be seen. A living wage has to be just that. If it turns out the IFS is correct and millions of families have less disposable income than was previously the case, then whoever is Labour leader (Corbyn excepted) will have something to build on.
According to the living Wage Foundation the amount needed outside London is £7.85 per hour. Well, I would like to see someone from the Foundation come down here to Sussex and try and live on that, let alone support a family.
That is a parallel to the argument about young people complaining that they couldn't afford to live in the same nice suburbs of London that their parents do. Are we saying that the state should pay, in extremis, for the roof over someone's head so they have somewhere to live and are not cast onto the street, or that it should pay for the roof over someone head amongst some of the most desirable real estate property in the country? What applies to the state applies to some extent to the state mandated wage, for the same reasons.
Mr. Indigo, I don't think I wanted to say anything so deep. I merely wanted to point out that what people claim is a living wage isn't.
I might go a little further perhaps and point out that when it comes to the essentials in life (save a place to live*) then prices in London, where they want the living wage to be more than £9 per hour, are actually lower than in the Home Counties.
*Property prices are now so absurd that the idea that one could afford a family home on less than £17k p.a. outside London or £19k within the Metropolis is laughable.
One important thing for punters to note in judging the Labour CLP nominations...
They are NOT polling the complete local membership (unlike 2010 I believe where there was a formal process for nominations).
The vote is taken from those who show up to std CLP monthly meeting. As such you are sampling less than 10% of the membership and arguably a very unrepresentative 10%.
In my local CLP, in 2010 that would have meant the difference between a D. Milliband and D Abbot nomination.
It is rather doubtful that Corbyn could pull together a shadow cabinet team such is his marginal role in the party. He'll have to resort to the Beast of Bolsover, Dianne Abbot and the like.
You know this all a legacy of the party not having the guts to defenestrate a joke of a leader- according to the Guardian's post polling feedback, previous Labour supporters laughed at the prospect of Ed becoming PM.
And Ed is the legacy of the party not dealing appropriately with the Gordon problem- knowing full well that Brown's temperament and personality were singularly unfit to be PM, the party still gave him the keys.
Whilst I don't disagree with that, it's worth remembering that the Guardian article on 'Labour's lost voters' was specifically limited to focus groups involving people who voted Labour in 2010 and Conservative in 2015.
Now, by definition, that is about as skewed a sample as you could hope to find. It's hardly surprising that, of that particular sample, "These voters are a hair’s breadth from becoming Conservatives". You'd have got a similar result after any election defeat if you studied a similar sample of voters. Whilst the results are interesting, they do require very careful interpretation and in particular are (by definition) not representative of all of Labour's target voters.
Labour's primary fight is with the Conservatives. Not the SNP or Liberal Democrats or Greens.
If Labour want to regain power they are going to need to take votes and seats directly off the Conservatives. Anything else is a distraction.
To deny the Tories office,however, Labour probably only needs them to drop below 310 - in a 650 House of Commons . This would be achieved by 15 -20 Tory losses to Labour with perhaps a further 3 -5 Tory losses to the LibDems.
The freedom of information act is one of the few good things Labour did in office. As on encryption, the Conservatives really are not doing their liberal credentials any favours at all.
The Conservatives do not have any Liberal credentials, Mr JEO. They believe in control and conformity.
.... Mr Clipp is one of our TOREES=EVIL believers, once you accept that, believing any fantasy is possible. I don't believe this particular bit of idiocy has any malice in it, its just usual incompetence combined with the Politician's Fallacy ("We must do something, this is something, we must do this").
Wrong as usual, Mr Indigo. Many Conservatives are very nice people and well-intentioned. Some of my best friends are Conservatives! Unfortunately, they allow themselves to be manipulated by those who are not.
It is rather doubtful that Corbyn could pull together a shadow cabinet team such is his marginal role in the party. He'll have to resort to the Beast of Bolsover, Dianne Abbot and the like.
You know this all a legacy of the party not having the guts to defenestrate a joke of a leader- according to the Guardian's post polling feedback, previous Labour supporters laughed at the prospect of Ed becoming PM.
And Ed is the legacy of the party not dealing appropriately with the Gordon problem- knowing full well that Brown's temperament and personality were singularly unfit to be PM, the party still gave him the keys.
Whilst I don't disagree with that, it's worth remembering that the Guardian article on 'Labour's lost voters' was specifically limited to focus groups involving people who voted Labour in 2010 and Conservative in 2015.
Now, by definition, that is about as skewed a sample as you could hope to find. It's hardly surprising that, of that particular sample, "These voters are a hair’s breadth from becoming Conservatives". You'd have got a similar result after any election defeat if you studied a similar sample of voters. Whilst the results are interesting, they do require very careful interpretation and in particular are (by definition) not representative of all of Labour's target voters.
Labour's primary fight is with the Conservatives. Not the SNP or Liberal Democrats or Greens.
If Labour want to regain power they are going to need to take votes and seats directly off the Conservatives. Anything else is a distraction.
John Rentool made just that point on the Daily Politics a few minutes ago. There's three million people that voted Labour in 1997 and 2001, Conservative in 2010 and 2015. They will in all likelihood also decide the 2020 election and Labour's new leader will need to appeal to them.
Labour's primary fight is with the Conservatives. Not the SNP or Liberal Democrats or Greens.
If Labour want to regain power they are going to need to take votes and seats directly off the Conservatives. Anything else is a distraction.
Seats certainly, and to do that votes as well, but that's not the whole story. There are other sources of votes in key marginals, which might be easier for Labour to grab (LibDems, Greens, disillusioned ex-voters).
Nor is it even obvious that those particular focus groups are representative of the most fertile territory even amongst 2015 Tory voters - they might have been voters making the classic drift towards the right as the get older, and therefore lost to Labour for good. There might be other 2015 Conservative voters who might be at least as good and perhaps better targets for Labour - perhaps some of whom voted LibDem in 2010, or didn't vote at all, or who for some specific reasons might now regret voting Conservative.
In other words, it would be a mistake to focus too much on the very narrow segment of 2010-2015 Lab->Con switchers. The picture is more complex than that.
Nobody has given David Cameron an ounce of credit, but the fact remains that from quite a weak position he has not just defeated his opponents, but utterly routed them. Yes, Scotland has helped him, and his opponents too, but I think his achievement is nevertheless underrated.
There's an amazing book in there somewhere for political journalists.
What's impressing me is George Osborne's deadly patience. In common with many others I was expecting him to raise the minimum wage before the election to shoot Labour's fox and I was surprised when he did not do so.
By keeping this in reserve for the post-election budget, he's ensured that the attention is on the commitment to the living wage rather than the reduction in tax credits, and at a time when Labour is in no position to respond sensibly. Under the guise of centrism, he is pushing Labour to the fringes of the debate while balancing the books primarily at the expense of the poor.
In a few days time, politics will shut down for the summer and the public will leave for their holidays with the general impression that the Conservatives are economically competent, open-minded to good ideas from other parts of the political spectrum and that Labour are all over the shop with no coherent position except to oppose what the public see as perfectly sensible restrictions on benefits.
Unless a strong Labour voice is heard today in response to George Osborne's cheeky challenge in the Guardian, Labour will be depending on events to get to a winning position in 2020. Of course, events do happen but Labour's chances of getting a coherent coalition-building ideological position capable of confronting the Conservatives head-on are rotting as we speak.
'Events' are what almost bring about a change of Government - indeed it is quite difficult to think of an example when that was not the case. Thatcher probably owed her 1979 win to the Winter of Discontent - the 1997 Labour victory owed so much to the ERM debacle and Tory sleaze - the 2010 result a consequence of the 2008 crash with a bit of Cleggmania at the end. A very good chance that the economy will have gone tits up again long before 2020 - already unemployment is going up! Osborne will lose his smirk in the fullness of time.
Unemployment may be on the rise, but equally the figures could be skewed by the uncertainty that the GE caused.
Looking at the actual catastrophe the Labour party is, it seems quite remarkable in hindsight that the membership even elected Tony Blair as leader against Margaret Beckett. This was the extraordinary event in itself considering the members comprise of clueless, lefty stick in the mud dullards.
Dullards or not, it took them 15 years of opposition before they were ready to do it.
I guess this is why British politics has a pendulum effect.
Looking at the actual catastrophe the Labour party is, it seems quite remarkable in hindsight that the membership even elected Tony Blair as leader against Margaret Beckett. This was the extraordinary event in itself considering the members comprise of clueless, lefty stick in the mud dullards.
Labour members are a pretty pragmatic lot; they want to win. Blair won after Militant had been chucked out. And if it had been down to members EdM would not have been leader.
Given he has such a small base within the parliamentary party, it is interesting to consider how long Corbyn would survive as leader if he did win.
I'd imagine an IDS type tenure. Labour wouldn't be stupid enough to let him run all the way to 2020, would they?
It is rather doubtful that Corbyn could pull together a shadow cabinet team such is his marginal role in the party. He'll have to resort to the Beast of Bolsover, Dianne Abbot and the like.
You know this all a legacy of the party not having the guts to defenestrate a joke of a leader- according to the Guardian's post polling feedback, previous Labour supporters laughed at the prospect of Ed becoming PM.
And Ed is the legacy of the party not dealing appropriately with the Gordon problem- knowing full well that Brown's temperament and personality were singularly unfit to be PM, the party still gave him the keys.
Who would get your vote, Tyson?
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become. A four month tortuous leadership campaign. What ridiculous kind of bureaucracy could have invented such a thing? The election campaign was pathetic. A retail offer? I mean what does that mean? And then there was Ed.
The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority. It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. And that is just a starter for ten
'Events' are what almost bring about a change of Government - indeed it is quite difficult to think of an example when that was not the case. Thatcher probably owed her 1979 win to the Winter of Discontent - the 1997 Labour victory owed so much to the ERM debacle and Tory sleaze - the 2010 result a consequence of the 2008 crash with a bit of Cleggmania at the end. A very good chance that the economy will have gone tits up again long before 2020 - already unemployment is going up! Osborne will lose his smirk in the fullness of time.
I'd suggest that events are (possibly) a necessary condition of a change of government, but they are definitely not sufficient.
Labour members are a pretty pragmatic lot; they want to win. Blair won after Militant had been chucked out. And if it had been down to members EdM would not have been leader.
My understanding is that the membership has moved considerably to the left between 2010 and now. New members, and the new £3 associates, are said to be more urban, younger and more left-wing than older-established members. (See the Andrew Rawnsley article in the Guardian, which makes the same point).
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become... The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority.
Great strategy there, vote Corbyn, that'll scare these idiot lefties out of their comfort zone.
Labour's primary fight is with the Conservatives. Not the SNP or Liberal Democrats or Greens.
If Labour want to regain power they are going to need to take votes and seats directly off the Conservatives. Anything else is a distraction.
Seats certainly, and to do that votes as well, but that's not the whole story. There are other sources of votes in key marginals, which might be easier for Labour to grab (LibDems, Greens, disillusioned ex-voters).
Nor is it even obvious that those particular focus groups are representative of the most fertile territory even amongst 2015 Tory voters - they might have been voters making the classic drift towards the right as the get older, and therefore lost to Labour for good. There might be other 2015 Conservative voters who might be at least as good and perhaps better targets for Labour - perhaps some of whom voted LibDem in 2010, or didn't vote at all, or who for some specific reasons might now regret voting Conservative.
In other words, it would be a mistake to focus too much on the very narrow segment of 2010-2015 Lab->Con switchers. The picture is more complex than that.
Very good point Richard, and your post in response to my comments about the internal, post election Lab polling was very good too.
PbCom is at it's best when posters are in a thoughtful rather than partisan mood
... It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. ...
With respect Mr. Tyson that is a statement of the bleedin' obvious. No party and no politician, outside some very exceptional events (e.g Churchill in the Spring of 1940) is ever going to get achieve power saying things are going to get worse under their administration.
Looking at the actual catastrophe the Labour party is, it seems quite remarkable in hindsight that the membership even elected Tony Blair as leader against Margaret Beckett. This was the extraordinary event in itself considering the members comprise of clueless, lefty stick in the mud dullards.
Tony Blair operated in a Goldilocks period for Labour reform. I can't remember the main Union boss's name (I can see his face) from the mid 90s but he was a moderate, plus nearly all the 'big beasts' in the Labour party were pro-reform. The conditions for Blair's shift to the centre were perfect.
It can't be underestimated how much a strong economy dilutes left-wing chuntering. The economy around 1994/1995 was powering on. I left school in 1995 and literally walked into a decent job. There were jobs everywhere.
Blair rode the crest of that economic wave after the election in 1997, and the economic climate, plus his enormous majority, kept a lot of extremist mouths shut. Blair and Brown had the scope to buy any dissenting voices off with pay rises anyway.
It's ironic that by 2010, after 13 years of Labour governance, the economy was in the doldrums and the Tories were re-elected. All the financial steps taken since have been met with utter derision and open hatred from many of the left, especially McCluskey's lot, as if the Tories are to blame for it all. It's doubly ironic that the siren voices imploring Labour to move to the left rise exponentially the more the Tories move to the centre. It's like Blairism in reverse.
I'm not saying that everything the Tories have done in government is absolutely right and that all Labour did was absolutely wrong but it does appear that the best circumstances under which Labour will be able to elect a moderate, mainstream MP with any enthusiasm and full support again, will only arrive after years of difficult decisions to put the economy into a benign state.
And I can't see how that state would arise through hard left-wing thinking.
Given he has such a small base within the parliamentary party, it is interesting to consider how long Corbyn would survive as leader if he did win.
I'd imagine an IDS type tenure. Labour wouldn't be stupid enough to let him run all the way to 2020, would they?
It is rather doubtful that Corbyn could pull together a shadow cabinet team such is his marginal role in the party. He'll have to resort to the Beast of Bolsover, Dianne Abbot and the like.
snip
Who would get your vote, Tyson?
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become. A four month tortuous leadership campaign. What ridiculous kind of bureaucracy could have invented such a thing? The election campaign was pathetic. A retail offer? I mean what does that mean? And then there was Ed.
The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority. It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. And that is just a starter for ten
It is rather doubtful that Corbyn could pull together a shadow cabinet team such is his marginal role in the party. He'll have to resort to the Beast of Bolsover, Dianne Abbot and the like.
You know this all a legacy of the party not having the guts to defenestrate a joke of a leader- according to the Guardian's post polling feedback, previous Labour supporters laughed at the prospect of Ed becoming PM.
And Ed is the legacy of the party not dealing appropriately with the Gordon problem- knowing full well that Brown's temperament and personality were singularly unfit to be PM, the party still gave him the keys.
Whilst I don't disagree with that, it's worth remembering that the Guardian article on 'Labour's lost voters' was specifically limited to focus groups involving people who voted Labour in 2010 and Conservative in 2015.
Now, by definition, that is about as skewed a sample as you could hope to find. It's hardly surprising that, of that particular sample, "These voters are a hair’s breadth from becoming Conservatives". You'd have got a similar result after any election defeat if you studied a similar sample of voters. Whilst the results are interesting, they do require very careful interpretation and in particular are (by definition) not representative of all of Labour's target voters.
Labour's primary fight is with the Conservatives. Not the SNP or Liberal Democrats or Greens.
If Labour want to regain power they are going to need to take votes and seats directly off the Conservatives. Anything else is a distraction.
John Rentool made just that point on the Daily Politics a few minutes ago. There's three million people that voted Labour in 1997 and 2001, Conservative in 2010 and 2015. They will in all likelihood also decide the 2020 election and Labour's new leader will need to appeal to them.
I wonder if he made the point that more people voted for Milliband's party in 2015 than for Blair's Labour party in 2005.I know that the turnout was higher - and the electorate bigger - in 2015 but people like Rentoul need to be reminded of that.
I should also add that a (sort of) credible excuse existed for Labour to not reform in the 2010-2015 parliament; the existence of a large Liberal Democrat vote to squeeze. The betrayed 'red liberals' that were incensed at the coalition and formed the basis of the 35% strategy.
That excuse has now gone. It should be abundantly clear to Labour that in England lies the route back to power, and in England 55% of the electorate voted for centre-right parties, with the Tories alone having a clear 10% lead over them.
Given that the progressive majority figleaf is no longer the case, and the Liberals have gone with Labour's vote barely increasing a jot, it is really extraordinary that a significant chunk of the party considers the solution to be to move even further to the Left.
... It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. ...
With respect Mr. Tyson that is a statement of the bleedin' obvious. No party and no politician, outside some very exceptional events (e.g Churchill in the Spring of 1940) is ever going to get achieve power saying things are going to get worse under their administration.
Hurst- but comrade, there is profound difference between saying you'll do better, and actually creating a feeling of confidence which Ed was singularly incapable of doing.
Actually, I think the Tories fought a very shrewd 2015 campaign on fear- of Ed, and the SNP; hardly an optimistic tone. The message I heard was yes, we're going to get more austerity and cuts, but at least we're not getting Ed or the Scots
'Events' are what almost bring about a change of Government - indeed it is quite difficult to think of an example when that was not the case. Thatcher probably owed her 1979 win to the Winter of Discontent - the 1997 Labour victory owed so much to the ERM debacle and Tory sleaze - the 2010 result a consequence of the 2008 crash with a bit of Cleggmania at the end. A very good chance that the economy will have gone tits up again long before 2020 - already unemployment is going up! Osborne will lose his smirk in the fullness of time.
I'd suggest that events are (possibly) a necessary condition of a change of government, but they are definitely not sufficient.
I don't think there was any way Labour could have won in 1979 after the Winter of Discontent. Similarly Michael Foot would probably become PM in 1997.
Whittingdale explained that for "conditional access" to work, non-subscribers would have to be excluded. Technology allows a service to cut off non-payers painlessly, rather than dragging them through the court system, but the minister thinks “the technology isn’t there yet” to make the jump from a household fee based (in practice) on possession of a device, to a conditional fee based on access.
Is Whittingdale right that we lack the technology? Yes, pretty much.
How is the technology not there yet? It has been done through subscription services all over the world
Whittingdale explained that for "conditional access" to work, non-subscribers would have to be excluded. Technology allows a service to cut off non-payers painlessly, rather than dragging them through the court system, but the minister thinks “the technology isn’t there yet” to make the jump from a household fee based (in practice) on possession of a device, to a conditional fee based on access.
Is Whittingdale right that we lack the technology? Yes, pretty much.
How is the technology not there yet? It has been done through subscription services all over the world
Labour members are a pretty pragmatic lot; they want to win. Blair won after Militant had been chucked out. And if it had been down to members EdM would not have been leader.
My understanding is that the membership has moved considerably to the left between 2010 and now. New members, and the new £3 associates, are said to be more urban, younger and more left-wing than older-established members. (See the Andrew Rawnsley article in the Guardian, which makes the same point).
That may be the case, I don't know. I decided not to rejoin Labour in May because I wanted to see how the leadership election turned out. There'd be no point in getting involved in a party that decided to react to the defeat by moving further left.
Given he has such a small base within the parliamentary party, it is interesting to consider how long Corbyn would survive as leader if he did win.
I'd imagine an IDS type tenure. Labour wouldn't be stupid enough to let him run all the way to 2020, would they?
It is rather doubtful that Corbyn could pull together a shadow cabinet team such is his marginal role in the party. He'll have to resort to the Beast of Bolsover, Dianne Abbot and the like.
You know this all a legacy of the party not having the guts to defenestrate a joke of a leader- according to the Guardian's post polling feedback, previous Labour supporters laughed at the prospect of Ed becoming PM.
And Ed is the legacy of the party not dealing appropriately with the Gordon problem- knowing full well that Brown's temperament and personality were singularly unfit to be PM, the party still gave him the keys.
Who would get your vote, Tyson?
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become. A four month tortuous leadership campaign. What ridiculous kind of bureaucracy could have invented such a thing? The election campaign was pathetic. A retail offer? I mean what does that mean? And then there was Ed.
The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority. It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. And that is just a starter for ten
You want the Labour party I do. I am not sure how a vote for Corbyn will deliver that, though.
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become... The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority.
Great strategy there, vote Corbyn, that'll scare these idiot lefties out of their comfort zone.
I think there is a certain logic in tysons position. Corbyn will struggle to work with much of the current shadow cabinet, and even more importantly many of them would not want to. There would be a frontnench purge, and some new faces promoted. I think Corbyn would stick to his pledge of more frequent leadership elections and would be a short term leader.
Labour members are a pretty pragmatic lot; they want to win. Blair won after Militant had been chucked out. And if it had been down to members EdM would not have been leader.
My understanding is that the membership has moved considerably to the left between 2010 and now. New members, and the new £3 associates, are said to be more urban, younger and more left-wing than older-established members. (See the Andrew Rawnsley article in the Guardian, which makes the same point).
The good thing about the £3 associate membership is that it has allowed people like me (Labour realists who left the party after the election of EdM) to have a say. It's impossible to poll the people who are going to vote in this election, and as Jonathan points out below the number of CLP nominations a candidate gets tells us nothing about the likely outcome.
I don't know, of course. But if asked to predict, I suspect what will happen is that Corbyn will do worse than predicted, Kendall better - and the eventual winner will be Cooper.
Looking at the actual catastrophe the Labour party is, it seems quite remarkable in hindsight that the membership even elected Tony Blair as leader against Margaret Beckett. This was the extraordinary event in itself considering the members comprise of clueless, lefty stick in the mud dullards.
Tony Blair operated in a Goldilocks period for Labour reform. I can't remember the main Union boss's name (I can see his face) from the mid 90s but he was a moderate, plus nearly all the 'big beasts' in the Labour party were pro-reform. The conditions for Blair's shift to the centre were perfect.
It can't be underestimated how much a strong economy dilutes left-wing chuntering. The economy around 1994/1995 was powering on. I left school in 1995 and literally walked into a decent job. There were jobs everywhere.
Blair rode the crest of that economic wave after the election in 1997, and the economic climate, plus his enormous majority, kept a lot of extremist mouths shut. Blair and Brown had the scope to buy any dissenting voices off with pay rises anyway.
It's ironic that by 2010, after 13 years of Labour governance, the economy was in the doldrums and the Tories were re-elected. All the financial steps taken since have been met with utter derision and open hatred from many of the left, especially McCluskey's lot, as if the Tories are to blame for it all. It's doubly ironic that the siren voices imploring Labour to move to the left rise exponentially the more the Tories move to the centre. It's like Blairism in reverse.
I'm not saying that everything the Tories have done in government is absolutely right and that all Labour did was absolutely wrong but it does appear that the best circumstances under which Labour will be able to elect a moderate, mainstream MP with any enthusiasm and full support again, will only arrive after years of difficult decisions to put the economy into a benign state.
And I can't see how that state would arise through hard left-wing thinking.
I actually believe that Blair and NewLabour misread the mood of the electorate in 1997. People were ready to see much more of Thatcher's changes rolled back than he was promising or indeed inclined to implement. Therein lies much of the explanation for the collapse in both turnout and Labour's vote in 2001.The second landslide owed a lot to the lack of an alternative but there was already -pre-Iraq - considerable disillusionment amongst core Labour voters and quite a few who had switched to Labour in 1997 expecting major change. They wanted a lot more than watered down Thatcherism.
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become... The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority.
Great strategy there, vote Corbyn, that'll scare these idiot lefties out of their comfort zone.
What's the alternative- we elect an insipid Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper who will in all likelihood stagger on for 5 years to another defeat.
The Labour party needs an electric shock to the system. Look at Germany- post Schroder the SDP is just an ineffectual lump. The left in France are finished for a generation.
Faced with the electoral annihilation that a a Corbyn victory would provide, the Labour party may get it's head around how to win an election. I know it's a desperate idea, but desperate times require desperate measures.
Running out of voters money seems to be a common factor.
Whether it's the Tories frightening the horses over the ERM and losing trust, or Gordon et al splurging it
IMO, the Winter of Discontent was about the unions taking control of the country in the minds of many at the time, but Labour had already ceded that ground over the rest of the 70s re the economy. The WoDC was just the final nail.
I tend to feel that Labour voters are inclined to want to hand out money to fix things as they think that's *nice* "give them fish", whilst the Tories are more *tough love* "teach them to fish". It's a balance that tips over too far when things run too long one way.
That's why Labour HMGs and almost every Left wing gov has run out of other people's money. And Tories have been a bit too tough for the electorate at large.
'Events' are what almost bring about a change of Government - indeed it is quite difficult to think of an example when that was not the case. Thatcher probably owed her 1979 win to the Winter of Discontent - the 1997 Labour victory owed so much to the ERM debacle and Tory sleaze - the 2010 result a consequence of the 2008 crash with a bit of Cleggmania at the end. A very good chance that the economy will have gone tits up again long before 2020 - already unemployment is going up! Osborne will lose his smirk in the fullness of time.
I'd suggest that events are (possibly) a necessary condition of a change of government, but they are definitely not sufficient.
This is depressing news, but no great surprise. Patents are not a measure of innovation or inventiveness, but they are a decent measure of willingness to invest in innovation and invention, and a strong indicator of willingness to spend money on protecting the fruits of innovation and invention:
Either we are not innovating or inventing enough, or we can't be bothered to protect what we do create. Neither is good.
Our short-termist management culture has been a problem down the decades and continues to be so. You can't blame unions, governments or anyone else, except the people in charge of the businesses who do not spend the money.
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become... The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority.
Great strategy there, vote Corbyn, that'll scare these idiot lefties out of their comfort zone.
I think there is a certain logic in tysons position. Corbyn will struggle to work with much of the current shadow cabinet, and even more importantly many of them would not want to. There would be a frontnench purge, and some new faces promoted. I think Corbyn would stick to his pledge of more frequent leadership elections and would be a short term leader.
Of course it could all go horribly wrong!
The polling would probably be catastrophic too, and an actual demonstration of Corbyn's voter-repelling qualities in a by-election might be enough to force his departure.
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become. A four month tortuous leadership campaign. What ridiculous kind of bureaucracy could have invented such a thing? The election campaign was pathetic. A retail offer? I mean what does that mean? And then there was Ed.
The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority. It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. And that is just a starter for ten
You want the Labour party I do. I am not sure how a vote for Corbyn will deliver that, though.
I'll re-post the following for you SO
What's the alternative- we elect an insipid Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper who will in all likelihood stagger on for 5 years to another defeat.
The Labour party needs an electric shock to the system. Look at Germany- post Schroder the SDP is just an ineffectual lump. The left in France are finished for a generation.
Faced with the electoral annihilation that a a Corbyn victory would provide, the Labour party may get it's head around how to win an election. I know it's a desperate idea, but desperate times require desperate measures.
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become... The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority.
Great strategy there, vote Corbyn, that'll scare these idiot lefties out of their comfort zone.
What's the alternative- we elect an insipid Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper who will in all likelihood stagger on for 5 years to another defeat.
The Labour party needs an electric shock to the system. Look at Germany- post Schroder the SDP is just an ineffectual lump. The left in France are finished for a generation.
Faced with the electoral annihilation that a a Corbyn victory would provide, the Labour party may get it's head around how to win an election. I know it's a desperate idea, but desperate times require desperate measures.
So if everything goes to plan you end up with a new leadership election which you've just taught any future candidates can only be won from the left.
Call me naive about the complex game of five-dimensional chess that's apparently involved in voting for Labour leadership candidate, but since it sounds like you basically agree with Liz Kendall, I reckon the optimal strategy for you here might be to vote for Liz Kendall.
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become... The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority.
Great strategy there, vote Corbyn, that'll scare these idiot lefties out of their comfort zone.
I think there is a certain logic in tysons position. Corbyn will struggle to work with much of the current shadow cabinet, and even more importantly many of them would not want to. There would be a frontnench purge, and some new faces promoted. I think Corbyn would stick to his pledge of more frequent leadership elections and would be a short term leader.
Of course it could all go horribly wrong!
If Labour decide to change leader mid term, they would be better to do their arguing in private this time, let the MPs put forward two candidates for the membership to decide.
If they spend another four months ignoring the government and only talking to each other, they will lose regardless of who is in charge.
Zac Goldsmith is backed by nearly seven out of 10 Tory supporters who named a candidate to be the party’s challenger for London Mayor in a poll.
The survey of Londoners by YouGov showed the Richmond Park MP storming ahead, with more support than for five other candidates put together.
He was favoured by 69 per cent of people in London who voted Conservative at the general election, after “don’t knows” and “none of the above” were excluded.
Fifteen per cent named former England footballer Sol Campbell, six per cent London Assembly member Andrew Boff, five per cent Syed Kamall, MEP for London, four per cent deputy mayor for policing Stephen Greenhalgh, while one per cent opted for entrepreneur Ivan Massow.
Among the wider London public, millionaire Mr Goldsmith was also far ahead, on 63 per cent, with Mr Campbell in second place on 17 per cent.
An excellent point.Casino_Royale said:I should also add that a (sort of) credible excuse existed for Labour to not reform in the 2010-2015 parliament; the existence of a large Liberal Democrat vote to squeeze. The betrayed 'red liberals' that were incensed at the coalition and formed the basis of the 35% strategy.
That excuse has now gone. It should be abundantly clear to Labour that in England lies the route back to power, and in England 55% of the electorate voted for centre-right parties, with the Tories alone having a clear 10% lead over them.
Given that the progressive majority figleaf is no longer the case, and the Liberals have gone with Labour's vote barely increasing a jot, it is really extraordinary that a significant chunk of the party considers the solution to be to move even further to the Left.
It is rather doubtful that Corbyn could pull together a shadow cabinet team such is his marginal role in the party. He'll have to resort to the Beast of Bolsover, Dianne Abbot and the like.
You know this all a legacy of the party not having the guts to defenestrate a joke of a leader- according to the Guardian's post polling feedback, previous Labour supporters laughed at the prospect of Ed becoming PM.
And Ed is the legacy of the party not dealing appropriately with the Gordon problem- knowing full well that Brown's temperament and personality were singularly unfit to be PM, the party still gave him the keys.
Whilst I don't disagree with that, it's worth remembering that the Guardian article on 'Labour's lost voters' was specifically limited to focus groups involving people who voted Labour in 2010 and Conservative in 2015.
Now, by definition, that is about as skewed a sample as you could hope to find. It's hardly surprising that, of that particular sample, "These voters are a hair’s breadth from becoming Conservatives". You'd have got a similar result after any election defeat if you studied a similar sample of voters. Whilst the results are interesting, they do require very careful interpretation and in particular are (by definition) not representative of all of Labour's target voters.
Labour's primary fight is with the Conservatives. Not the SNP or Liberal Democrats or Greens.
If Labour want to regain power they are going to need to take votes and seats directly off the Conservatives. Anything else is a distraction.
To deny the Tories office,however, Labour probably only needs them to drop below 310 - in a 650 House of Commons . This would be achieved by 15 -20 Tory losses to Labour with perhaps a further 3 -5 Tory losses to the LibDems.
310 and the Tories will be in office. They can cobble up to 320 with the NI unionists, which is enough.
The Tories need to be below 295 seats for Labour to knock them off their perch.
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become... The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority.
Great strategy there, vote Corbyn, that'll scare these idiot lefties out of their comfort zone.
What's the alternative- we elect an insipid Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper who will in all likelihood stagger on for 5 years to another defeat.
The Labour party needs an electric shock to the system. Look at Germany- post Schroder the SDP is just an ineffectual lump. The left in France are finished for a generation.
Faced with the electoral annihilation that a a Corbyn victory would provide, the Labour party may get it's head around how to win an election. I know it's a desperate idea, but desperate times require desperate measures.
So if everything goes to plan you end up with a new leadership election which you've just taught any future candidates can only be won from the left.
Call me naive about the complex game of five-dimensional chess that's apparently involved in voting for Labour leadership candidate, but since it sounds like you basically agree with Liz Kendall, I reckon the optimal strategy for you here might be to vote for Liz Kendall.
Liz Kendell, bless her, says the right things, but is unfortunately is a lighweight. I have had feedback from different friends at hustings events who said she is utterly hopeless, and completely out of her depth. This has only confirmed what I have seen of her myself. She would be eaten up, spat out and royally spanked by the ruthless Tory election campaign, backed up by their press.
Nobody has given David Cameron an ounce of credit, but the fact remains that from quite a weak position he has not just defeated his opponents, but utterly routed them. Yes, Scotland has helped him, and his opponents too, but I think his achievement is nevertheless underrated.
There's an amazing book in there somewhere for political journalists.
What's impressing me is George Osborne's deadly patience. In common with many others I was expecting him to raise the minimum wage before the election to shoot Labour's fox and I was surprised when he did not do so.
By keeping this in reserve for the post-election budget, he's ensured that the attention is on the commitment to the living wage rather than the reduction in tax credits, and at a time when Labour is in no position to respond sensibly. Under the guise of centrism, he is pushing Labour to the fringes of the debate while balancing the books primarily at the expense of the poor.
In a few days time, politics will shut down for the summer and the public will leave for their holidays with the general impression that the Conservatives are economically competent, open-minded to good ideas from other parts of the political spectrum and that Labour are all over the shop with no coherent position except to oppose what the public see as perfectly sensible restrictions on benefits.
Unless a strong Labour voice is heard today in response to George Osborne's cheeky challenge in the Guardian, Labour will be depending on events to get to a winning position in 2020. Of course, events do happen but Labour's chances of getting a coherent coalition-building ideological position capable of confronting the Conservatives head-on are rotting as we speak.
'Events' are what almost bring about a change of Government - indeed it is quite difficult to think of an example when that was not the case. Thatcher probably owed her 1979 win to the Winter of Discontent - the 1997 Labour victory owed so much to the ERM debacle and Tory sleaze - the 2010 result a consequence of the 2008 crash with a bit of Cleggmania at the end. A very good chance that the economy will have gone tits up again long before 2020 - already unemployment is going up! Osborne will lose his smirk in the fullness of time.
You've peddled this and similar lines almost daily for weeks now. I suspect you're trying to convince yourself more than anything else. It's about as convincing as the butterfly effect.
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become... The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority.
Great strategy there, vote Corbyn, that'll scare these idiot lefties out of their comfort zone.
What's the alternative- we elect an insipid Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper who will in all likelihood stagger on for 5 years to another defeat.
The Labour party needs an electric shock to the system. Look at Germany- post Schroder the SDP is just an ineffectual lump. The left in France are finished for a generation.
Faced with the electoral annihilation that a a Corbyn victory would provide, the Labour party may get it's head around how to win an election. I know it's a desperate idea, but desperate times require desperate measures.
So if everything goes to plan you end up with a new leadership election which you've just taught any future candidates can only be won from the left.
Call me naive about the complex game of five-dimensional chess that's apparently involved in voting for Labour leadership candidate, but since it sounds like you basically agree with Liz Kendall, I reckon the optimal strategy for you here might be to vote for Liz Kendall.
Yes, for some reason I can't quite fathom a lot of otherwise sensible people who would appear to be her natural supporters seem to be turned off by her.
Is it because she doesn't have kids? Or to do with her weight?
Labour's primary fight is with the Conservatives. Not the SNP or Liberal Democrats or Greens.
If Labour want to regain power they are going to need to take votes and seats directly off the Conservatives. Anything else is a distraction.
Seats certainly, and to do that votes as well, but that's not the whole story. There are other sources of votes in key marginals, which might be easier for Labour to grab (LibDems, Greens, disillusioned ex-voters).
Nor is it even obvious that those particular focus groups are representative of the most fertile territory even amongst 2015 Tory voters - they might have been voters making the classic drift towards the right as the get older, and therefore lost to Labour for good. There might be other 2015 Conservative voters who might be at least as good and perhaps better targets for Labour - perhaps some of whom voted LibDem in 2010, or didn't vote at all, or who for some specific reasons might now regret voting Conservative.
In other words, it would be a mistake to focus too much on the very narrow segment of 2010-2015 Lab->Con switchers. The picture is more complex than that.
They should focus on the 2005-2015 Lab-Con switchers in the top 100 key marginals. Not just post 2010.
Any strategy that leads to Labour looking like a credible alternative government will attract votes from across the spectrum, including Green and Lib Dem voters as well, if they have a leader that looks like a PM and they can talk normal and look safe on the economy.
To do that, they need to displace the narrative of Conservative competence, leadership and fiscal retictude. That means targetting the Conservatives directly.
Running out of voters money seems to be a common factor.
Whether it's the Tories frightening the horses over the ERM and losing trust, or Gordon et al splurging it
IMO, the Winter of Discontent was about the unions taking control of the country in the minds of many at the time, but Labour had already ceded that ground over the rest of the 70s re the economy. The WoDC was just the final nail.
I tend to feel that Labour voters are inclined to want to hand out money to fix things as they think that's *nice* "give them fish", whilst the Tories are more *tough love* "teach them to fish". It's a balance that tips over too far when things run too long one way.
That's why Labour HMGs and almost every Left wing gov has run out of other people's money. And Tories have been a bit too tough for the electorate at large.
'Events' are what almost bring about a change of Government - indeed it is quite difficult to think of an example when that was not the case. Thatcher probably owed her 1979 win to the Winter of Discontent - the 1997 Labour victory owed so much to the ERM debacle and Tory sleaze - the 2010 result a consequence of the 2008 crash with a bit of Cleggmania at the end. A very good chance that the economy will have gone tits up again long before 2020 - already unemployment is going up! Osborne will lose his smirk in the fullness of time.
I'd suggest that events are (possibly) a necessary condition of a change of government, but they are definitely not sufficient.
The 1964- 1970 Labour Government handed over a Budget Surplus -and indeed a sizeable Balance of Payments surplus - to its Tory successor!
''it is really extraordinary that a significant chunk of the party considers the solution to be to move even further to the Left.''
Nevertheless, the British public remain very much wedded to many labour ideas, such as protection of the most vulnerable, a fair deal for employees over employers, universal free health care, decent housing for all, dignity in old age etc. etc. etc.
Given he has such a small base within the parliamentary party, it is interesting to consider how long Corbyn would survive as leader if he did win.
I'd imagine an IDS type tenure. Labour wouldn't be stupid enough to let him run all the way to 2020, would they?
It is rather doubtful that Corbyn could pull together a shadow cabinet team such is his marginal role in the party. He'll have to resort to the Beast of Bolsover, Dianne Abbot and the like.
You know this all a legacy of the party not having the guts to defenestrate a joke of a leader- according to the Guardian's post polling feedback, previous Labour supporters laughed at the prospect of Ed becoming PM.
And Ed is the legacy of the party not dealing appropriately with the Gordon problem- knowing full well that Brown's temperament and personality were singularly unfit to be PM, the party still gave him the keys.
Who would get your vote, Tyson?
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become. A four month tortuous leadership campaign. What ridiculous kind of bureaucracy could have invented such a thing? The election campaign was pathetic. A retail offer? I mean what does that mean? And then there was Ed.
The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority. It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. And that is just a starter for ten
I agree with your analysis Tyson but it does seem a little like you're cutting off your nose to spite your face.
... It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. ...
With respect Mr. Tyson that is a statement of the bleedin' obvious. No party and no politician, outside some very exceptional events (e.g Churchill in the Spring of 1940) is ever going to get achieve power saying things are going to get worse under their administration.
Hurst- but comrade, there is profound difference between saying you'll do better, and actually creating a feeling of confidence which Ed was singularly incapable of doing.
Actually, I think the Tories fought a very shrewd 2015 campaign on fear- of Ed, and the SNP; hardly an optimistic tone. The message I heard was yes, we're going to get more austerity and cuts, but at least we're not getting Ed or the Scots
What I heard was that the poor and middle income would get more austerity , those on benefits would be beggared and our Tory chums will continue to cash in big style while we can.
Nobody has given David Cameron an ounce of credit, but the fact remains that from quite a weak position he has not just defeated his opponents, but utterly routed them. Yes, Scotland has helped him, and his opponents too, but I think his achievement is nevertheless underrated.
There's an amazing book in there somewhere for political journalists.
What's impressing me is George Osborne's deadly patience. In common with many others I was expecting him to raise the minimum wage before the election to shoot Labour's fox and I was surprised when he did not do so.
By keeping this in reserve for the post-election budget, he's ensured that the attention is on the commitment to the living wage rather than the reduction in tax credits, and at a time when Labour is in no position to respond sensibly. Under the guise of centrism, he is pushing Labour to the fringes of the debate while balancing the books primarily at the expense of the poor.
In a few days time, politics will shut down for the summer and the public will leave for their holidays with the general impression that the Conservatives are economically competent, open-minded to good ideas from other parts of the political spectrum and that Labour are all over the shop with no coherent position except to oppose what the public see as perfectly sensible restrictions on benefits.
Unless a strong Labour voice is heard today in response to George Osborne's cheeky challenge in the Guardian, Labour will be depending on events to get to a winning position in 2020. Of course, events do happen but Labour's chances of getting a coherent coalition-building ideological position capable of confronting the Conservatives head-on are rotting as we speak.
'Events' are what almost bring about a change of Government - indeed it is quite difficult to think of an example when that was not the case. Thatcher probably owed her 1979 win to the Winter of Discontent - the 1997 Labour victory owed so much to the ERM debacle and Tory sleaze - the 2010 result a consequence of the 2008 crash with a bit of Cleggmania at the end. A very good chance that the economy will have gone tits up again long before 2020 - already unemployment is going up! Osborne will lose his smirk in the fullness of time.
You've peddled this and similar lines almost daily for weeks now. I suspect you're trying to convince yourself more than anything else. It's about as convincing as the butterfly effect.
Zac Goldsmith is backed by nearly seven out of 10 Tory supporters who named a candidate to be the party’s challenger for London Mayor in a poll.
The survey of Londoners by YouGov showed the Richmond Park MP storming ahead, with more support than for five other candidates put together.
He was favoured by 69 per cent of people in London who voted Conservative at the general election, after “don’t knows” and “none of the above” were excluded.
Fifteen per cent named former England footballer Sol Campbell, six per cent London Assembly member Andrew Boff, five per cent Syed Kamall, MEP for London, four per cent deputy mayor for policing Stephen Greenhalgh, while one per cent opted for entrepreneur Ivan Massow.
Among the wider London public, millionaire Mr Goldsmith was also far ahead, on 63 per cent, with Mr Campbell in second place on 17 per cent.
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become... The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority.
Great strategy there, vote Corbyn, that'll scare these idiot lefties out of their comfort zone.
What's the alternative- we elect an insipid Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper who will in all likelihood stagger on for 5 years to another defeat.
The Labour party needs an electric shock to the system. Look at Germany- post Schroder the SDP is just an ineffectual lump. The left in France are finished for a generation.
Faced with the electoral annihilation that a a Corbyn victory would provide, the Labour party may get it's head around how to win an election. I know it's a desperate idea, but desperate times require desperate measures.
So if everything goes to plan you end up with a new leadership election which you've just taught any future candidates can only be won from the left.
Call me naive about the complex game of five-dimensional chess that's apparently involved in voting for Labour leadership candidate, but since it sounds like you basically agree with Liz Kendall, I reckon the optimal strategy for you here might be to vote for Liz Kendall.
Liz Kendell, bless her, says the right things, but is unfortunately is a lighweight. I have had feedback from different friends at hustings events who said she is utterly hopeless, and completely out of her depth. This has only confirmed what I have seen of her myself. She would be eaten up, spat out and royally spanked by the ruthless Tory election campaign, backed up by their press.
Good 'ole Tyson, pb's own revolutionary defeatist. "Woof, woof" barksTrotsky the vegetarian hound in the background admiringly, his tail wagging rythmically to the stirring anthem of the Internationale.
Zac Goldsmith is backed by nearly seven out of 10 Tory supporters who named a candidate to be the party’s challenger for London Mayor in a poll.
The survey of Londoners by YouGov showed the Richmond Park MP storming ahead, with more support than for five other candidates put together.
He was favoured by 69 per cent of people in London who voted Conservative at the general election, after “don’t knows” and “none of the above” were excluded.
Fifteen per cent named former England footballer Sol Campbell, six per cent London Assembly member Andrew Boff, five per cent Syed Kamall, MEP for London, four per cent deputy mayor for policing Stephen Greenhalgh, while one per cent opted for entrepreneur Ivan Massow.
Among the wider London public, millionaire Mr Goldsmith was also far ahead, on 63 per cent, with Mr Campbell in second place on 17 per cent.
Zac Goldsmith is backed by nearly seven out of 10 Tory supporters who named a candidate to be the party’s challenger for London Mayor in a poll.
The survey of Londoners by YouGov showed the Richmond Park MP storming ahead, with more support than for five other candidates put together.
He was favoured by 69 per cent of people in London who voted Conservative at the general election, after “don’t knows” and “none of the above” were excluded.
Fifteen per cent named former England footballer Sol Campbell, six per cent London Assembly member Andrew Boff, five per cent Syed Kamall, MEP for London, four per cent deputy mayor for policing Stephen Greenhalgh, while one per cent opted for entrepreneur Ivan Massow.
Among the wider London public, millionaire Mr Goldsmith was also far ahead, on 63 per cent, with Mr Campbell in second place on 17 per cent.
Nobody has given David Cameron an ounce of credit, but the fact remains that from quite a weak position he has not just defeated his opponents, but utterly routed them. Yes, Scotland has helped him, and his opponents too, but I think his achievement is nevertheless underrated.
There's an amazing book in there somewhere for political journalists.
What's impressing me is George Osborne's deadly patience. In common with many others I was expecting him to raise the minimum wage before the election to shoot Labour's fox and I was surprised when he did not do so.
By keeping this in reserve for the post-election budget, he's ensured that the attention is on the commitment to the living wage rather than the reduction in tax credits, and at a time when Labour is in no position to respond sensibly. Under the guise of centrism, he is pushing Labour to the fringes of the debate while balancing the books primarily at the expense of the poor.
In a few days time, politics will shut down for the summer and the public will leave for their holidays with the general impression that the Conservatives are economically competent, open-minded to good ideas from other parts of the political spectrum and that Labour are all over the shop with no coherent position except to oppose what the public see as perfectly sensible restrictions on benefits.
Unless a strong Labour voice is heard today in response to George Osborne's cheeky challenge in the Guardian, Labour will be depending on events to get to a winning position in 2020. Of course, events do happen but Labour's chances of getting a coherent coalition-building ideological position capable of confronting the Conservatives head-on are rotting as we speak.
'Events' are what almost bring about a change of Government - indeed it is quite difficult to think of an example when that was not the case. Thatcher probably owed her 1979 win to the Winter of Discontent - the 1997 Labour victory owed so much to the ERM debacle and Tory sleaze - the 2010 result a consequence of the 2008 crash with a bit of Cleggmania at the end. A very good chance that the economy will have gone tits up again long before 2020 - already unemployment is going up! Osborne will lose his smirk in the fullness of time.
You've peddled this and similar lines almost daily for weeks now. I suspect you're trying to convince yourself more than anything else. It's about as convincing as the butterfly effect.
What are you trying to peddle then?
How many Tories were you hoping to see die so we'd get enough by-elections? Remind me, I forget.
This is depressing news, but no great surprise. Patents are not a measure of innovation or inventiveness, but they are a decent measure of willingness to invest in innovation and invention, and a strong indicator of willingness to spend money on protecting the fruits of innovation and invention:
Either we are not innovating or inventing enough, or we can't be bothered to protect what we do create. Neither is good.
Our short-termist management culture has been a problem down the decades and continues to be so. You can't blame unions, governments or anyone else, except the people in charge of the businesses who do not spend the money.
So what policies would you recommend to change that?
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become... The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority.
Great strategy there, vote Corbyn, that'll scare these idiot lefties out of their comfort zone.
What's the alternative- we elect an insipid Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper who will in all likelihood stagger on for 5 years to another defeat.
The Labour party needs an electric shock to the system. Look at Germany- post Schroder the SDP is just an ineffectual lump. The left in France are finished for a generation.
Faced with the electoral annihilation that a a Corbyn victory would provide, the Labour party may get it's head around how to win an election. I know it's a desperate idea, but desperate times require desperate measures.
So if everything goes to plan you end up with a new leadership election which you've just taught any future candidates can only be won from the left.
Call me naive about the complex game of five-dimensional chess that's apparently involved in voting for Labour leadership candidate, but since it sounds like you basically agree with Liz Kendall, I reckon the optimal strategy for you here might be to vote for Liz Kendall.
Liz Kendell, bless her, says the right things, but is unfortunately is a lighweight. I have had feedback from different friends at hustings events who said she is utterly hopeless, and completely out of her depth. This has only confirmed what I have seen of her myself. She would be eaten up, spat out and royally spanked by the ruthless Tory election campaign, backed up by their press.
Good 'ole Tyson, pb's own revolutionary defeatist. "Woof, woof" barksTrotsky the vegetarian hound in the background admiringly, his tail wagging rythmically to the stirring anthem of the Internationale.
Zac Goldsmith is backed by nearly seven out of 10 Tory supporters who named a candidate to be the party’s challenger for London Mayor in a poll.
The survey of Londoners by YouGov showed the Richmond Park MP storming ahead, with more support than for five other candidates put together.
He was favoured by 69 per cent of people in London who voted Conservative at the general election, after “don’t knows” and “none of the above” were excluded.
Fifteen per cent named former England footballer Sol Campbell, six per cent London Assembly member Andrew Boff, five per cent Syed Kamall, MEP for London, four per cent deputy mayor for policing Stephen Greenhalgh, while one per cent opted for entrepreneur Ivan Massow.
Among the wider London public, millionaire Mr Goldsmith was also far ahead, on 63 per cent, with Mr Campbell in second place on 17 per cent.
This is depressing news, but no great surprise. Patents are not a measure of innovation or inventiveness, but they are a decent measure of willingness to invest in innovation and invention, and a strong indicator of willingness to spend money on protecting the fruits of innovation and invention:
Either we are not innovating or inventing enough, or we can't be bothered to protect what we do create. Neither is good.
Our short-termist management culture has been a problem down the decades and continues to be so. You can't blame unions, governments or anyone else, except the people in charge of the businesses who do not spend the money.
Aren't those statistics misleading, though? They refer to filings in the European Patent Office, which isn't the whole story. I'd be much more interested in our proportion of US patent applications (including applications which rely on a prior UK appplication), which is the key statistic.
Certainly when I've been involved with patent applications we didn't bother with the European office. It was too much hassle and expense, although I believe they've streamlined it recently to some extent.
The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority. It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. And that is just a starter for ten
That's what a lot of us thought we were voting for in 1997 - and to be fair it was like that at the start (until Blair went off the rails). The trouble is that this approach (centrist and attractive though it is to many voters) just gets labelled as "Blairist" in the current Labour Party, and therefore is beyond the pale.
Zac Goldsmith is backed by nearly seven out of 10 Tory supporters who named a candidate to be the party’s challenger for London Mayor in a poll.
The survey of Londoners by YouGov showed the Richmond Park MP storming ahead, with more support than for five other candidates put together.
He was favoured by 69 per cent of people in London who voted Conservative at the general election, after “don’t knows” and “none of the above” were excluded.
Fifteen per cent named former England footballer Sol Campbell, six per cent London Assembly member Andrew Boff, five per cent Syed Kamall, MEP for London, four per cent deputy mayor for policing Stephen Greenhalgh, while one per cent opted for entrepreneur Ivan Massow.
Among the wider London public, millionaire Mr Goldsmith was also far ahead, on 63 per cent, with Mr Campbell in second place on 17 per cent.
Given the alternatives, it seems pretty clear. Personally, I think the only Tory with a chance of winning is Seb Coe.
Seb Coe doesn't want it.
Basically Auntie Tessa vs. young Zac.
Tough to see the value anywhere right now in the Mayoral race. I suppose you can make a good case for Jowell Labour nomination at 6-5, but it's marginal.
It is rather Now, by definition, that is about as skewed a sample as you could hope to find. It's hardly surprising that, of that particular sample, "These voters are a hair’s breadth from becoming Conservatives". You'd have got a similar result after any election defeat if you studied a similar sample of voters. Whilst the results are interesting, they do require very careful interpretation and in particular are (by definition) not representative of all of Labour's target voters.
Labour's primary fight is with the Conservatives. Not the SNP or Liberal Democrats or Greens.
If Labour want to regain power they are going to need to take votes and seats directly off the Conservatives. Anything else is a distraction.
To deny the Tories office,however, Labour probably only needs them to drop below 310 - in a 650 House of Commons . This would be achieved by 15 -20 Tory losses to Labour with perhaps a further 3 -5 Tory losses to the LibDems.
310 and the Tories will be in office. They can cobble up to 320 with the NI unionists, which is enough.
The Tories need to be below 295 seats for Labour to knock them off their perch.
Sorry I don't think so. The laws of parliamentary arithmetic are very unlikely to be suspended for the benefit of the Tories.In a chamber of 650 seats 320 would not suffice. As an absolute minimum a Tory minority Government would need 323 - assuming Sinn Fein still stay away.- to soldier on. At most the Unionists would have 10 and bar UKIP it is difficult to see anyone else wishing to prop them up. I certainly cannot see Farron and the LibDems coming to help them. A result on the lines of 255 Lab + 50 SNP +3 Plaid +3 SDLP + 1 Green + Lady H gives a total of 313. If Farron has -say -12 I cannot see him pushing the Tories over the line. Beyond that, I would also think it likely that the DUP would switch sides if it became clear that the Tories lacked sufficient allies to make it.
What's impressing me is George Osborne's deadly patience. In common with many others I was expecting him to raise the minimum wage before the election to shoot Labour's fox and I was surprised when he did not do so.
By keeping this in reserve for the post-election budget, he's ensured that the attention is on the commitment to the living wage rather than the reduction in tax credits, and at a time when Labour is in no position to respond sensibly. Under the guise of centrism, he is pushing Labour to the fringes of the debate while balancing the books primarily at the expense of the poor.
In a few days time, politics will shut down for the summer and the public will leave for their holidays with the general impression that the Conservatives are economically competent, open-minded to good ideas from other parts of the political spectrum and that Labour are all over the shop with no coherent position except to oppose what the public see as perfectly sensible restrictions on benefits.
Unless a strong Labour voice is heard today in response to George Osborne's cheeky challenge in the Guardian, Labour will be depending on events to get to a winning position in 2020. Of course, events do happen but Labour's chances of getting a coherent coalition-building ideological position capable of confronting the Conservatives head-on are rotting as we speak.
'Events' are what almost bring about a change of Government - indeed it is quite difficult to think of an example when that was not the case. Thatcher probably owed her 1979 win to the Winter of Discontent - the 1997 Labour victory owed so much to the ERM debacle and Tory sleaze - the 2010 result a consequence of the 2008 crash with a bit of Cleggmania at the end. A very good chance that the economy will have gone tits up again long before 2020 - already unemployment is going up! Osborne will lose his smirk in the fullness of time.
You've peddled this and similar lines almost daily for weeks now. I suspect you're trying to convince yourself more than anything else. It's about as convincing as the butterfly effect.
What are you trying to peddle then?
How many Tories were you hoping to see die so we'd get enough by-elections? Remind me, I forget.
This is depressing news, but no great surprise. Patents are not a measure of innovation or inventiveness, but they are a decent measure of willingness to invest in innovation and invention, and a strong indicator of willingness to spend money on protecting the fruits of innovation and invention:
Either we are not innovating or inventing enough, or we can't be bothered to protect what we do create. Neither is good.
Our short-termist management culture has been a problem down the decades and continues to be so. You can't blame unions, governments or anyone else, except the people in charge of the businesses who do not spend the money.
Aren't those statistics misleading, though? They refer to filings in the European Patent Office, which isn't the whole story. I'd be much more interested in our proportion of US patent applications (including applications which rely on a prior UK appplication), which is the key statistic.
Certainly when I've been involved with patent applications we didn't bother with the European office. It was too much hassle and expense, although I believe they've streamlined it recently to some extent.
The UK record in the US, China and other key, non-European markets is dreadful too:
''it is really extraordinary that a significant chunk of the party considers the solution to be to move even further to the Left.''
Nevertheless, the British public remain very much wedded to many labour ideas, such as protection of the most vulnerable, a fair deal for employees over employers, universal free health care, decent housing for all, dignity in old age etc. etc. etc.
The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority. It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. And that is just a starter for ten
That's what a lot of us thought we were voting for in 1997 - and to be fair it was like that at the start (until Blair went off the rails). The trouble is that this approach (centrist and attractive though it is to many voters) just gets labelled as "Blairist" in the current Labour Party, and therefore is beyond the pale.
One of the things that seems to have been forgotten is how hard the Blairists worked to deliver. I'm talking about the hard core of Blair, Brown, Mandelson, Campbell and their associates. They kept an iron discipline over the party and its policy and messaging. The Left were given no quarter what so ever. Many in Lab went along because they were desperate to win - maybe we have not reached that point.
There is no way that Blair and co would have sentimentally allowed Corbyn on to the ballot in order to have a cosy debate.
This is why the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation needs to be smashed into a million pieces
The BBC has defended its decision not to broadcast the first six hours of the extra day’s play at the Open even though the first pairing of Ryan Fox and Bernhard Langer started their final rounds at 7.45am.
The Open was extended into a fifth day this year for the first time since 1988 after high winds made parts of the course unplayable for much of Saturday, but instead of clearing its schedule on Monday BBC1 stuck with its scheduled programming – Homes Under the Hammer through to Bargain Hunt, while BBC2 served up Victoria Derbyshire and the Daily Politics. Coverage was scheduled to eventually start at 1.45pm on BBC1.
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become... The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority.
Great strategy there, vote Corbyn, that'll scare these idiot lefties out of their comfort zone.
What's the alternative- we elect an insipid Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper who will in all likelihood stagger on for 5 years to another defeat.
The Labour party needs an electric shock to the system. Look at Germany- post Schroder the SDP is just an ineffectual lump. The left in France are finished for a generation.
Faced with the electoral annihilation that a a Corbyn victory would provide, the Labour party may get it's head around how to win an election. I know it's a desperate idea, but desperate times require desperate measures.
So if everything goes to plan you end up with a new leadership election which you've just taught any future candidates can only be won from the left.
Call me naive about the complex game of five-dimensional chess that's apparently involved in voting for Labour leadership candidate, but since it sounds like you basically agree with Liz Kendall, I reckon the optimal strategy for you here might be to vote for Liz Kendall.
Liz Kendell, bless her, says the right things, but is unfortunately is a lighweight. I have had feedback from different friends at hustings events who said she is utterly hopeless, and completely out of her depth. This has only confirmed what I have seen of her myself. She would be eaten up, spat out and royally spanked by the ruthless Tory election campaign, backed up by their press.
Good 'ole Tyson, pb's own revolutionary defeatist. "Woof, woof" barksTrotsky the vegetarian hound in the background admiringly, his tail wagging rythmically to the stirring anthem of the Internationale.
It is rather Now, by definition, that is about as skewed a sample as you could hope to find. It's hardly surprising that, of that particular sample, "These voters are a hair’s breadth from becoming Conservatives". You'd have got a similar result after any election defeat if you studied a similar sample of voters. Whilst the results are interesting, they do require very careful interpretation and in particular are (by definition) not representative of all of Labour's target voters.
Labour's primary fight is with the Conservatives. Not the SNP or Liberal Democrats or Greens.
If Labour want to regain power they are going to need to take votes and seats directly off the Conservatives. Anything else is a distraction.
To deny the Tories office,however, Labour probably only needs them to drop below 310 - in a 650 House of Commons . This would be achieved by 15 -20 Tory losses to Labour with perhaps a further 3 -5 Tory losses to the LibDems.
310 and the Tories will be in office. They can cobble up to 320 with the NI unionists, which is enough.
The Tories need to be below 295 seats for Labour to knock them off their perch.
Sorry I don't think so. The laws of parliamentary arithmetic are very unlikely to be suspended for the benefit of the Tories.In a chamber of 650 seats 320 would not suffice. As an absolute minimum a Tory minority Government would need 323 - assuming Sinn Fein still stay away.- to soldier on. At most the Unionists would have 10 and bar UKIP it is difficult to see anyone else wishing to prop them up. I certainly cannot see Farron and the LibDems coming to help them. A result on the lines of 255 Lab + 50 SNP +3 Plaid +3 SDLP + 1 Green + Lady H gives a total of 313. If Farron has -say -12 I cannot see him pushing the Tories over the line. Beyond that, I would also think it likely that the DUP would switch sides if it became clear that the Tories lacked sufficient allies to make it.
The parliamentary arithmetic favour the Tories if they are on 310 seats. With the unionists they'd be on 318-319 and that's sufficient for them to stay in office. And, remember, they are the incumbents and need to be voted out or resign first for a Labour PM to take power. That would certainly not be a realistic option on the numbers you quote.
Whether the Tories can comfortably govern and carry out their programme, or not, and last the parliament is another matter.
''it is really extraordinary that a significant chunk of the party considers the solution to be to move even further to the Left.''
Nevertheless, the British public remain very much wedded to many labour ideas, such as protection of the most vulnerable, a fair deal for employees over employers, universal free health care, decent housing for all, dignity in old age etc. etc. etc.
Protect those employed by the state at all costs - even over those receiving the services the state employees are paid to serve.
And hammer rich people to pay for those on benefits.
Zac Goldsmith is backed by nearly seven out of 10 Tory supporters who named a candidate to be the party’s challenger for London Mayor in a poll.
The survey of Londoners by YouGov showed the Richmond Park MP storming ahead, with more support than for five other candidates put together.
He was favoured by 69 per cent of people in London who voted Conservative at the general election, after “don’t knows” and “none of the above” were excluded.
Fifteen per cent named former England footballer Sol Campbell, six per cent London Assembly member Andrew Boff, five per cent Syed Kamall, MEP for London, four per cent deputy mayor for policing Stephen Greenhalgh, while one per cent opted for entrepreneur Ivan Massow.
Among the wider London public, millionaire Mr Goldsmith was also far ahead, on 63 per cent, with Mr Campbell in second place on 17 per cent.
Given the alternatives, it seems pretty clear. Personally, I think the only Tory with a chance of winning is Seb Coe.
Coe was not a success as an MP and appeared very lightweight. The London Olympics will be four years in the past - and were very far from being universally popular in London itself.
The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority. It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. And that is just a starter for ten
That's what a lot of us thought we were voting for in 1997 - and to be fair it was like that at the start (until Blair went off the rails). The trouble is that this approach (centrist and attractive though it is to many voters) just gets labelled as "Blairist" in the current Labour Party, and therefore is beyond the pale.
Whittingdale explained that for "conditional access" to work, non-subscribers would have to be excluded. Technology allows a service to cut off non-payers painlessly, rather than dragging them through the court system, but the minister thinks “the technology isn’t there yet” to make the jump from a household fee based (in practice) on possession of a device, to a conditional fee based on access.
Is Whittingdale right that we lack the technology? Yes, pretty much.
How is the technology not there yet? It has been done through subscription services all over the world
So we'll be expected to buy a 'BBC box' and pay more for the programmes than the current licence fee. because not everybody will sign up The quality of the BBC output will drop because they will have less income and the others - Sky, ITV, Channels 4 and 5 will not have to try so hard to keep up with an emasculated Beeb. The quality of out TV choice will start to drop. Do the Tories really think that there will not be any political repercussions?
Nevertheless, the British public remain very much wedded to many labour ideas, such as protection of the most vulnerable, a fair deal for employees over employers, universal free health care, decent housing for all, dignity in old age etc. etc. etc.
Not sure those you have listed are exclusively Labour idea or ideals. They all sound pretty much motherhood to me, which all the mainstream parties will pay more than just lip service to. Political differences arise from how to achieve them.
That the British public cleave to them does not help Labour unless Labour can prove it will be more capable of achieving, funding and protecting them.
Labour's primary fight is with the Conservatives. Not the SNP or Liberal Democrats or Greens.
If Labour want to regain power they are going to need to take votes and seats directly off the Conservatives. Anything else is a distraction.
To deny the Tories office,however, Labour probably only needs them to drop below 310 - in a 650 House of Commons . This would be achieved by 15 -20 Tory losses to Labour with perhaps a further 3 -5 Tory losses to the LibDems.
310 and the Tories will be in office. They can cobble up to 320 with the NI unionists, which is enough.
The Tories need to be below 295 seats for Labour to knock them off their perch.
Sorry I don't think so. The laws of parliamentary arithmetic are very unlikely to be suspended for the benefit of the Tories.In a chamber of 650 seats 320 would not suffice. As an absolute minimum a Tory minority Government would need 323 - assuming Sinn Fein still stay away.- to soldier on. At most the Unionists would have 10 and bar UKIP it is difficult to see anyone else wishing to prop them up. I certainly cannot see Farron and the LibDems coming to help them. A result on the lines of 255 Lab + 50 SNP +3 Plaid +3 SDLP + 1 Green + Lady H gives a total of 313. If Farron has -say -12 I cannot see him pushing the Tories over the line. Beyond that, I would also think it likely that the DUP would switch sides if it became clear that the Tories lacked sufficient allies to make it.
The parliamentary arithmetic favour the Tories if they are on 310 seats. With the unionists they'd be on 318-319 and that's sufficient for them to stay in office. And, remember, they are the incumbents and need to be voted out or resign first for a Labour PM to take power. That would certainly not be a realistic option on the numbers you quote.
Whether the Tories can comfortably govern and carry out their programme, or not, and last the parliament is another matter.
With respect I cannot imagine any of the parties I have referred to failing to vote down a Tory Queens Speech. Indeed the LibDems might see it as a golden opportunity to redeem themselves with former left of centre voters.
This is why the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation needs to be smashed into a million pieces
The BBC has defended its decision not to broadcast the first six hours of the extra day’s play at the Open even though the first pairing of Ryan Fox and Bernhard Langer started their final rounds at 7.45am.
The Open was extended into a fifth day this year for the first time since 1988 after high winds made parts of the course unplayable for much of Saturday, but instead of clearing its schedule on Monday BBC1 stuck with its scheduled programming – Homes Under the Hammer through to Bargain Hunt, while BBC2 served up Victoria Derbyshire and the Daily Politics. Coverage was scheduled to eventually start at 1.45pm on BBC1.
Whittingdale explained that for "conditional access" to work, non-subscribers would have to be excluded. Technology allows a service to cut off non-payers painlessly, rather than dragging them through the court system, but the minister thinks “the technology isn’t there yet” to make the jump from a household fee based (in practice) on possession of a device, to a conditional fee based on access.
Is Whittingdale right that we lack the technology? Yes, pretty much.
How is the technology not there yet? It has been done through subscription services all over the world
So we'll be expected to buy a 'BBC box' and pay more for the programmes than the current licence fee. because not everybody will sign up The quality of the BBC output will drop because they will have less income and the others - Sky, ITV, Channels 4 and 5 will not have to try so hard to keep up with an emasculated Beeb. The quality of out TV choice will start to drop. Do the Tories really think that there will not be any political repercussions?
They won't pay £145 a year for the subscription because isn't worth that to them?
Comments
You know this all a legacy of the party not having the guts to defenestrate a joke of a leader- according to the Guardian's post polling feedback, previous Labour supporters laughed at the prospect of Ed becoming PM.
And Ed is the legacy of the party not dealing appropriately with the Gordon problem- knowing full well that Brown's temperament and personality were singularly unfit to be PM, the party still gave him the keys.
Alternatively you could start your business somewhere else.
I think the UK economy must just survive if the number of rich entrepreneur's from Kazakhstan who want to start a business in the West decide to go elsewhere. The problem with the policy is however that it is one designed for headlines and not effect.
It will only apply to those seeking a Tier 1 visa, i.e. those that are already wealthy. The number of such people seeking entry each year who have a criminal record such that it would debar them from obtaining a visa can probably be counted without having to actually take one's socks off. However, it enables the Daily Mail to say that the government is clamping down on foreign criminals without actually having to do so.
Well of course it is, anything to try an disguise the fact that he has made another pledge on immigration that he doesn't have a earthly chance of meeting while we are in the EU. He can big up this sort of nonsense change all he wants, he can cut benefits to EU immigrants (assuming the French/Poles/Bulgarians don't veto it), hell, he could completely stop all immigrants from outside the EU, and he would still fail his immigration target by 70% or so given recent figures. One day he will stop making promising he has no chance what so ever of keeping, but I am not holding my breath.
Mild left : Mirror-Record, Guardian, Indy
Hard left (nationalist socialist) : The National.
LOL, Harry do you not see your buddies showing who the nationalist socialists are , it is limited to a certain sect who are prone to using the same wave as the Royals and who still live in the 17th century.
PS, none of them will be purchasing the National for sure , right wing trash only for those numpties.
Now, by definition, that is about as skewed a sample as you could hope to find. It's hardly surprising that, of that particular sample, "These voters are a hair’s breadth from becoming Conservatives". You'd have got a similar result after any election defeat if you studied a similar sample of voters. Whilst the results are interesting, they do require very careful interpretation and in particular are (by definition) not representative of all of Labour's target voters.
What mechanisms exist for this?
If Labour want to regain power they are going to need to take votes and seats directly off the Conservatives. Anything else is a distraction.
Here's why Whittingdale kicked a subscription BBC into the future
I might go a little further perhaps and point out that when it comes to the essentials in life (save a place to live*) then prices in London, where they want the living wage to be more than £9 per hour, are actually lower than in the Home Counties.
*Property prices are now so absurd that the idea that one could afford a family home on less than £17k p.a. outside London or £19k within the Metropolis is laughable.
They are NOT polling the complete local membership (unlike 2010 I believe where there was a formal process for nominations).
The vote is taken from those who show up to std CLP monthly meeting. As such you are sampling less than 10% of the membership and arguably a very unrepresentative 10%.
In my local CLP, in 2010 that would have meant the difference between a D. Milliband and D Abbot nomination.
Nor is it even obvious that those particular focus groups are representative of the most fertile territory even amongst 2015 Tory voters - they might have been voters making the classic drift towards the right as the get older, and therefore lost to Labour for good. There might be other 2015 Conservative voters who might be at least as good and perhaps better targets for Labour - perhaps some of whom voted LibDem in 2010, or didn't vote at all, or who for some specific reasons might now regret voting Conservative.
In other words, it would be a mistake to focus too much on the very narrow segment of 2010-2015 Lab->Con switchers. The picture is more complex than that.
"Lord Hailsham and George Brown were far worse if you remember them."
I remember them very well, Lord Hailsham was a grandee and George was an alky. But Corbyn was sober when he was interviewed.
I guess this is why British politics has a pendulum effect.
The election campaign was pathetic. A retail offer? I mean what does that mean? And then there was Ed.
The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority. It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. And that is just a starter for ten
PbCom is at it's best when posters are in a thoughtful rather than partisan mood
It can't be underestimated how much a strong economy dilutes left-wing chuntering. The economy around 1994/1995 was powering on. I left school in 1995 and literally walked into a decent job. There were jobs everywhere.
Blair rode the crest of that economic wave after the election in 1997, and the economic climate, plus his enormous majority, kept a lot of extremist mouths shut. Blair and Brown had the scope to buy any dissenting voices off with pay rises anyway.
It's ironic that by 2010, after 13 years of Labour governance, the economy was in the doldrums and the Tories were re-elected. All the financial steps taken since have been met with utter derision and open hatred from many of the left, especially McCluskey's lot, as if the Tories are to blame for it all. It's doubly ironic that the siren voices imploring Labour to move to the left rise exponentially the more the Tories move to the centre. It's like Blairism in reverse.
I'm not saying that everything the Tories have done in government is absolutely right and that all Labour did was absolutely wrong but it does appear that the best circumstances under which Labour will be able to elect a moderate, mainstream MP with any enthusiasm and full support again, will only arrive after years of difficult decisions to put the economy into a benign state.
And I can't see how that state would arise through hard left-wing thinking.
Since the ballot is under AV - there's no second round, just counting/transferring votes twice.
TBH, I think the Tories with a double single ballot is better. AV pulls in all sorts of odd behaviour I'll Vote For X, But Really Want Y to win.
That excuse has now gone. It should be abundantly clear to Labour that in England lies the route back to power, and in England 55% of the electorate voted for centre-right parties, with the Tories alone having a clear 10% lead over them.
Given that the progressive majority figleaf is no longer the case, and the Liberals have gone with Labour's vote barely increasing a jot, it is really extraordinary that a significant chunk of the party considers the solution to be to move even further to the Left.
Actually, I think the Tories fought a very shrewd 2015 campaign on fear- of Ed, and the SNP; hardly an optimistic tone. The message I heard was yes, we're going to get more austerity and cuts, but at least we're not getting Ed or the Scots
The article makes it clear why....
Of course it could all go horribly wrong!
I don't know, of course. But if asked to predict, I suspect what will happen is that Corbyn will do worse than predicted, Kendall better - and the eventual winner will be Cooper.
The Labour party needs an electric shock to the system. Look at Germany- post Schroder the SDP is just an ineffectual lump. The left in France are finished for a generation.
Faced with the electoral annihilation that a a Corbyn victory would provide, the Labour party may get it's head around how to win an election. I know it's a desperate idea, but desperate times require desperate measures.
Whether it's the Tories frightening the horses over the ERM and losing trust, or Gordon et al splurging it
IMO, the Winter of Discontent was about the unions taking control of the country in the minds of many at the time, but Labour had already ceded that ground over the rest of the 70s re the economy. The WoDC was just the final nail.
I tend to feel that Labour voters are inclined to want to hand out money to fix things as they think that's *nice* "give them fish", whilst the Tories are more *tough love* "teach them to fish". It's a balance that tips over too far when things run too long one way.
That's why Labour HMGs and almost every Left wing gov has run out of other people's money. And Tories have been a bit too tough for the electorate at large.
Neither has malign ends most of the time.
http://www.cityam.com/220414/uk-patent-applications-dropping-sweden-files-35-times-more-patents-uk
Either we are not innovating or inventing enough, or we can't be bothered to protect what we do create. Neither is good.
Our short-termist management culture has been a problem down the decades and continues to be so. You can't blame unions, governments or anyone else, except the people in charge of the businesses who do not spend the money.
Who would get your vote, Tyson?
Corbyn's getting my vote Casino- out of sheer bloody mindedness about how dumb the party has become. A four month tortuous leadership campaign. What ridiculous kind of bureaucracy could have invented such a thing?
The election campaign was pathetic. A retail offer? I mean what does that mean? And then there was Ed.
The Labour Party needs to be the party of prosperity and business with a social conscience. It's a given that the party supports the poor and vulnerable- but it never has to be mentioned. It needs to think about radical solutions for the NHS, think the unthinkable about pensions, and never, ever, ever, ever with ten more evers- resort back into a comfort zone of attacking the Tories and wealth creators from a position of pious, moral superiority. It needs to create a dynamic aura around itself that the future is going to be better. And that is just a starter for ten
You want the Labour party I do. I am not sure how a vote for Corbyn will deliver that, though.
I'll re-post the following for you SO
What's the alternative- we elect an insipid Andy Burnham or Yvette Cooper who will in all likelihood stagger on for 5 years to another defeat.
The Labour party needs an electric shock to the system. Look at Germany- post Schroder the SDP is just an ineffectual lump. The left in France are finished for a generation.
Faced with the electoral annihilation that a a Corbyn victory would provide, the Labour party may get it's head around how to win an election. I know it's a desperate idea, but desperate times require desperate measures.
Call me naive about the complex game of five-dimensional chess that's apparently involved in voting for Labour leadership candidate, but since it sounds like you basically agree with Liz Kendall, I reckon the optimal strategy for you here might be to vote for Liz Kendall.
If they spend another four months ignoring the government and only talking to each other, they will lose regardless of who is in charge.
The survey of Londoners by YouGov showed the Richmond Park MP storming ahead, with more support than for five other candidates put together.
He was favoured by 69 per cent of people in London who voted Conservative at the general election, after “don’t knows” and “none of the above” were excluded.
Fifteen per cent named former England footballer Sol Campbell, six per cent London Assembly member Andrew Boff, five per cent Syed Kamall, MEP for London, four per cent deputy mayor for policing Stephen Greenhalgh, while one per cent opted for entrepreneur Ivan Massow.
Among the wider London public, millionaire Mr Goldsmith was also far ahead, on 63 per cent, with Mr Campbell in second place on 17 per cent.
http://bit.ly/1HKTNeD
That excuse has now gone. It should be abundantly clear to Labour that in England lies the route back to power, and in England 55% of the electorate voted for centre-right parties, with the Tories alone having a clear 10% lead over them.
Given that the progressive majority figleaf is no longer the case, and the Liberals have gone with Labour's vote barely increasing a jot, it is really extraordinary that a significant chunk of the party considers the solution to be to move even further to the Left.
The Tories need to be below 295 seats for Labour to knock them off their perch.
Is it because she doesn't have kids? Or to do with her weight?
Any strategy that leads to Labour looking like a credible alternative government will attract votes from across the spectrum, including Green and Lib Dem voters as well, if they have a leader that looks like a PM and they can talk normal and look safe on the economy.
To do that, they need to displace the narrative of Conservative competence, leadership and fiscal retictude. That means targetting the Conservatives directly.
Nevertheless, the British public remain very much wedded to many labour ideas, such as protection of the most vulnerable, a fair deal for employees over employers, universal free health care, decent housing for all, dignity in old age etc. etc. etc.
I'd prefer Kamall to win, but I'm resigned to Goldsmith, who is I think mostly likely to win the election itself.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11750642/Is-Labour-heading-for-another-SDP-split.html
His final thought is that if we don't get an SDP-style split, we may see a defection or two from the "Blairite" wing to the Tories.
And defecting to the LibDems would seem problematic.
So perhaps a lack of options for current Lab MPs...
Basically Auntie Tessa vs. young Zac.
Certainly when I've been involved with patent applications we didn't bother with the European office. It was too much hassle and expense, although I believe they've streamlined it recently to some extent.
The trouble is that this approach (centrist and attractive though it is to many voters) just gets labelled as "Blairist" in the current Labour Party, and therefore is beyond the pale.
http://www.iam-media.com/Blog/Detail.aspx?g=dfe5e27b-8630-4a4a-be32-66284ec7936f
There is no way that Blair and co would have sentimentally allowed Corbyn on to the ballot in order to have a cosy debate.
The BBC has defended its decision not to broadcast the first six hours of the extra day’s play at the Open even though the first pairing of Ryan Fox and Bernhard Langer started their final rounds at 7.45am.
The Open was extended into a fifth day this year for the first time since 1988 after high winds made parts of the course unplayable for much of Saturday, but instead of clearing its schedule on Monday BBC1 stuck with its scheduled programming – Homes Under the Hammer through to Bargain Hunt, while BBC2 served up Victoria Derbyshire and the Daily Politics. Coverage was scheduled to eventually start at 1.45pm on BBC1.
http://bit.ly/1fXYvyU
And hammer rich people to pay for those on benefits.
So we'll be expected to buy a 'BBC box' and pay more for the programmes than the current licence fee. because not everybody will sign up The quality of the BBC output will drop because they will have less income and the others - Sky, ITV, Channels 4 and 5 will not have to try so hard to keep up with an emasculated Beeb. The quality of out TV choice will start to drop.
Do the Tories really think that there will not be any political repercussions?
That the British public cleave to them does not help Labour unless Labour can prove it will be more capable of achieving, funding and protecting them.
Mind you Sky isn't showing the fifth day of the Lords Test either.
Do the Tories really think that there will not be any political repercussions?
They won't pay £145 a year for the subscription because isn't worth that to them?
Yet the licence fee is great value?