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Why I think, contrary to the smartest Labour journalists like Stephen Bush, the rules on eligibility for the Labour leadership election help Eagle, not Corbyn:
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20% Tory poll leads ahead.
"UNITE has made its membership free of charge in the wake of the membership freeze decision. Those who sign up will be eligible to vote as affiliated supporters."
http://www.unitetheunion.org/campaigning/unitepolitics/your-party-your-voice/
Secondly, to the extent that people are dissatisfied with Corbyn, that is likely to melt away when presented with the very flawed alternative. In some ways it's similar to how, in the mid-term of a government, people reflexively say they dislike the government, but then when election time comes, they stop just thinking about whether they like or dislike the incumbent, and instead start comparing them with the alternative. My prediction would be that, as soon as this campaign proper starts, and people see and hear more from Eagle, all the exact same issues that caused Corbyn to originally surge last summer will resurface (namely, the fact that the "moderates" don't stand for anything at all and don't have a clue how to win elections themselves). As much as Labour members are rightly frustrated by Corbyn's unforced errors, I predict they will want to return to the dark days of abstentions on the Welfare Bill and empty platitudes about "fairness" and "aspiration" even less.
While it may be Labour party associations that select MPs, and the MPs, party members and affiliated Unions that decide the Labour Leader. Surely there should also be far more recognition of the wider electoral mandate that individual MPs receive? No serious political party that seeks to form a government or act as the Main Opposition can function with a Leader that fails to have confidence or backing of its Parliamentary party. The NEC have taken a decision to back Corbyn rather than the PLP by putting him on the Labour Leadership ballot despite the fact he would fail to get even the nominations required by the other candidates. This now shows how both the NEC and the Labour Leadership rules are totally unfit for purpose when a Leader won't respect the verdict of the PLP.
Keeping Corbyn off the ballot (against the rules IMO) was obviously going to totally undermine whoever won.
And these timing restrictions on who can vote seem sensible. Neither side will be able to claim that the party has been infiltrated by Tories/SWP...
The worst outcome for Labour as I see it would be a very narrow Corbyn victory. He needs to win big or lose.
PEC moves Trump up to 232, his highest level ever...
Tony Blair has been receiving an extraordinary pension of up to £80,000 a year since the day he quit Downing Street.
.......Currently aged 49, Mr Cameron will have to wait until he turns 65 to get the still-generous income of around £20,000.
He will also be entitled to a backbench MPs’ pension - still a gold-plated final salary settlement of around £26,000 a year that most workers can only dream of.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3686348/Cameron-remortgages-house-walks-away-Downing-Street-40-000-pension-20-000-pay-ll-FAR-Tony-Blair-family-live.html
Meanwhile I wait for some radio ads from no-fee lawyers to tell people how to claim their compensation for the great labour membership mis-selling scandal...
Why am I not alarmed at the prospect of Theresa May becoming prime minister this week without a contested leadership election, let alone a general election, when Gordon Brown’s similar “coronation” in 2007 left me full of foreboding?
Two reasons stand out. The most important is that the British state faces an existential crisis by virtue of 23 June’s slender majority to withdraw from the EU. It desperately needed to fill the power vacuum created by David Cameron’s refusal to stick around and sweep up the broken glass from his reckless referendum gamble.
May’s “Keep Calm” claims were thus enhanced by the fact that she kept her nerve and dignity. Commentators have piled in – here’s Gaby Hinsliff’s excellent piece – to explain her, but Theresa walks by herself, as many successful leaders do.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2016/jul/12/theresa-may-best-candidate-pm
As Jeremy Corbyn winds Labour into an ever tighter ball of cannibalistic, auto-destructive irrelevance, the practical pursuit of English politics – the business of designing competing policies, arguing their merits and negotiating compromises to see them enacted – looks now almost entirely contained within Conservative circles. That is not a healthy condition for a multiparty democracy, but under May’s leadership it might prove to be an oddly sustainable one. Britain has progressed from a state of acute political emergency to something more stable but still chronic, where immediate relief from pain, albeit welcome, is no substitute for recovery.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/12/theresa-may-tory-prime-minister-england
It will cost at least 10 Lattes to buy back in to the cardgame.
I'm thinking we need a new word to be the British "Tammany Hall". Beer and Smoke Filled rooms are no longer relevant.
Previously, prime ministers had to surrender their MPs' pensions on entering Downing Street and picked up pensions worth 37% of their salary as premier. Mr Major is understood to have surrendered his MP's salary before the new regulations came into force.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-161502/Storm-Blairs-3-19m-pension.html
Is this up there with the news about Queen Anne?
Its difficult to keep track.....
(Peston)
what a bunch of charmers they are, this lot!
It would complete the symbolism at least!
The Trots will get in to vote via the various affiliates. The Tweets and the emails about how to do it are already being sent out. You can join various organisations for a pittance, cast your vote and then stop paying the monthly fee.
There is absolutely no way on earth Eagle or anyone else will get close to Corbyn. I'd expect him to win by a wider margin than he did last time.
So in addition to cutting his successor's salary just before he left, Mr Brown could also have taken the immediate "pension".
It would take an FOI to find out, but I would not be surprised given my subterranean opinion of Gordon Brown.
IIRC For £2 anyone can join Unite Community and gain a vote that way. I gather that's open until 8th August.
Momentum were promoting this widely on Twitter last night.
http://www.unitetheunion.org/growing-our-union/communitymembership/
I still recall several revealing articles in the Guardian from yrs ago where he was totally candid about his intentions. And many here poo-poo'd the whole thing as complete nonsense.
Corbyn allowed Len to pass go and collect £200 much more quickly than he envisaged - but his agenda was there for all to see.
The figure is even higher as Gordon Brown and then David Cameron took significantly lower pay than the £196,000 Mr Blair was on.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3686348/Cameron-remortgages-house-walks-away-Downing-Street-40-000-pension-20-000-pay-ll-FAR-Tony-Blair-family-live.html
Edit: And Brown cut his own salary.
It is therefore desirable from Labour's perspective that their leader reflects the background and attitudes of this group in order to have the best chance of appealing to them, so a married WASP man/woman is preferable. Labour can't afford to take a PC view, and unfortunately, neither Angela Eagle nor Owen Smith meet these criteria.
I always felt in 2010 that Labour chose the wrong Ed. However, given the contempt in which Blair/Brown are now held, particularly post Chilcot, it would now also be desirable for Labour's leader not to be tarred by association with them.
If no suitable candidate comes forward, it might be better for Labour to stick with Corbyn for the time being, until he has clearly failed electorally - the foundations on which the current attempted coup has been built are too flimsy. Corbyn is not responsible for Brexit - Cameron and Osborne are and have paid the ultimate political price for their hubris.
When you think things through this way you can see how most of the 1997-2010 Gov'ts worked - and also why Blair was ousted by Brown. Blair was for sure an ends/means man but then Brown came along and his acolytes outdid even Blair with this philosophy.
I remain very dubious about UKIP's ability to win swathes of seats in the North and Midlands from Labour, because I do not see what platform they could credibly stand on to attract switchers. Given that we are now leaving the EU that calling card has gone. That leaves all immigration and the temptation will be to head ever further right on that, especially if migrant numbers do fall from here on in. As the BNP has shown in the past that will win protest votes but not enough votes. A really serious UKIP challenge only happens when the party moves credibly leftwards on economic and fiscal policy - and that will be hard for a leadership and membership that is essentially Thatcherite.
So, I'd expect that what will happen at the next election is that Labour will lose votes in its heartlands but very few seats, the LibDems will have something of a resurgence in their old heartlands with Labour voters moving back to them, and the Tories will absolutely clean up in all marginal. Overall, therefore, I'd say we are looking at potentially the biggest Tory majority since the war at the next GE. And in a best case scenario that will take at least two more general elections to unwind.
As a 52 year old, I doubt I'll live to see another centre left government in this country.
On Brown cutting his own salary, I believe he didn't take the full £196k (taking £150k instead on a voluntary basis), then one month before he left power he cut the formal salary for the position to £150k.
Thereby he denied the choice he had made to his successors.
The term for that is "shafting".
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gordon-brown-reveals-his-massive-pay-215970
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mandrake/7805707/Gordon-Brown-accepts-a-pay-cut-for-David-Cameron.html
I cannot see Labour recovering from this debacle.
Did you know Jax Teller was in Byker Grove?
Fifteen years later, we had another Conservative PM (albeit in coalition).
I think Labour are doomed in a 2020 GE. That leaves 2025. Hopefully a drubbing in 2020 will lead them to elect someone actually sane as leader. By that time there will have been Conservative PMs for fifteen years: long enough for Toryism to have got stale with the electorate (13 years for Blairism, 17 for Thatcherism).
This goes out of the window if Labour does split, in which case the political landscape will be very different.
How precisely you price 'the good of the country'.
It does seem unfair to retrospectively disenfranchise members though- I think you're right on that...
Does that mean I get a vote?
52 + 3 general elections = 67!
I'm sure Momentum will be very helpful in telling everyone how to participate in this election.
Not even certain that it will just be him and Eagle at this stage.
Trouble is of the known candidates, I think the other two are worse than Corbyn.
I shall have to regale PB with my musings as I struggle over the summer with this agonising choice. Deciding on the most suitable leader for a party that I basically have loathed since experiencing Loony Left Lambeths shenanigans in the early 80s. Aint life grand.
Stevie K looking at you.
But despite that, I wouldn't give up hope on a centre left government after 2025 - the last year has been so weird that I wouldn't be surprised if Corbyn suddenly stood down to allow Blair another crack. It'd be no less weird than the Tory campaign - e.g. Leadsom's torpedoing of her own campaign or Gove and Boris slamming each other down.
Isn't politics fun atm?
Looks like I've got someone to vote for.
SNP Government didn't send out a 'blanket letter' to inform Scottish parents about the Named Person law, but now says this is the right approach after Brexit vote!
The Courier - German woman resident in Tayside ‘alarmed’ by Brexit letter
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/angus-mearns/221851/german-woman-alarmed-brexit-letter/
"An SNP spokesman said: “Graeme Dey and other SNP parliamentarians have rightly taken the lead in engaging with EU citizens in their constituencies and ensuring them that they remain welcome in Scotland and their contribution is valued.”"
It said in the article that the local [MP] MSP co-signed the letter. I thought there were rules about that sort of thing - if the MSP signs it then it changes from being a governmental communication to a party-political one and ought to be paid for by the party?
I've also had a nibble on Rachel Reeves at 220-1 as a long-term prospect.
Ray
Labour genuinely seem to have forgotten who they're supposed to represent, though. On the one hand, you have the London-centric party, and I'd include a large swathe of the MPs in that, who find it difficult to connect with the working class side of the population. The Corbyn wing of the party say all the right things, but have gathered a following of hard left student activists, who seem to have gone back to the Cold War era.
I guess there will always be the places where a donkey in a red rosette will walk a GE, but surely outside of theses areas, Labour will fade off? The LIb Dems could yet make a comeback, sooner than we thought.
What a couple of weeks we've had, and the end is nowhere near in sight, except, perhaps for the Labour party as we know it.
There will have been an inquest, but I imagine the main problems were logistical given the circumstances.
Edit - it has only been three weeks, although I know it feels like a lifetime. My mother's funeral took well over a month just to arrange.
Having said that, it'll be interesting to see the candidates' visions for the country. I think we can guess at Corbyn's as it has not changed in thirty years. But what will Eagles and/or Smith etc offer as a vision?
There is a poor choice:
Corbyn's hard left is loony.
Blairism is poisoned and derided within the party.
How can the other candidates position themselves? More importantly, what is Labour *for*.
His business had only one major competitor which ran into trouble in the early 1990s following a change in management. I commented that I thought that was great - and was surprised when he disagreed strongly: he was worried about the risk of complacency setting in among his partners.
Instead, the tories seem to have steadied the ship, while Labour, who should really be hammering the tories by now, have gone buck wild.
Shows what I know about politics!