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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The voters by some distance say Tony Blair will be remember

SystemSystem Posts: 12,220
edited September 2015 in General

imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The voters by some distance say Tony Blair will be remembered as the best modern Labour leader

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  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,658
    first
  • MP_SEMP_SE Posts: 3,642
    edited September 2015
    First like Corbyn.

    Edit: Actually second like Burnham.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,389
    Losing the plot, leftie style.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,658
    MP_SE said:

    First like Corbyn.

    Edit: Actually second like Burnham.

    The same Andy Burnham who doesn't think it's time for a woman leader yet and then trashes Corbyn before taking the Home Sec job. The integrity of it all is unbeleva
  • Plato_SaysPlato_Says Posts: 11,822
    i can't wait for Mrs May to eat him alive - he's such a crawler.
    Big_G_NorthWales said:

    MP_SE said:

    First like Corbyn.

    Edit: Actually second like Burnham.

    The same Andy Burnham who doesn't think it's time for a woman leader yet and then trashes Corbyn before taking the Home Sec job. The integrity of it all is unbeleva
  • kingbongokingbongo Posts: 393
    All I can say about this is that Kinnick must be gutted - in his mind he saved the Labour party and prepared it for Blair and yet in the minds of voters he languishes as an unmissed windbag at the bottom of the pile with Foot
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Big_G_NorthWales said:

    MP_SE said:

    First like Corbyn.

    Edit: Actually second like Burnham.

    The same Andy Burnham who doesn't think it's time for a woman leader yet and then trashes Corbyn before taking the Home Sec job. The integrity of it all is unbeleva
    The same Burnham who couldn't score NHS points against the one the media loves to call Jeremy "rhymes with" Hunt
  • SimonStClareSimonStClare Posts: 7,976
    edited September 2015
    Why is John Smith so highly regarded? - He lead his party for two years in opposition but I have no idea what he achieved in the short time before his death.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    SimonStClare said:

    Why is John Smith so highly regarded, - he lead his party for two years in opposition but I have no idea what he achieved in the short time before his death.

    He served as a relatively left wing leader without either losing an election or being toppled by his own side.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,713
    edited September 2015
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.

    Maybe they're thinking of Peter Kay in the adverts:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=izkYlTVnpwQ
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,008
    Big_G_NorthWales said:

    MP_SE said:

    First like Corbyn.

    Edit: Actually second like Burnham.

    The same Andy Burnham who doesn't think it's time for a woman leader yet and then trashes Corbyn before taking the Home Sec job. The integrity of it all is unbeleva
    He always said he would serve in the Shadow Cabinet though, even if Corbyn won, the fact he privately thought Corbyn would be unlikely to be a great success during a leadership campaign is not surprising
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    kingbongo said:

    All I can say about this is that Kinnick must be gutted - in his mind he saved the Labour party and prepared it for Blair and yet in the minds of voters he languishes as an unmissed windbag at the bottom of the pile with Foot

    Give it time. Ask this in two decades and no way will Kinnock be behind Edstone.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,008
    PT (Last thread) There were some prominent assassinations of previous party leaders though, eg Hawke became Labour leader just months before the 1980 election and Keating's ousting of Hawke. Howard was himself involved in several leadership battles before he finally became P
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040
    kingbongo said:

    All I can say about this is that Kinnick must be gutted - in his mind he saved the Labour party and prepared it for Blair and yet in the minds of voters he languishes as an unmissed windbag at the bottom of the pile with Foot

    Quite so. To be ranked below Ed, sheesh. That's harsh.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,338
    FPT for @Charles said:
    » show previous quotes

    "1. Matter of principle, innit. I don't like *anyone* telling me what to do.

    2. Of course mothers are wonderful (especially as mine lurks on this site from time to time). But the route to redemption is through Christ and Christ alone. All of the saints are equally worthy of veneration; I don't believe in class-based division. Except for St. Dunstan, of course, because he was just cool (and the patron saint of bankers)*

    3. Symbolism vs. reality...

    * An example of Dunstan's coolness: the feud with Dunstan began on the day of Eadwig's coronation, when he failed to attend a meeting of nobles. When Dunstan eventually found the young monarch, he was cavorting with a noblewoman named Ælfgifu and her mother, and refused to return with the bishop. Infuriated by this, Dunstan dragged Eadwig back and forced him to renounce the girl as a "strumpet". Later realising that he had provoked the king, Dunstan fled to the apparent sanctuary of his cloister, but Eadwig, incited by Ælfgifu, whom he married, followed him and plundered the monastery "

    Well, this has got serious all of a sudden!

    1. That's rather a problem with God than with the Pope really. I don't like anyone telling me what to do either. Nor did my parents. I especially don't like priests telling me what to do. I think that has much to do with the Italian Catholicism I grew up with. But what Catholicism has given me is a sense of the sacred, that all of us - no matter who or what we are - are equally sacred and touched by divinity and worth beyond any value for that alone and a belief we are moral agents, that we have a choice between good and evil, that what is important is not to be perfect but to try our best and if we don't succeed (as we will most of the time) we get up and try again, that it is the trying that matters not the achievement, that forgiveness and love and charity matter, that having a moral compass, a conscience, that still small voice of calm is what matters most of all and that we will be judged not on our status, our money, our house but on how we did unto others.

    2. Redemption comes through Christ. Venerating Mary does not detract from that. We pray to Mary to intercede with Christ not to replace him.

    I think even the English in their hearts sort of understand this. After Diana died all those tributes in the park struck me as being exactly like the sort of shrines to Mary you see at the roadside in Southern Italy. To me it felt at times as if England had sort of stumbled upon its inner Catholicism, in a curious way.

    3. Can't really say any more.

    That patron saint of bankers must have been in agony these last few years.......!
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,653
    Crosstabs say it's Conservatives for Blair. Problem being that much more so than Lib Dems or Ukip, there are many Conservatives who will never vote Labour regardless of leader. He is on about forty per cent among other voters.
  • MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034
    Got to hand it to Bernie - very brave to go to the heart of Christian Conservatism to deliver a speech. Here's the report

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/09/14/bernie-sanders-liberty-university-speech-annotated/#
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.

    Premature death always makes people more popular, nobody likes to think ill of the dead.

    As Enoch Powell once said:
    All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
    It's weird but Smith's premature death is a tragic "cutting off in midstream" that means he is remembered fonder than he may otherwise have been for the same actions and achievements.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,008
    Blair and Smith clearly head and shoulders above everyone else and deservedly so, indeed alongside Attlee and Wilson they are the most successful Labour leaders by far (Smith denied an election victory in 1997 he would have surely won by his tragic early death). Corbyn will never be PM unlike Brown and will not reform Labour and take it forward in the way Kinnock did. If he is lucky he will do slightly better than Ed Miliband and Foot and gain Labour about 30-35% of the vote in 2020, more likely he will be toppled in 2/3 years, probably be replaced by Hilary Benn and be a best forgotten footnote in the party's history
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040
    It is also a bit stunning to reflect only one of these was ever elected PM. Three times. Labour have really forgotten that politics is supposed to put you in a place where you can actually change things.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    HYUFD said:

    PT (Last thread) There were some prominent assassinations of previous party leaders though, eg Hawke became Labour leader just months before the 1980 election and Keating's ousting of Hawke. Howard was himself involved in several leadership battles before he finally became P

    Occasional challenges are one thing and are inevitable, what's happened lately is something else. There is a clear difference between Rudd onwards and Howard and the three decades prior.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,713
    Cyclefree said:

    FPT for @Charles said:
    » show previous quotes

    "1. Matter of principle, innit. I don't like *anyone* telling me what to do.

    2. Of course mothers are wonderful (especially as mine lurks on this site from time to time). But the route to redemption is through Christ and Christ alone. All of the saints are equally worthy of veneration; I don't believe in class-based division. Except for St. Dunstan, of course, because he was just cool (and the patron saint of bankers)*

    3. Symbolism vs. reality...

    * An example of Dunstan's coolness: the feud with Dunstan began on the day of Eadwig's coronation, when he failed to attend a meeting of nobles. When Dunstan eventually found the young monarch, he was cavorting with a noblewoman named Ælfgifu and her mother, and refused to return with the bishop. Infuriated by this, Dunstan dragged Eadwig back and forced him to renounce the girl as a "strumpet". Later realising that he had provoked the king, Dunstan fled to the apparent sanctuary of his cloister, but Eadwig, incited by Ælfgifu, whom he married, followed him and plundered the monastery "

    Well, this has got serious all of a sudden!

    1. That's rather a problem with God than with the Pope really. I don't like anyone telling me what to do either. Nor did my parents. I especially don't like priests telling me what to do. I think that has much to do with the Italian Catholicism I grew up with. But what Catholicism has given me is a sense of the sacred, that all of us - no matter who or what we are - are equally sacred and touched by divinity and worth beyond any value for that alone and a belief we are moral agents, that we have a choice between good and evil, that what is important is not to be perfect but to try our best and if we don't succeed (as we will most of the time) we get up and try again, that it is the trying that matters not the achievement, that forgiveness and love and charity matter, that having a moral compass, a conscience, that still small voice of calm is what matters most of all and that we will be judged not on our status, our money, our house but on how we did unto others.

    2. Redemption comes through Christ. Venerating Mary does not detract from that. We pray to Mary to intercede with Christ not to replace him.

    I think even the English in their hearts sort of understand this. After Diana died all those tributes in the park struck me as being exactly like the sort of shrines to Mary you see at the roadside in Southern Italy. To me it felt at times as if England had sort of stumbled upon its inner Catholicism, in a curious way.

    3. Can't really say any more.

    That patron saint of bankers must have been in agony these last few years.......!

    I found the public reaction to Diana's death simply hysterical. Even bizarre.

    To this day, I didn't - and don't - understand it.
  • Plato_SaysPlato_Says Posts: 11,822
    Bar his famous Prawn Cocktail Offensive, I've no idea what he did either. I remember listening to LBC's predecessor reporting his death and the rather unseemly scrabble to name a replacement.

    But otherwise - not a clue. Assuming it's all that Best PM We Never Had mythology that pops up around these figures.

    I'd give Kinnock a much higher rating. Probably second to Blair.
    SimonStClare said:

    Why is John Smith so highly regarded? - He lead his party for two years in opposition but I have no idea what he achieved in the short time before his death.

  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656
    John Smith probably gets a fair rating because there's a lot of people that will think "Blair? War criminal. Corbyn? Crazy lefty. Brown? Crap. Miliband? Crap. Kinnock? Crap. Foot? Crap."
  • Danny565Danny565 Posts: 8,091
    Surely this depends on what your definition of "best" is? "Best" as in most electorally successful, well duh, obviously Blair. "Best" as in personal favourite would for me be someone different (probably Kinnock).
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 3,033
    why include corbyn on this when he's been leader for a day?
  • SquareRootSquareRoot Posts: 7,095
    JEO said:

    John Smith probably gets a fair rating because there's a lot of people that will think "Blair? War criminal. Corbyn? Crazy lefty. Brown? Crap. Miliband? Crap. Kinnock? Crap. Foot? Crap."

    The real question is .. "how many people actually know who Corbyn is.. I would have thought very few. Ditto John Smith.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040
    Philip_Thompson said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.

    Premature death always makes people more popular, nobody likes to think ill of the dead.

    As Enoch Powell once said:
    All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
    It's weird but Smith's premature death is a tragic "cutting off in midstream" that means he is remembered fonder than he may otherwise have been for the same actions and achievements.

    He was way before my time but he is not particularly fondly remembered in the Faculty of Advocates. The old hands claim he was immensely full of himself.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    HYUFD said:

    PT (Last thread) There were some prominent assassinations of previous party leaders though, eg Hawke became Labour leader just months before the 1980 election and Keating's ousting of Hawke. Howard was himself involved in several leadership battles before he finally became P

    Hawke did not become leader until beginning of 1983.
  • Danny565Danny565 Posts: 8,091
    Maybe John Smith's rating is caused by the many people who would have a friend/relative called John Smith assuming it refers to them.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,956
    Philip_Thompson said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.

    Premature death always makes people more popular, nobody likes to think ill of the dead.

    As Enoch Powell once said:
    All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
    It's weird but Smith's premature death is a tragic "cutting off in midstream" that means he is remembered fonder than he may otherwise have been for the same actions and achievements.

    I think that's a bit unfair on Smith, as there really wasn't anything to think ill of anyway, obviously when he died that view was cemented into place, but he was well regarded before he died too. A dour Edinburgh lawyer looked quite appealing to a lot of people at the time.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,658
    Danny565 said:

    Surely this depends on what your definition of "best" is? "Best" as in most electorally successful, well duh, obviously Blair. "Best" as in personal favourite would for me be someone different (probably Kinnock).

    While I thought Kinnock was dreadful his high point was the way he exorcised the militant left from the party
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,040
    Plato_Says said:

    Bar his famous Prawn Cocktail Offensive, I've no idea what he did either. I remember listening to LBC's predecessor reporting his death and the rather unseemly scrabble to name a replacement.

    But otherwise - not a clue. Assuming it's all that Best PM We Never Had mythology that pops up around these figures.

    I'd give Kinnock a much higher rating. Probably second to Blair.

    SimonStClare said:

    Why is John Smith so highly regarded? - He lead his party for two years in opposition but I have no idea what he achieved in the short time before his death.

    I agree.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,714
    SimonStClare said:

    Why is John Smith so highly regarded? - He lead his party for two years in opposition but I have no idea what he achieved in the short time before his death.

    Smith was leader during Black Wednesday - 'the day the Tory party died' (to quote a long-gone poster from here). Perhaps for that alone his place in history is sealed.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Razedabode said:

    why include corbyn on this when he's been leader for a day?

    And what a day it has been.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    Philip_Thompson said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.

    Premature death always makes people more popular, nobody likes to think ill of the dead.

    As Enoch Powell once said:
    All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
    It's weird but Smith's premature death is a tragic "cutting off in midstream" that means he is remembered fonder than he may otherwise have been for the same actions and achievements.

    I don't hear that said so often,though, about Hugh Gaitskell who at 56 was only a year older than John Smith.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,008
    justin124 said:

    HYUFD said:

    PT (Last thread) There were some prominent assassinations of previous party leaders though, eg Hawke became Labour leader just months before the 1980 election and Keating's ousting of Hawke. Howard was himself involved in several leadership battles before he finally became P

    Hawke did not become leader until beginning of 1983.
    Yes sorry should have changed that before posting and it was in fact even more dramatic and weeks before polling
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,713
    Philip_Thompson said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.

    Premature death always makes people more popular, nobody likes to think ill of the dead.

    The Left have no problem with Thatcher.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,956
    DavidL said:

    It is also a bit stunning to reflect only one of these was ever elected PM. Three times. Labour have really forgotten that politics is supposed to put you in a place where you can actually change things.

    I'm intensely relaxed about Labour pursuing their new "we're right, screw the voters" approach to politics.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Casino_Royale said:

    Cyclefree said:

    FPT for @Charles said:
    » show previous quotes

    "1. Matter of principle, innit. I don't like *anyone* telling me what to do.

    2. Of course mothers are wonderful (especially as mine lurks on this site from time to time). But the route to redemption is through Christ and Christ alone. All of the saints are equally worthy of veneration; I don't believe in class-based division. Except for St. Dunstan, of course, because he was just cool (and the patron saint of bankers)*

    3. Symbolism vs. reality...

    * An example of Dunstan's coolness: the feud with Dunstan began on the day of Eadwig's coronation, when he failed to attend a meeting of nobles. When Dunstan eventually found the young monarch, he was cavorting with a noblewoman named Ælfgifu and her mother, and refused to return with the bishop. Infuriated by this, Dunstan dragged Eadwig back and forced him to renounce the girl as a "strumpet". Later realising that he had provoked the king, Dunstan fled to the apparent sanctuary of his cloister, but Eadwig, incited by Ælfgifu, whom he married, followed him and plundered the monastery "

    Well, this has got serious all of a sudden!

    1. That's rather a problem with God than with the Pope really. I don't like anyone telling me what to do either. Nor did my parents. I especially don't like priests telling me what to do. I think that has much to do with the Italian Catholicism I grew up with. But what Catholicism has given me is a sense of the sacred, that all of us - no matter who or what we are - are equally sacred and touched by divinity and worth beyond any value for that alone and a belief we are moral agents, that we have a choice between good and evil, that what is important is not to be perfect but to try our best and if we don't succeed (as we will most of the time) we get up and try again, that it is the trying that matters not the achievement, that forgiveness and love and charity matter, that having a moral compass, a conscience, that still small voice of calm is what matters most of all and that we will be judged not on our status, our money, our house but on how we did unto others.

    2. Redemption comes through Christ. Venerating Mary does not detract from that. We pray to Mary to intercede with Christ not to replace him.

    I think even the English in their hearts sort of understand this. After Diana died all those tributes in the park struck me as being exactly like the sort of shrines to Mary you see at the roadside in Southern Italy. To me it felt at times as if England had sort of stumbled upon its inner Catholicism, in a curious way.

    3. Can't really say any more.

    That patron saint of bankers must have been in agony these last few years.......!

    I found the public reaction to Diana's death simply hysterical. Even bizarre.

    To this day, I didn't - and don't - understand it.
    Ditto
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    Danny565 said:

    Maybe John Smith's rating is caused by the many people who would have a friend/relative called John Smith assuming it refers to them.

    Or his name is taken as a generic Labour leader, voted for by those who are torn between tribal loyalty to the Labour brand and the painful reality that the actual embodiments of the brand are Blair, Corbyn, Brown, Miliband, Kinnock and Foot.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,008
    Philip_Thompson said:

    HYUFD said:

    PT (Last thread) There were some prominent assassinations of previous party leaders though, eg Hawke became Labour leader just months before the 1980 election and Keating's ousting of Hawke. Howard was himself involved in several leadership battles before he finally became P

    Occasional challenges are one thing and are inevitable, what's happened lately is something else. There is a clear difference between Rudd onwards and Howard and the three decades prior.
    Indeed, though Hawke and Howard were some of the best and most successful Australian PMs in history, Rudd, Gillard and Abbott rather less so
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,428
    Philip_Thompson said:

    Big_G_NorthWales said:

    MP_SE said:

    First like Corbyn.

    Edit: Actually second like Burnham.

    The same Andy Burnham who doesn't think it's time for a woman leader yet and then trashes Corbyn before taking the Home Sec job. The integrity of it all is unbeleva
    The same Burnham who couldn't score NHS points against the one the media loves to call Jeremy "rhymes with" Hunt
    Burnham, Burnham, rhymes with "meek"...
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,008
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.

    John Smith reformed the party further by introducing OMOV and had a double digit lead over the Tories before he died, he would almost certainly have won the 1997 election and probably the 2001 election too
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,049
    JEO said:

    John Smith probably gets a fair rating because there's a lot of people that will think "Blair? War criminal. Corbyn? Crazy lefty. Brown? Crap. Miliband? Crap. Kinnock? Crap. Foot? Crap."

    my vague recollection is that he looked and sounded like a serious-minded accountant or lawyer who would be vaguely competent at whatever he decided to do. He may well have been a radical leftie but he dressed as if he commuted into his London chambers every day from the Home Counties.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,986
    I've updated the chart so you can split between All voters and 2015 Lab voters
  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 3,100
    DavidL said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.

    Premature death always makes people more popular, nobody likes to think ill of the dead.

    As Enoch Powell once said:
    All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
    It's weird but Smith's premature death is a tragic "cutting off in midstream" that means he is remembered fonder than he may otherwise have been for the same actions and achievements.
    He was way before my time but he is not particularly fondly remembered in the Faculty of Advocates. The old hands claim he was immensely full of himself.

    Oh that stirs a memory!

    I came across Mr Smith & his entourage at York station once, walking in the opposite direction. I wouldn't have looked at the group twice, certainly wouldn't have recognised the central figure, had he not been walking in a manner that announced how important he was compared to his acolytes.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Casino_Royale said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.

    Premature death always makes people more popular, nobody likes to think ill of the dead.

    The Left have no problem with Thatcher.
    The Left have no problem with avoiding common decency.
  • philiphphiliph Posts: 4,704
    Big_G_NorthWales said:

    Danny565 said:

    Surely this depends on what your definition of "best" is? "Best" as in most electorally successful, well duh, obviously Blair. "Best" as in personal favourite would for me be someone different (probably Kinnock).

    While I thought Kinnock was dreadful his high point was the way he exorcised the militant left from the party
    Looks like he'll get his party back including the left needing to be exorcised again.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,389
    This pic - Anybody else still like, Whhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttttttt??????

    http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03439/corbyn-frontbench_3439601b.jpg
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,714
    Why do they start their list of 'modern' leaders with Foot anyway? I was a alive when Wilson and Sunny Jim stalked the earth and I don't consider myself as medieval.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    HYUFD said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.

    John Smith reformed the party further by introducing OMOV and had a double digit lead over the Tories before he died, he would almost certainly have won the 1997 election and probably the 2001 election too
    He might well have done, who knows? He seemed decent enough and bright enough, in the Alistair Darling mould. But in terms of actual achievement as leader, sadly he died after less than two years in office, so we'll never really know.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    edited September 2015
    Stark_Dawning said:

    Why do they start their list of 'modern' leaders with Foot anyway? I was a alive when Wilson and Sunny Jim stalked the earth and I don't consider myself as medieval.

    Whatever you say, Great-Grandad. ;)
  • TCPoliticalBettingTCPoliticalBetting Posts: 10,819
    GIN1138 said:

    This pic - Anybody else still like, Whhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttttttt??????

    http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03439/corbyn-frontbench_3439601b.jpg

    What a lineup of er talent?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    glw said:

    Philip_Thompson said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.

    Premature death always makes people more popular, nobody likes to think ill of the dead.

    As Enoch Powell once said:
    All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
    It's weird but Smith's premature death is a tragic "cutting off in midstream" that means he is remembered fonder than he may otherwise have been for the same actions and achievements.
    I think that's a bit unfair on Smith, as there really wasn't anything to think ill of anyway, obviously when he died that view was cemented into place, but he was well regarded before he died too. A dour Edinburgh lawyer looked quite appealing to a lot of people at the time.

    But that's the point! There was nothing to think ill of as he died before he faced political reality. Had Blair died after a few years he would never have been known for Iraq and would have only had a rosy legacy for example.

    Had he either lost an election, or won and then faced tough decisions as PM then either way people would inevitably find things to be annoyed by. It is relatively easy not to annoy people as leader of the opposition - as an election loser or as PM that is not so easy.
  • Danny565Danny565 Posts: 8,091
    GIN1138 said:

    This pic - Anybody else still like, Whhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttttttt??????

    http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03439/corbyn-frontbench_3439601b.jpg

    It does sometimes feel like we're all in someone's weird dream.
  • Plato_SaysPlato_Says Posts: 11,822
    Whatever happened to your avatar's career post Plebgate?
    Stark_Dawning said:

    Why do they start their list of 'modern' leaders with Foot anyway? I was a alive when Wilson and Sunny Jim stalked the earth and I don't consider myself as medieval.

  • MyBurningEarsMyBurningEars Posts: 3,651
    DavidL said:

    kingbongo said:

    All I can say about this is that Kinnick must be gutted - in his mind he saved the Labour party and prepared it for Blair and yet in the minds of voters he languishes as an unmissed windbag at the bottom of the pile with Foot

    Quite so. To be ranked below Ed, sheesh. That's harsh.
    Funnily enough, there's something in Kinnock for everyone to like. I'm sure even diehard Tories can appreciate his battle against Militant, which rendered a Trotskyist takeover of the UK from "unlikely but possible" (one well-aimed blow from clinching the party, one Tory scandal from seizing the country) to "laughingly implausible".

    Labour modernists can see how he laid the way for Blair.

    But then, during the Blair years, ardent socialists would look back with nostalgia to Kinnock and his passionate calls for better life-chances for the poor...

    I wonder if Kinnock's been rated so low precisely because there's something in there for everyone, just not enough. (The most hardcore socialists prefer Foot, most traditionalists invest their dreams on the could-have-beens with Smith, the Tories prefer Blair...)
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,338
    kle4 said:

    Casino_Royale said:

    Cyclefree said:

    FPT for @Charles said:
    » show previous quotes


    Well, this has got serious all of a sudden!

    1. That's rather a problem with God than with the Pope really. I don't like anyone telling me what to do either. Nor did my parents. I especially don't like priests telling me what to do. I think that has much to do with the Italian Catholicism I grew up with. But what Catholicism has given me is a sense of the sacred, that all of us - no matter who or what we are - are equally sacred and touched by divinity and worth beyond any value for that alone and a belief we are moral agents, that we have a choice between good and evil, that what is important is not to be perfect but to try our best and if we don't succeed (as we will most of the time) we get up and try again, that it is the trying that matters not the achievement, that forgiveness and love and charity matter, that having a moral compass, a conscience, that still small voice of calm is what matters most of all and that we will be judged not on our status, our money, our house but on how we did unto others.

    2. Redemption comes through Christ. Venerating Mary does not detract from that. We pray to Mary to intercede with Christ not to replace him.

    I think even the English in their hearts sort of understand this. After Diana died all those tributes in the park struck me as being exactly like the sort of shrines to Mary you see at the roadside in Southern Italy. To me it felt at times as if England had sort of stumbled upon its inner Catholicism, in a curious way.

    3. Can't really say any more.

    That patron saint of bankers must have been in agony these last few years.......!

    I found the public reaction to Diana's death simply hysterical. Even bizarre.

    To this day, I didn't - and don't - understand it.
    Ditto
    Nor did I on one level. There was also an undercurrent of nasty emotional bullying, not just of the Royal Family but of anyone who thought it was OTT for people to be so excessively sad at the death of someone they did not know. But on another level it seemed no different from the sort of religious hysteria you get in other contexts. That's why it struck me as having a quasi-religious quality, particularly with the candles, photos and "you spoke for us" tributes.

    People forgot that practically the first thing Diana did when she finally got her financial settlement was to dump all but 3 of the charities she'd been associated with, even though now she presumably had more time to help. It seemed a rather selfish and mean-minded thing to do and quite out of kilter with the aura of sainthood subsequently bestowed on her. Nor did she leave any money to charity in her will, which plenty of people with far less to give manage to do.

  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,082
    Jeremy Corbyn has been leader of the Labour Party for about 56 hours. In this time, half of the shadow cabinet quit and said they would not serve under him. The front bench team he put together is the most rag-tag-and-bobtail in the party's post-war history. He's appointed a man who believes in the overthrow of capitalism as shadow chancellor. His team apparently proudly presented a shadow minister for Jews. He was still struggling to find a communities spokesman half an hour before communities questions. He's taken the singular approach to media management of avoiding the media, and when this isn't possible, ignoring them. And the Labour Party's headquarters has caught fire.
    All of this apparently places him third in Labourr's list of best-ever leaders.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,986
    Danny565 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    This pic - Anybody else still like, Whhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttttttt??????

    http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03439/corbyn-frontbench_3439601b.jpg

    It does sometimes feel like we're all in someone's weird dream.
    I struggled to type last night "Corbyn's appointed John McDonnell as shadow chancellor"

    It felt so wrong
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    TheScreamingEagles said:

    I've updated the chart so you can split between All voters and 2015 Lab voters

    What is striking about that is the rather small difference regarding Blair, overwhelmingly the top choice (even allowing for Iraq ) amongst both all voters and Labour voters . He's the guy whom the Labour Party now regards as some kind of plague-infested rat.
  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903
    TOPPING said:

    JEO said:

    John Smith probably gets a fair rating because there's a lot of people that will think "Blair? War criminal. Corbyn? Crazy lefty. Brown? Crap. Miliband? Crap. Kinnock? Crap. Foot? Crap."

    my vague recollection is that he looked and sounded like a serious-minded accountant or lawyer who would be vaguely competent at whatever he decided to do. He may well have been a radical leftie but he dressed as if he commuted into his London chambers every day from the Home Counties.
    AND could fasten his tie and top button properly.
  • Plato_SaysPlato_Says Posts: 11,822
    Someone mentioned elsewhere that she'd only known Dodi for 30 days before she died - it certainly didn't feel like that at the time!
    Cyclefree said:

    kle4 said:

    Casino_Royale said:

    Cyclefree said:

    FPT for @Charles said:
    » show previous quotes


    Well, this has got serious all of a sudden!

    snip

    2. Redemption comes through Christ. Venerating Mary does not detract from that. We pray to Mary to intercede with Christ not to replace him.

    I think even the English in their hearts sort of understand this. After Diana died all those tributes in the park struck me as being exactly like the sort of shrines to Mary you see at the roadside in Southern Italy. To me it felt at times as if England had sort of stumbled upon its inner Catholicism, in a curious way.

    3. Can't really say any more.

    That patron saint of bankers must have been in agony these last few years.......!

    I found the public reaction to Diana's death simply hysterical. Even bizarre.

    To this day, I didn't - and don't - understand it.
    Ditto
    Nor did I on one level. There was also an undercurrent of nasty emotional bullying, not just of the Royal Family but of anyone who thought it was OTT for people to be so excessively sad at the death of someone they did not know. But on another level it seemed no different from the sort of religious hysteria you get in other contexts. That's why it struck me as having a quasi-religious quality, particularly with the candles, photos and "you spoke for us" tributes.

    People forgot that practically the first thing Diana did when she finally got her financial settlement was to dump all but 3 of the charities she'd been associated with, even though now she presumably had more time to help. It seemed a rather selfish and mean-minded thing to do and quite out of kilter with the aura of sainthood subsequently bestowed on her. Nor did she leave any money to charity in her will, which plenty of people with far less to give manage to do.

  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    Danny565 said:

    Maybe John Smith's rating is caused by the many people who would have a friend/relative called John Smith assuming it refers to them.

    Or his name is taken as a generic Labour leader, voted for by those who are torn between tribal loyalty to the Labour brand and the painful reality that the actual embodiments of the brand are Blair, Corbyn, Brown, Miliband, Kinnock and Foot.
    They should have put one of those fake names in that show how little the respondents actually know. In this case they could have chosen R MacDonald.
  • MyBurningEarsMyBurningEars Posts: 3,651
    edited September 2015
    Plato_Says said:

    Bar his famous Prawn Cocktail Offensive, I've no idea what he did either. I remember listening to LBC's predecessor reporting his death and the rather unseemly scrabble to name a replacement.

    But otherwise - not a clue. Assuming it's all that Best PM We Never Had mythology that pops up around these figures.

    I'd give Kinnock a much higher rating. Probably second to Blair.

    SimonStClare said:

    Why is John Smith so highly regarded? - He lead his party for two years in opposition but I have no idea what he achieved in the short time before his death.

    Got to love Hezza.
    I hear wherever I go that the right honourable and learned gentleman has become a star attraction in the City. Lunch after lunch, dinner after dinner, the assurances flow. Not a discordant crumb falls on to the thick pile.... All those prawn cocktails for nothing. Never have so many crustaceans died in vain. With all the authority I can command as Secretary of State for the Environment, let me say to the Right Honourable and learned member for Monklands East [John Smith], "save the prawns"
    Is my memory deceiving me, or during the Miliband era was there an effort to flump out shadow ministers to businesses as "interns" so they could pretend they knew what the "real world" looked like? Think that was rather lower than the so-called prawn cocktails, though I may be biased as I am a crustacean fan.
  • GarethoftheVale2GarethoftheVale2 Posts: 2,247
    FPT - As a cross border seat Morley and Outwood is highly unlikely to remain in its current form after the boundary changes. Leeds loses a whole seat and as it has very large ward sizes it means major changes to all the seats. In the abandoned review I believe the plan was to pair Morley with Tong in Bradford which would probably flip it back to Lab but still leave it very marginal
  • glwglw Posts: 9,956
    Philip_Thompson said:

    But that's the point! There was nothing to think ill of as he died before he faced political reality. Had Blair died after a few years he would never have been known for Iraq and would have only had a rosy legacy for example.

    Had he either lost an election, or won and then faced tough decisions as PM then either way people would inevitably find things to be annoyed by. It is relatively easy not to annoy people as leader of the opposition - as an election loser or as PM that is not so easy.

    I get what you mean, but I think it's important to say that Smith was well regarded before he died, not just because he died.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,714
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    TheScreamingEagles said:

    I've updated the chart so you can split between All voters and 2015 Lab voters

    What is striking about that is the rather small difference regarding Blair, overwhelmingly the top choice (even allowing for Iraq ) amongst both all voters and Labour voters . He's the guy whom the Labour Party now regards as some kind of plague-infested rat.
    Perhaps today's the day that Blair nostalgia finally kicks in.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,008
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    HYUFD said:

    Richard_Nabavi said:

    To be fair, one has to be extremely sceptical of any poll which has John Smith at 22%. I doubt whether one tenth of that number have the faintest clue who he was, and even those of us old enough to remember him find it hard to remember anything distinctive other than a vague impression that he was a dour Edinburgh lawyer.

    John Smith reformed the party further by introducing OMOV and had a double digit lead over the Tories before he died, he would almost certainly have won the 1997 election and probably the 2001 election too
    He might well have done, who knows? He seemed decent enough and bright enough, in the Alistair Darling mould. But in terms of actual achievement as leader, sadly he died after less than two years in office, so we'll never really know.
    The final poll before John Smith died on May 12th 1994 from Gallup had Labour on 45.5% the Tories on 24.5%. Smith was certainly a far more moderate leader than Corbyn even if not as centrist as Blair and I also doubt he would have made the mistake of taking us into Iraq which his successor did

    http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/historical-polls/voting-intention-1992-1997
  • Plato_SaysPlato_Says Posts: 11,822
    :smiley:
    MyBurningEars said:

    Plato_Says said:

    Bar his famous Prawn Cocktail Offensive, I've no idea what he did either. I remember listening to LBC's predecessor reporting his death and the rather unseemly scrabble to name a replacement.

    But otherwise - not a clue. Assuming it's all that Best PM We Never Had mythology that pops up around these figures.

    I'd give Kinnock a much higher rating. Probably second to Blair.

    SimonStClare said:

    Why is John Smith so highly regarded? - He lead his party for two years in opposition but I have no idea what he achieved in the short time before his death.

    Got to love Hezza.
    I hear wherever I go that the right honourable and learned gentleman has become a star attraction in the City. Lunch after lunch, dinner after dinner, the assurances flow. Not a discordant crumb falls on to the thick pile.... All those prawn cocktails for nothing. Never have so many crustaceans died in vain. With all the authority I can command as Secretary of State for the Environment, let me say to the Right Honourable and learned member for Monklands East [John Smith], "save the prawns"
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,246
    SimonStClare said:
    Why is John Smith so highly regarded? - He lead his party for two years in opposition but I have no idea what he achieved in the short time before his death.

    He was the father of New Labour and the idea that well off property owning middle classes like himself could comfortably vote Labour. New Labour for aspirational middle classes had its origins in Scotland in the mid eighties
  • alex.alex. Posts: 4,658
    FPT
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    alex. said:

    it would be politically stupid to give Cameron a free rein on negotiation, allowing him to negotiate away things that the left consider important.

    But this is tosh. The negotiation isn't about 'things that the left consider important', it's about where the policy should be decided. As regards workers' right, all that the Conservatives are saying is that these should be decided by parliament, not some unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels. This would mean that a future extreme left-wing government could introduce measures to make employment less attractive to employers, if it so wished.
    Hi Richard. I think you are missing the point i am making (and perhaps why the left see workers' rights as something to be determined on a Pan European basis). I am not saying that this negotiation will in itself reduce workers rights. But simply returning such an issue to the control of the UK Govt is in the eyes of the left probably tantamount to the same thing. Especially in the context where there is no obvious imminent return to power for Labour.

    Leaving aside the point about unaccountable bureaucrats it is perfectly logical for the left to favour minimum workers rights to be laid down across the single market. It is a logical corollary. Just as in the UK the Union movement started by lobbying individual business owners, but eventually realised that the only solution was to form a national party and get minimum standards laid down in law. And that doesn't matter whether they took the view that all bosses were uncaring penny pinchers and needed to be forced to adopt minimum standards, or that bosses were a mixture, and the good employers needed the protection of minimum standards to prevent their efforts being undercut by those that exploited their workforce to the maximum. (It is also why, in the modern world, the left needs to do far more in pushing for minimum working standards in Developing countries - because poor standards in those places undercut the workers in the richer nations).

    Basically, back on the EU, the left believe that without minimum standards laid down by the EU, the workers across the continent will lose out from a race to the bottom. And if they believe that then they would be stupid to signal in advance that Cameron could freely negotiate away those standards (by bringing control back to the UK) without giving him pause for thought that it could lead to the complication of Labour (or elements of) campaigning for "out".
  • notmenotme Posts: 3,293
    It is a reminder how far removed the activist base who elected Corbyn are from the general mood of the wider labour voter, and the country as a whole. Blair is thought of as little more than a devil. If his name was mentioned, audiences would hiss. Yet here we are out of a field of seven, he gets 43% of labour voters. To the general public he is not a monster, a war criminal or a crook. Just someone who seemed a pretty good PM.

    Yet we just had a leadership election in which trashing him, and the government he led was the main course.
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 14,142
    Nick Boles is really rather eloquent. Must be promoted to SoS soon....
  • GravitationGravitation Posts: 287
    Danny565 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    This pic - Anybody else still like, Whhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttttttt??????

    http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03439/corbyn-frontbench_3439601b.jpg

    It does sometimes feel like we're all in someone's weird dream.
    I have been wondering since Saturday whether someone slipped some powerful hallucinogenic drug into my tea and it hasn't worn off yet.
  • alex.alex. Posts: 4,658
    notme said:

    It is a reminder how far removed the activist base who elected Corbyn are from the general mood of the wider labour voter, and the country as a whole. Blair is thought of as little more than a devil. If his name was mentioned, audiences would hiss. Yet here we are out of a field of seven, he gets 43% of labour voters. To the general public he is not a monster, a war criminal or a crook. Just someone who seemed a pretty good PM.

    Yet we just had a leadership election in which trashing him, and the government he led was the main course.

    When is Corbyn intending to apologise for Iraq? Or is he waiting for Chilcott...
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    This NewYorker piece says Corbyn 'makes Bernie Sanders look like Ted Cruz' - can that possibly be true? Certainly it is not piece favourable to Corbyn, but opponents can be right sometimes, but that just seems unlikely, surely?

    http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-corbyn-supremacy
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,713
    House has now divided. Don't know when the result is due. Prob 10-15 mins.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    edited September 2015
    HYUFD said:

    The final poll before John Smith died on May 12th 1994 from Gallup had Labour on 45.5% the Tories on 24.5%. Smith was certainly a far more moderate leader than Corbyn even if not as centrist as Blair and I also doubt he would have made the mistake of taking us into Iraq which his successor did

    I agree. Nor would Alistair Darling, Charles Clarke, Alan Millburn, Robin Cook, John Reid, Peter Mandelson, or even Jack Straw, if the decision had been left to him. Hell, even Brown would probably have been much more cautious, if the decision had been his. So what? Iraq was a catastrophic misjudgement by Blair, which few others would have made in his position. You can only claim half a Brownie point for not being as disastrously mesmerised by presidential star-dust as Blair.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,338
    Plato_Says said:

    Someone mentioned elsewhere that she'd only known Dodi for 30 days before she died - it certainly didn't feel like that at the time!

    Cyclefree said:

    kle4 said:

    Casino_Royale said:

    Cyclefree said:

    FPT for @Charles said:
    » show previous quotes


    Well, this has got serious all of a sudden!

    snip

    2. Redemption comes through Christ. Venerating Mary does not detract from that. We pray to Mary to intercede with Christ not to replace him.

    I think even the English in their hearts sort of understand this. After Diana died all those tributes in the park struck me as being exactly like the sort of shrines to Mary you see at the roadside in Southern Italy. To me it felt at times as if England had sort of stumbled upon its inner Catholicism, in a curious way.

    3. Can't really say any more.

    That patron saint of bankers must have been in agony these last few years.......!

    I found the public reaction to Diana's death simply hysterical. Even bizarre.

    To this day, I didn't - and don't - understand it.
    Ditto
    Nor did I on one level. There was also an undercurrent of nasty emotional bullying, not just of the Royal Family but of anyone who thought it was OTT for people to be so excessively sad at the death of someone they did not know. But on another level it seemed no different from the sort of religious hysteria you get in other contexts. That's why it struck me as having a quasi-religious quality, particularly with the candles, photos and "you spoke for us" tributes.

    People forgot that practically the first thing Diana did when she finally got her financial settlement was to dump all but 3 of the charities she'd been associated with, even though now she presumably had more time to help. It seemed a rather selfish and mean-minded thing to do and quite out of kilter with the aura of sainthood subsequently bestowed on her. Nor did she leave any money to charity in her will, which plenty of people with far less to give manage to do.

    She was racketing around with rich people she barely knew (and who rather used her - both before and after her death IMO) - because she had no real friends and seemed to be largely estranged from her own family. It was rather sad in a way.

  • blackburn63blackburn63 Posts: 4,492
    SimonStClare said:

    Why is John Smith so highly regarded? - He lead his party for two years in opposition but I have no idea what he achieved in the short time before his death.

    The Smith myth is a bit like the David Miliband one, both are revered for what they could/should/would have been rather than what they actually achieved.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,714
    Of course, before we get too carried away with Blair's stratospheric ratings here, he is the only one on the list to have a won a general election. Perhaps the respondents were coolly making their assessments on results, rather than historico-ethical musings.
  • MyBurningEarsMyBurningEars Posts: 3,651
    edited September 2015
    kle4 said:

    This NewYorker piece says Corbyn 'makes Bernie Sanders look like Ted Cruz' - can that possibly be true? Certainly it is not piece favourable to Corbyn, but opponents can be right sometimes, but that just seems unlikely, surely?

    http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-corbyn-supremacy

    From memory, and following a quick read, The New Yorker piece is riddled with errors, such as claiming party members had to pay £3 to vote (and getting details wrong on how trade union members could vote).
  • PaulyPauly Posts: 897
    edited September 2015
    What are the odds on Corbyn rebelling by mistake out of habit? :D
  • alex.alex. Posts: 4,658
    edited September 2015
    Smith gets high ratings because of the article of faith among anti-Blairites that he would have won handsomely in 1997. Believing this is a necessary corollary to the view that Blairism was an unnecessary aberration for the Labour party. His presumed victory in 1997 is the antidote to the fact that no Labour leader other than Blair has secured an outright majority since Wilson.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    alex. said:

    Smith gets high ratings because of the article of faith among anti-Blairites that he would have won handsomely in 1997. Believing this is a necessary corollary to the view that Blairism was an unnecessary aberration. His presumed victory in 1997 is the antidote to the fact that no Labour leader other than Blair has secured an outright majority since Wilson.

    That's a very perceptive post.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 124,008
    Richard_Nabavi said:

    HYUFD said:

    The final poll before John Smith died on May 12th 1994 from Gallup had Labour on 45.5% the Tories on 24.5%. Smith was certainly a far more moderate leader than Corbyn even if not as centrist as Blair and I also doubt he would have made the mistake of taking us into Iraq which his successor did

    I agree. Nor would Alistair Darling, Charles Clarke, Alan Millburn, Robin Cook, John Reid, Peter Mandelson, or even Jack Straw, if the decision had been left to him. Hell, even Brown would probably have been much more cautious, if the decision had been his. So what? Iraq was a catastrophic misjudgement by Blair, which few others would have made in his position. You can only claim half a Brownie point for not being as disastrously mesmerised by presidential star-dust as Blair.
    Indeed, but, for good or ill, that policy will define Blair's legacy
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,338
    FF43 said:

    SimonStClare said:
    Why is John Smith so highly regarded? - He lead his party for two years in opposition but I have no idea what he achieved in the short time before his death.

    He was the father of New Labour and the idea that well off property owning middle classes like himself could comfortably vote Labour. New Labour for aspirational middle classes had its origins in Scotland in the mid eighties

    I don't agree. It was his budget that likely lost Labour the 1992 election. I think his Scottishness would have made it harder for him and Labour to understand the English middle classes in the way that Blair did. He did not exude an air of incompetence and menace. He frightened no-one. But I think his instincts would have been much more collectivist, much more statist, much more in favour of high taxation and much less willing to challenge Labour sacred cows and therefore while he might have won one election, I'm not sure he'd have had the sort of success Blair had.

  • MyBurningEarsMyBurningEars Posts: 3,651
    The New Yorker piece also gets wrong that Corbyn might object to joining the the Privy Council because of the religious oath sworn over a Bible - it is, of course, possible to affirm.
  • flightpath01flightpath01 Posts: 4,903
    Plato_Says said:

    Someone mentioned elsewhere that she'd only known Dodi for 30 days before she died - it certainly didn't feel like that at the time!

    Cyclefree said:

    kle4 said:

    Casino_Royale said:

    Cyclefree said:

    FPT for @Charles said:
    » show previous quotes


    Well, this has got serious all of a sudden!

    snip

    2. Redemption comes through Christ. Venerating Mary does not detract from that. We pray to Mary to intercede with Christ not to replace him.

    I think even the English in their hearts sort of understand this. After Diana died all those tributes in the park struck me as being exactly like the sort of shrines to Mary you see at the roadside in Southern Italy. To me it felt at times as if England had sort of stumbled upon its inner Catholicism, in a curious way.

    3. Can't really say any more.

    That patron saint of bankers must have been in agony these last few years.......!

    I found the public reaction to Diana's death simply hysterical. Even bizarre.

    To this day, I didn't - and don't - understand it.
    Ditto
    Nor did I on one level. There was also an undercurrent of nasty emotional bullying, not just of the Royal Family but of anyone who thought it was OTT for people to be so excessively sad at the death of someone they did not know. But on another level it seemed no different from the sort of religious hysteria you get in other contexts. That's why it struck me as having a quasi-religious quality, particularly with the candles, photos and "you spoke for us" tributes.

    People forgot that practically the first thing Diana did when she finally got her financial settlement was to dump all but 3 of the charities she'd been associated with, even though now she presumably had more time to help. It seemed a rather selfish and mean-minded thing to do and quite out of kilter with the aura of sainthood subsequently bestowed on her. Nor did she leave any money to charity in her will, which plenty of people with far less to give manage to do.

    The only person to survive the crash was the person wearing his seatbelt.
  • PaulyPauly Posts: 897
    edited September 2015
    MyBurningEars said:

    The New Yorker piece also gets wrong that Corbyn might object to joining the the Privy Council because of the religious oath sworn over a Bible - it is, of course, possible to affirm.

    He's been approved anyway right? I thought it was his republicanism that was the problem...
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/privy-council-appointment-jeremy-corbyn-mp
  • MyBurningEarsMyBurningEars Posts: 3,651
    edited September 2015
    Pauly said:

    MyBurningEars said:

    The New Yorker piece also gets wrong that Corbyn might object to joining the the Privy Council because of the religious oath sworn over a Bible - it is, of course, possible to affirm.

    He's been approved anyway right? I thought it was his republicanism that was the problem...
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/privy-council-appointment-jeremy-corbyn-mp
    Indeed, I was only commenting on the inaccuracy of the article even at the time, rather than a criticism of the writer's foresight. The New Yorker made a point of him being unwilling to do so partly because the ceremony involved swearing on a Bible and Corbyn is an atheist, the former being a clear factual error.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,736
    TU bashers win 317 - 284
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,713
    Ayes - 317
    Nos - 284

    Trade Union Bill passes 2nd reading.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,682
    2nd Reading Trade Union Bill
    Ayes 317
    No 284
  • PaulyPauly Posts: 897
    edited September 2015
    317 to 284
    Corbynite tears will be all over twitter :cold_sweat:
  • alex.alex. Posts: 4,658
    edited September 2015
    Pauly said:

    MyBurningEars said:

    The New Yorker piece also gets wrong that Corbyn might object to joining the the Privy Council because of the religious oath sworn over a Bible - it is, of course, possible to affirm.

    He's been approved anyway right? I thought it was his republicanism that was the problem...
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/privy-council-appointment-jeremy-corbyn-mp
    He's taken up the official car as well. He might begin to enjoy the high life. In the interests of prolonging it, maybe he'll decide that he's been on the wrong track for 30 years and rapidly reassess how his political views might have evolved over that time had he had any interest in pursuing political power before a couple of months ago. And rapidly bring his policies into line!
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,986
    bigjohnowls said:

    TU bashers win 317 - 284

    Oh that's given me the horn.
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