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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Antifrank says Corbyn’s strategy is – “We only have to be
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Antifrank says Corbyn’s strategy is – “We only have to be lucky once”
Few political leaders can have made such an immediate impact as Jeremy Corbyn. Much of that impact has generated bemusement and hostility. His actions suggest a man who has quite different aims from a conventional leader. In his speeches since he has been elected, he has not mentioned Labour’s election defeat. He has not courted the media. He has not made an appeal to floating voters. And a…
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Tachinid Corbynistas.
Classic strategy.
Since Lord Brittan is now dead and the case is crumbling, Mr Watson has no right any longer to hide behind the police. He either has to tell the world why he thinks as he does and prove his point; or, if he no longer believes his “witnesses”, he should admit his error. Then he should accept that he abused his position to repeat, without good cause, some of the most disgusting things that can ever be said about anyone. Then he should admit that he is unfit to hold public office.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11923196/Tom-Watson-must-prove-his-point-or-admit-he-is-unfit-for-public-office.html#disqus_thread
We already know that the Army will move first to remove them
Then he won!
At the moment he rather reminds me of the Roger McGough poem
"I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?"
The thing to remember about Corbyn's election is that he stood at the right time. His Party's membership had had a chance to digest the implications of 13 years in office continuously, never known before, and discovered that, so far as they were concerned, it meant they'd turned into Tory-lite. They prefer oppositionism.
Although it is behaving like a bunch of Seventh Day Adventists fired with the zeal of the Holy Spirit, Labour's right to exist is not God-given. If Corbyn's leadership destroys them, and if the Conservative leadership behaves more sensibly than Thatcher did in the late 1980s, there is no reason why the Conservatives cannot remain in power beyond 2030.
It would of course be a very bad government indeed by the end (not that it's the greatest government of all time at the moment) but that's a different problem.
Unfortunately, your analysis makes a lot of sense. A real danger for the Labour party - but of their own doing.
I think the problem is that there are a great many Labour activists who like to think of themselves as The Good Guys, who only ever act from the highest motives. And from my personal experience, a lot of them are people genuinely fired by a desire to improve the lot of ordinary people and enraged by the injustices they see in the world.
However, when you deal with the messy realities of government, you sometimes have to do things that are not very good, because the alternatives are even worse. That doesn't worry Tories, who pride themselves on their pragmatism and sense of duty, which allows them to take those decisions however painful without psychological scarring. But for Labour members, it damages their image of themselves and causes them actual trauma. I don't think the increasing radicalisation and violence of the Left since the days of Blair is any coincidence - I think it's an attempt to prove to themselves that they are still the Good People and their enemies are the Bad People (spot the irony there)!
So opposition is a lot more comfortable for them than government, because you can carp, but not have to do anything that sullies your sense of self-worth. The only snag is, it means you can't do anything good for the people you want to help either - and that's something Labour appears unwilling to deal with at the moment.
For every election defeat that Labour suffers/the Tories win the country will move further to the right, then the centre of politics will move to the right. In this Parliament we are already seeing changes such as the tax credit reforms, changes to union legislation, privatisations etc - these will continue for five years and be the "new normal" in five years time.
If Labour lose again next time and Corbyn retires (as he'd have to) but a Corbynite takes over in 2020 then the Hard Left still have control of Labour but the Tories still have control of government. There will be five more years of reforms by Osborne, May or whoever else wins the leadership. The "new normal" at the time of the 2025 election will not be like the normal of today.
Ultimately even if a Hard Left party 'gets lucky once' the party won't just have to make changes from today's status quo but the status quo of the future - while abandoning and attempt at governing the country between now and then.
I haven't gone away you know ....
Good post, Mr. Antifrank.
Mr. D, nice idea but:
1) There isn't a Liberal Party [ok, there is, but it's tiny]
2) The Lib Dems have fewer than 10 seats
3) Labour has over 200 seats
For Labour to fail, a replacement party needs to arise.
The Greens and Lib Dems are too small. UKIP has a history of stupid electoral strategies coupled with a leader who's made himself look a damned fool. The SNP are already in a dominant position in the constituencies they'll contest.
If all disaffected leftwingers jumped one way, that could give the Lib Dems or UKIP a critical advantage, but as I imagine left voters will split between various parties and just not voting it's hard to see a challenger to Labour's status as official opposition party.
We listen to the people and march forward together. If they have inconvenient opinions, it's because the capitalist pigdogs have been force-feeding them propaganda. Education is the panacea. Education to remove false consciousness.
I suppose most of the Jezbollah are young. Marxism is an interesting concept - it's never been tried before, so why not give it a go? Capitalism is so last century, whenever that was.
They'll gradually become disillusioned, learn from it and move on. And Jezza will remain with a few acolytes, the nutter on the bus baying at the moon.
EDIT - sorry, I've read your comment again and I see I misunderstood. I would think that probably 2-3 very left-wing posters (no names, no pack drill) do, and have convinced themselves that our doubts are the function of fear and panic. But the truth is, that's them wishfully thinking that PB is still more unrepresentative of the country than Labour list - which it isn't.
(On a serious note, see correction above.)
The point is that saying veering to the right guarantees electoral success is no longer convincing after two defeats in a row.
(If so, could he please let me know how to control mine?)
And Labour has moved to the left since it last won an election. It has certainly not "veered to the right".
The point however is that if Labour's right (or centrists, modernisers or whatever you want to call them) wish to regain control, they need to understand that having just lost two elections is not a convincing argument to those who voted for Corbyn.
I still don't think they've realised just how completely they're screwed after the leadership election result.
They might not. But the rest of us will.
Good article, Antifrank.
Beat their breasts, gnash their teeth, flog their backs and wail lamentations of unending woe.
I exaggerate for comic effect, but it really was stupid for them, and bad for British democracy.
Though Brown increasing spending by 50% in real terms was not to the right of the country, not was Ed "no we didn't spend too much" Miliband.
There are times when there is nothing to be done. I think this is one of those times. Unless Corbyn dies in the next year or so, or becomes so ill he cannot continue - and that's certainly not something I think anyone in the Labour party would arrange - I think they are stuck in the situation you describe.
Jeremy Corbyn Will Never Be First Lord Of The Treasury
They won't. But it's not impossible, or wouldn't be, had they the nerve, the guts and the wits. But they'll dither and pretend they're biding their time for opportunity whilst every scrap of power they still retain is drained away.
The Lib Dems are deceased and will not take over without a Labour schism. Which seems to be what the Corbynites seem to want by being so vitriolic with "red Tories" like Kendall.
- a Labour party with less dependence on Union funding = more electable
- Unions with greater democratic mandates for their actions = more powerful and likely to generate more public support
Edited extra bit: indiscipline, not indifference.
Labour's main problems in 2015 were that the party leadership had a series of disjointed, sometimes inconsistent policies that did not appeal to the majority of the public, and they were led by a man who was a nice guy, but a very poor leader.
Neither problem was strictly one of positioning to the left or right. The problems were fundamentally of poor leadership and (with one or two exceptions) terrible leadership teams.
This gives a little hope to Corbyn. If (and it is a big if) he can get together a set of consistent policies that can be sold by a first-rate media-savvy team, then he could beat a government that still has to make hard choices and will have uncertain leadership.
The problems Labour faces are that Corbyn himself is easy to caricature and ridicule (as Labour unsuccessfully tried to do themselves with Cameron), and his current leadership team is as far from media-savvy as it is possible to get.
They need to sell their policies to the people. Corbyn and McDonnell are not the people to do that, and I cannot see anyone else in their team who can. Who is Labour's hard-left Campbell? Who is their hard-left Mandelson?
Confident the Scots will thrash the Samoans. It'll be a glorious victory for the North British!
Labour did not spend too much. Miliband's error was in not providing evidence for the rest of the audience -- rather, he just said "no" as if he were an eminent academic whose lecture had been interrupted by a question from a particularly dim student.
1. Lose the sense of entitlement. They need to stop behaving as if Corbyn et al are the usurpers and as if the right are the true Labour rulers. They need to learn how to persuade people again.
2. Go away and do some hard thinking about what a sensible social democratic/left of centre party looks like and come up with ideas.
3. Get some courage and be prepared to argue for their ideas. And argue for them not just because they may be electorally popular but because they are right and better ideas than those offered by Corbyn. And be prepared to face down accusations of splitting the party. The argument will need to be had. Better for it to be had now and out in the open so that voters - those sympathetic to decent Labour (the SOs of this world) - can see that there is some point hanging on.
The last thing the right should do is to try and win back power through back room coups. They need to defeat the poisonous ideas of the Left represented by Corbyn, drive a stake through them and make sure they never get traction again.
Miliband's error was being wrong. Labour were running a major deficit during growth before the recession - the result when the recession hit was inevitable. If you're running a deficit in growth then cyclical spending factors mean the deficit will blow out of control in the next bust.
Of course Ed and Gordon delusionally believed they had eliminated boom and bust. They were wrong.
"Then he should accept that he abused his position to repeat, without good cause, some of the most disgusting things that can ever be said about anyone. Then he should admit that he is unfit to hold public office."
I agree with Charles Moore. The problem with McCarthyism is that it encourages sleazeballs. Certainly Tom Watson should resign but not only him. This whole episode has been manna from heaven for publicity seekers like him and there are many more victims than Leon Brittan.
Oleaginous creatures like Watson have always existed but the real blame lies with the DPP and the police and our only too willing press. I look forward to a time when all the "McCarthy's" are exposed and this shameful episode in our history is ended for good.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34495161
Antifrank, it's a good article and one with which I mostly agree. However the "We only have to be lucky once" suggestion indicates that you think a hard left government would be the end of our democracy (please correct me if I've misinterpreted you).
I think that Corbyn, and before him Foot and Benn, are democrats. If he gets elected we'll still be able to get rid of him at an election. To think otherwise is just a teensy bit paranoid.
Passion about good ideas is not incompatible with reason. You need to make people feel why your ideas are better. And the English language is a language of metaphors and images.
Read about breaking news of an explosion here so tried switching to a news channel - Sky News showing ads, BBC News showing its regular broadcasting. So called 24/7 broadcast news is so lame compared to the internet. EDIT: Sky continuing with its paper review laughing and joking after the ads.
But I have to say I disagree with that too. Not only would they need to manage MPs, but also the economy. Many of these plans involve spending large amounts of money that just won't be there unless they double down, double down again, and double down once again on McDonnell's "fire up the printing presses" plan... which would lead to enormous inflation. It's hard to do things in Government, even if those things are modest and vaguely realistic.
Getting Labour electable will be hard work and there will be quite enough drama without us adding to it.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ankara-explosion-deadly-blast-strikes-road-junction-in-turkish-capital-ahead-of-peace-march-a6688761.html
What do you think of the three main points though?
http://bbc.in/1FTE69T
The similarity between then and now is already striking. It could be brutal.
As a backbencher in a safe seat, it's a perfectly viable strategy simply to stand up for what you believe in and work hard for your constituents. He is an excellent constituency MP - I've canvassed numerous supporters of other parties who vote for him because he helped them over the years. He's also genuinely honest and recoils from disavowing past stances for tactical advantage. Nor is he into personal vendettas - he is uninterested in evicting opponents, and his experience - including the recent selection - is that by arguing your case you win in the end, and more decently than by cunningly getting rid of rivals. Take him as a radical left-winger with honest principles and you can predict his actions much better.
Most people who reach the top have got used to numerous big and small compromises, evasions and dishonesties - we expect it of them, and comment critically when they don't do the electorally opportune thing - if Clinton embraces some new stance we just assume she's reacting to a focus group, and nod understandingly. (Who can predict what Boris will think next year? Certainly not him.) That is not Corbyn's habit and I don't think he will change. The furthest he goes is to accept that sometimes the party will outvote him (as on NATO and even Trident). (Some prominent left-wingers are much more willing to shift without conviction as they think necessary, by the way.)
So the bad news is that there isn't really a systematic plan. But a good deal of what Antifrank writes may happen anyway. The far left is by no means a united, disciplined force, and lots of reselections are very unlikely, but mainstream members in a redrawn constituency will tend to select candidates who are not hostile to the overall mood of the party, which is basically "centrism feels wrong and usually doesn't actually win, so let's be honestly left-wing". The PLP will consequently reflect the current direction more than its current membership, as is always true because of the selection timelag.
If the pre-recession deficit was "low in historical terms" how come the last time the UK entered a recession it did so from a position of a surplus rather than a deficit? Which was the last year when the UK entered a recession with a deficit as bad as that in 2007/8?
But perhaps they'll have learnt enough from the successes and failures of Livingstone's campaigns to really help Corbyn. Do we have any names?
There is no credible alternative to Labour as an opposition. Corbyn is clearly concentrating on control of the mechanisms by which the Labour Party is run (ironically mechanisms intentionally designed to stop the Hard Left having influence on the party but apparently completely failing to consider that the Hard Left could end up in control of those mechanisms).
The mandate he achieved makes it impossible for him to be ousted. The only way for the moderate wing of Labour to deal with this is to form a New SDP and they would be much better doing so while they still have a reasonable Parliamentary representation.
It is surely possible that a New SDP could become the official opposition from the start given the likely numbers. But unless they move soon they will be faced with elections in 2020 which will remove a great many of the anti-Corbynites from holding seats and the Hard Left begin to dominate the PLP.
Out of interest, the Tories are probably well aware of what the boundary changes will mean for the PLP and this could significantly increase their desire to make the change instead of kicking things into the long grass again.
With the main head line trying to infer some sort of terrorist thoughts "we only have to be lucky once "
Misquote has always been the tool of politics, and Corbyn will never be able to over come it on here or the MSM.
Any so callled hard left or hard right leader , needs more than luck to hold power in the UK with FPTP.
There is a good chance that 2020 will be the first general election I'll ever have voted in (*) where there will be a firm ideological difference between the parties.
The people will get to choose between two radically different views of the way forward for the country.
I find that rather exciting.
(*) I first voted in 1992.
Of course, to do so they would have to coalesce around a new leader, untainted by this summer's leadership debacle. Step forward The Postie. Has he perhaps stepped down from his role on the EU Referendum to do something a bit bigger?
Actually, of course, that's where you start to need thousands of times more luck than you did in Opposition.
What the clueless hard left don't seem to realise, of course, is that all hard left governments in democractic societies have faced their Thermidor moments, and mostly sooner rather than later. Think Syriza when it disregarded the results of the referendum it had called itself. Or Mitterrand in 1983. Or Wilson calling in the IMF. Or, though obviously not in a democractic society, Lenin with his New Econmic Policy. And it's always for the same reason: sooner or later they run out of other people's money.
Nowadays, given the speed and size of capital markets, the counter-revolution will happen much quicker than in the 18th century - I'd predict weeks rather than years. The difficulty for the country, of course, is that it'll take decades to clean up the detritus.
But then, if we're stupid enough to vote Corbyn and his bunch in, we'd probably deserve it. Fortunately, I don't think we are, so it'll never happen.
What jihadists are leaving behind as they retreat in Syria: https://www.rt.com/news/318184-captured-syrian-village-atrocities/ (video)
The credible alternative is that the Labour Party loses political support which coalesces around an alternative, probably the Lib Dems. Over a couple of years the Lib Dems gradually rise until like a phoenix from the flames they're suddenly polling in the high teens, then the twenties. Meanwhile Labour have drifted down out of the thirties and down the twenties then there's talk of a crossover between the Lib Dems and Labour. At that point even if they only have 8 MPs the polls putting them in touching distance of Labour makes them a credible alternative - defections at this stage may occur both by Labour MPs and Labour voters.
If there is crossover between parties and a tipping point is reached then FPTP can be a cruel mistress. In 2010 Labour won 66% of Scottish MPs, the SNP 10% - five years later Labour won <2% of Scottish MPs and the SNP won 95% of them.
In Canada 1993 the Conservatives went from 156 ridings to holding just 2. A loss of 154. Worst case scenario for the reds is that could feasibly happen to Labour.