Categories
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The bigger Corbyn’s victory the greater will be his surviva
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The bigger Corbyn’s victory the greater will be his survival chances
The final reweighted YouGov poll on the labour leadership had Corbyn with an amazing 57% of first preferences. That was nearly a month ago and the chances are that he will struggle to be quite at that level when the official results are announced next Saturday morning.
0
Comments
You are, I take it, planning a flight for Friday night / Saturday morning UK time?
I think it would be interesting to have a market on the *total* number of votes that Labour would win in 2020.
Do the crazies + the tribalists outweigh the moderate Labour voters?
CNBC
"But a poll in the French newspaper Aujourd'hui en France showed 55 percent of French people opposed to softening rules on granting refugee status."
"We are standing in solidarity with Europe, but responsibly, by maintaining some control over the process," said Mr Trzaskowski. "Mandatory quotas do not allow for that."He added: "We want to create conditions so that people will want to stay here in Poland and become part of our society. Mechanically processed, mandatory quotas throw that into doubt, and are counter-productive."
"As thousands more refugees arrived in Germany, the EU's most vocal proponent of additional support, the Christian Social Union — the Bavarian sister party of Ms Merkel's Christian Democrats — criticised the decision to let migrants in from Hungary as "the wrong decision".
"Austria to end 'open border' emergency measures"
So - another 'news' cycle bites the dust.
'from day one, a significant number of MPs not merely against him but actively out to get him'
Isn’t every newly elected party leader…!
I agree with Mike's main point though. A first round win, clear of dodgy votes, is pretty much a settled opinion, especially when the other candidates will split conveniently for him. A 53-20-18-9 looks comprehensive than. On the other hand, if it goes to a third round - and if it goes to a second it will almost certainly go to a third - then the split will only be fifty-something to forty-something, and that looks a lot closer.
I am sure that they could persuade themselves that it was their duty to ensure that their wing of the party was properly represented in the deliberations. It would involve a loss of patronage but it might prove quite a cunning move by Corbyn.
Matt shows how incredibly vulnerable a Corbyn led Labour party is going to be:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/
He will be safe for a good while because his opposition will be frit. This is Labour.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34165674
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/sep/07/bono-these-people-are-not-migrants-they-are-refugees-video
It's not just the MPs that Corbyn has to contend with, there are also the other levers of power that he - as a total outsider - will have no real knowledge of or influence over: the NEC, for example. The £3ers will have no idea about these things either and so will have no clue about which way to vote to make life easier for JC.
As I thought might be the case, it looks like Tom Watson is going to position himself as something of a block on JC's ambitions. JC v TW will be something to see. Both will be able to claim mandates. From where I sit there will be only one winner. Watson will never secure Labour a single new vote, but he may have a very important role in ensuring that Corbyn does not totally destroy the party forever. Hold on to your hats.
I don't think the final margin will matter much in such a farcical system though. A joke is a joke no matter what the clapometer says.
Mr. Royale, I agree. Not only is Labour frit when it comes to axing leaders, on the rare occasions it tries, it's incompetent. The Conservatives tore themselves apart with disloyalty and regicide whilst Labour cruised serenely through with drone-like loyalty to Blair [less than a decade ago!].
Now, the fortune of the parties is reversed.
I agree with Mr. Smithson that the scale of victory is important. Breaking down the numbers might matter too (by that I mean the three sectors: membership, unions, threepenny voters).
UKIP and the Lib Dems need to exploit this opportunity to gain members at the expense of Labour, particularly if Corbyn wins.
Ed's problem was that most suspected he was on an ego trip just by virtue of standing and for those who missed it he built a pharaonic tablet just before his defeat to remind us how stupid we'd been.
IDS was chosen because he wasn't Ken Clarke after IDS' supporters cunningly kept Portillo off of the final ballot of two. Corbyn will have won clearly from a field of four. Also, Labour is not as good at regicide as the Conservatives.
Mr. Roger, you're telling me you were unimpressed by the political stunt inspired by Amenhotep III?
I know Aunt Hattie has tried to rig the vote %s for all it's worth, but 50%+ works just as well as 53%+. The SNP at the GE didn't achieve 50+% even.
Migrant is an entirely neutral word. It describes exactly what they are doing without ascribing a motive. The left is doing its best to kick out neutral language and change it to inaccurate language that is favourable to their ends.
On the regicide point of course Labour effectively got rid of Blair as the Tories did Thatcher and the Tories kept Major and Hague to the end as Labour did Brown and Miliband but by IDS had lost patience. If Corbyn fails to perform in the polls as IDS did not do to a sufficient degree then the plotting will grow regardless of his election margin
She reportedly told the Prime Minister: 'We all hate you and isolate you' at a Downing Street meeting in 2012.
The claims come from extracts from Antony Seldon's biography of Cameron.
Jeremy Corbyn doesn't have that problem.
Plus, IDS might have beaten Portillo in the final two. But we don't know that, and his absence meant people could have (and probably did) wonder what would've happened if he'd made the final two.
‘Tony Blair telephones Number 10 to say he’s been contacted by a key individual close to Gaddafi, and that the Libyan leader wants to cut a deal with the British. Blair is a respected voice in the building and his suggestion is examined seriously. ‘
But Mr Cameron decided that on this occasion his political hero and example, referred to by George Osborne as ‘the Master’ is not to be heeded:
‘Cameron had been repulsed by Blair’s decision to rehabilitate Gaddafi, and as opposition leader had argued strongly in 2009 against the Scottish government’s return of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to Libya on the grounds of illness.
‘Policewoman Yvonne Fletcher was killed by a Libyan outside their embassy in London in 1984, when Cameron was still at Eton. Four years later came the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 killing 270 people. When the bomb was proven to be planted by a Libyan, Cameron became still more angry.
‘Gordon Brown claimed the Scottish government took the decision on al-Megrahi. Cameron did not believe him, and once inside Number 10, ordered a review into the episode. It concluded that the previous government ‘did all it could to facilitate’ the release of al-Megrahi’.
Cameron decides not to follow up Blair’s approach regarding a deal with Gaddafi: he wants to avoid doing anything which might be seen to give the Libyan leader succour. Richards’ complaints do not let up: he feels Cameron and the NSC are interfering with the military operation even down to the most tactical level.’
IN the same passage we find that the head of MI6 , John Sawers, also tried to restrain the amateur premier:
‘At an NSC meeting in March, [David Cameron] declares that “intervention in Libya is in the British national interest, speak now or hold your peace”.
‘He is confronted by Sawers who tells him bluntly it is not a matter of ‘national interest’ and that Cameron is acting purely for ‘humanitarian reasons’. Cameron is surprised by the challenge, but quickly answers somewhat unsatisfactorily, ‘Yes, yes, but it is important that we do these things.’
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
My guess was 41% on first preference but a clear win on 2nd - people are underestimating how much 2nd prefs have scattered and many Burnham voters in particular like Corbyn too. In some ways that will have its uses for him, since the evidence that lots of people who preferred someone else thought he was worth supporting too will be useful.
Finding it hard to call the deputy race. The only YouGov I've seen put Tom Watson streets ahead, while the voodoo poll on Labour List has Creasy ahead. Absolutely every member I know (fro all sides of the party) who has expressed an opinion has voted Creasy, but that may be because they know I'm recommending her and it's only a sample of 15 or so.
It seems some Lab supporters have still not received ballot papers.
Whatever problems a Corbyn led labour will have, member numbers won't be one of them.
Politics has moved on, Labour has not.
Hitchens really doesn't like Cameron, does he?
Still, I suppose it makes a change from 'lucky'
We will never know about Portillo but I remember newspaper reports his camp had said early members polling had him trailing IDS
Either way, it would be a horrible legacy: a result in the grey area where non-received votes and infiltration tarnish the legitimacy of the process while the winner has either lost huge momentum (Corbyn) or has the active support of only about a quarter of the movement (Cooper or Burnham) and a left wing creaming 'we was robbed'.
But I don't expect him to be as low as 41%.
I'm no Corbyn voter, but would be cautious about describing his backers as crazies. There is (as we have seen elsewhere in Europe) a sizable leftist, anti-austerity trend. Whether "sizable" equates to "majority" I have my doubts, but it has succeeded electorally elsewhere, too readily to be dismissed as crazy.
But the tribalists are and continue to be Labour's biggest problem. The Sheermans, Manns, Stringers and Watsons have a thuggish, unthinking hold on the Labour party, publicly sneering and privately briefing against anyone who crosses them. They believe that they, alone, own left-of-centre politics in the UK. It beggars belief not just that these tribalists are prepared to take their own party down in anger at Corbyn (see yesterday's Observer for quotes from several of these names) but that Labour appears ready to elect the most baleful bruiser of all, Tom Watson, to the crucial behind-the-scenes role of deputy.
Scottish Labour was the bulwark of this attitude and we've seen what happened to it. If Watson is elected as deputy I fear that UK Labour may go the same way.
He was eased out because he had a single major rival who had had a decade to amass power and was able to force Blair to go, after the latter foolishly said he would go sooner rather than later.
Blair's ousting was a tale of just two people.
The Conservatives turned on Thatcher (from what I gather) pretty quickly. It took a decade of unrivalled dominance for Brown to get rid of Blair.
Corbyn's vote comes from entryists and mostly entryists from the rag tag and bobtail hard left fantasists and stop the war coalionistas.
It is a take over. The larger the Corbyn vote then the larger the entryist vote and the larger effort needed to resist the take over.
If the Original Labour Party had any sense they would walk away from Corbyn. But it's self evident that they do not have any sense as otherwise Corbyn would not even have been nominated.
Just very much enjoyed reading I am Pilgrim, a slightly superior thriller.
Currently loving Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.
If I were still a Labour voter, I'd have voted for Stella too, but Jezza? Come on. He can't insist on loyalty without being a hypocrite, he's got the Civil Service to negotiate, and he knows half of f*ck all about foreign affairs.
He's not just idealistic, he's dangerous. It would be safer if he were aware of his ignorance, but he will assume he's always right.
You've met him, I haven't, but I remember the type from the late sixties. I was at the Grosvenor Square riot in the sixties. I don't remember seeing Jezza, but he was probably there in spirit. I grew up, did he?
Fortunately, he will lose but remain a running sore for Labour.
I strongly had the feeling that Corbyn wants a shot at the next GE.
As I've said before, there are four pre-requisites to bring down a leader:
1. A backdrop of discontent.
2. A spark to focus that discontent into outright rebellion.
3. A mechanism by which the leader can be brought down.
4. A viable alternative (or alternatives) who would make things better afterwards.
Number one can be more-or-less relied upon throughout the whole of a Corbyn leadership. Number two will occur from time to time: these things always do. Number four is probably satisfied, most probably by Cooper or (less probably) Burnham from this political generation, or Harman or Johnson if Labour want to follow the Tories' lead after Howard replaced IDS.
The big question is Number Three. How? The Tories sensibly included a no confidence mechanism in their rules that meant IDS had no option but to stand aside. Similarly with Thatcher in 1990. Yes, she could have run in the second round but every contemporary report suggests she'd have lost (and in any case, even if she hadn't, the means were there to give the MPs the chance). By contrast, what does Labour have? The Blair-Brown case is instructive. It took three full years of insubordination and dysfunctionality before Blair decided it wasn't worth it (during which time they did win an election, admittedly). 'Pressure' only goes so far if the leader decides to resist.
How many 'migrants' has he offered to accommodate on his yacht?
Just seen on Twitter that Eddie Izzard's backed him.
Edited extra bit: quite right, Mr. 1000. It really ought to be hyphenated.
'They' in this case referred to Labour, not Blair.
Like Corby?
Define Survival.
Things don't just happen. People don't just rise up. The Labour Party won't just overthrow him. They, in their mealy-mouthed way, will put up with him.
I do not see it being very helpful for the SNP really if their bozo lefty ex labourites think Corbyn gives them a chance of running riot over the whole of Britain not just Scotland.
As I said yesterday, I'm a bit sceptical about such biographies coming out especially when the people concerned are still very much in power.
Cameron hasn't even finished being PM yet. He could still do something fantastic/terrible which will define his premiership.
It's like sportsman who write [or have written] biographies at 23.
The biographies of Hannibal, Caesar and Basil II based on what they were doing in their early 20s would be drastically different to proper reviews of their entire lives.
And this is whoever way it goes. A while back I posted five or six different outcomes; I've still no idea which one is going to happen.
Fill in the blanks.
Suggest ... like "a neutered tom cat desperate to breed."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/RVN4UMPMD0R7H
Nor would she answer on funding.
Diverting Britain's foreign aid budget to this IMO is a mini-masterstroke. If we are to have refugees (and right-minded centre/even farther right people agree we should) then what more sensible a way to lance the boil in the minds of the right about the 0.7% than to apply some of it at home. By any definition it qualifies as aid spending.
Seldon did a book on Blair in 2005, whilst he was still in power, but another after he had left, and he wrote about Brown in 2011.
His book on the 'coalition effect', published in March this year, seems particularly stupidly early if you want to write about the full coalition.