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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Owen: Lay off Jeremy. Challenge Theresa May
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Owen: Lay off Jeremy. Challenge Theresa May
He may have used some dodgy language – “smashing” a woman back on her heels is beyond ugly at a time when misogyny is rife in politics – but I was cheered by Owen Smith’s desire to take on Theresa May. Ousting the Tory Prime Minister is – or at least ought to be – the key test for a Labour leader.
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Same old record (from labour, not Don).
Problem for Owen Smith is that this isn't about beating the Tories for May. This is a internal battle for the heart and soul of labour.
He is never going to get an opportunity to challenge the government directly. He hasn't got any more parliamentary time to make any impact there.
None of the Labour loyalists in my circle think he has any qualities that would bring them to vote for him. I am minded to agree with them that he is a weak candidate who can do nothing to seriously challenge Corbyn and Momentum.
Labour needed a real talent to enter this fight. Eagle certainly wasn't that. Smith has not demonstrated that he is either.
Hard to argue against the idea the key test should be 'who can beat May'.
Mr. Royale, is he related to David Brent?
Don, ‘misogyny’ is rife within the Labour party and its membership, until you face up to this and actively campaign to stamp it out, Labour will remain the nasty party for women.
We're continually told that government borrowing costs are at an all time low so can't we leverage that and rebuild the country?
Difficult to see what meaningful prep could have been done without it leaking out and getting into the press as a sign that Remain (and the PM) thought they were going to lose, and that the sky wouldn't necessarily fall in on 24th June because the Establishment was already working on a plan they thought likely to have to implement, with options being prepared to address Brexit - both things that may have played into Leave's hands.
However, I suspect there WAS a degree of Civil Service worst case planning going on, and probably has been for years in truth, and I imagine despite the impression given, some sort of contingency plan was dusted off on the morning of the 24th....
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.4339033,-2.316373,3a,53.2y,35.43h,95.07t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swsjSpJlwM1ZHy9v51Nt7-Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
If we spent money wisely, using solid business cases (just calling spending 'investment' doesn't count), then it might make a slight difference. However, assume this money is spent across a parliamentary term. UK five year GDP is c. £9 trillion, so Smith's idea is worth about 2% of total economic activity.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/corbyn-supporter-owen-jones-labelled-blairite-traitor-for-criticising-current-leadership-a3308846.html
Are we to be surprised at this news?
*Several of the "terrorists" were not Middle Eastern refugees
Manifestly untrue. May won a contest in a very similar manner to that which produced Heath, Thatcher, Major, Hague, Attlee, Gaitskell, Wilson, Callaghan and Foot.
Even if Mr Smith's style of expressing himself turns out to be habitually 'dodgy', that probably won't be apparent to the electorate he's aiming at. Time enough to worry about how his phraseology goes down with the general public once he's won the Labour leadership.
(edited to add: good afternoon, everybody)
Corbyn's endgame seems to be to something along the lines of distilling from the masses a small group of people who can then live in an imaginary world. Or something like that - perhaps others have a better explanation, although it may defy explanation.
True, it was indirectly so, but it was still a change brought about by the electorate.
HMG (under Osborne) was happy to list the various unpaltable flavours of doom on offer through Government research, but not to secretly make real contingency plans to mitigate national risk.
1. How does Smith 'challenge' May while parliament isn't sitting?
2. Making a pitch to the Labour vote over the heads of the Labour selectorate in the middle of a leadership contest that he's losing, will surely only end up with him losing - in which case, what's the point?
Nobody mentioned Brexit.
Now back to normals. Missed much?
As you say, and has been confirmed by the Remain team in tv programmes detailing the campaigns post brexit, they had no answer to immigration concerns and that's why they lost.
Smith had a really bad week because of his inability to mask his nasty side. Better that is found out now.
It won't alter the fact that he isn't fit to be Labour leader or that he stands preciously little chance of winning the job.
Labour's tragedy is the lack of quality it now has on the benches. And the blame for that probably does lie with the Blair/Brown refusal to engage in proper succession planning - which meant that people of real talent left the House or never bothered standing in the first place.
When Yvette Cooper is seen as the most credible Labour PM by many, you know something has gone badly wrong.
Incidentally, I believe this is the first time a driver has won four races in a month (July, obviously).
As, to be fair, was the Lave stuff on the NHS. But Project Fear swung more votes, is my guess.
EDIT: oh and thanks. Got the Sundays to plough through, somewhere...
In terms of quality, all parties have a similar problem, as the recent line-up of contenders for the Tory leadership made clear.
Wrote a faintly ridiculous 13 F1 pieces on the blog in July.
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Combined with his previous comments about domestic violence, a very unpleasant picture of him is being painted. And it is all his own fault.
Public perception of him is firstly - who??? and then 'oh, the one who wanted to hit Theresa May'
That is a bad week
That said, the early 80s recession was terrible for me, and that moment UK base rates hit 15% just as my fixed rate deal was coming to an end was memorably bowel-quaking.
But if circumstances had been different, Osbone would have been credable (if not electorally) as well.
I think your recollection of events may be a little faulty. My impression is that very few people noticed what Smith said and that the majority of those who did accepted his apology and explanation without any problem. Obviously, some people will believe he is a nasty misogynist, but my sense is that is going to be a tricky one to make stick. We'll see.
Money matters, especially when you don't have enough, but other things matter a lot too.
I also wonder if the relentless economic focus by Remain made it seem both as if everything else was better if we left, and that it was seen as selling sovereignty.
He will be remembered for using sexually violence language towards the PM.
You can't just write off income simply because you've made the decision to divert it to a particular cause. It's like saying you don't have much pocket money because it all goes on sweets.
Corbyn is bad for Labour and bad for the political world at large. But until Labour can wake up the reality of that, he is the Leader and will remain the Leader until something significant happens. Smith isn't significant.
hits women
great acronym action
Anecdote: recently, I met a former MP. I've seen quite a bit about this person in the newspapers and I also know that person is still active politically. I was very surprised what an insignificant person that ex-MP is. Yet quite successful in elections. (And no, it wasn't Mr Palmer!
not being picky, just took me ages to see what you were on about
That said, what you, and others, have said of Labour mentally, which chimes with the moral crusade line of Wilson, seems to ring true. It's foolishness, in my view. They're lashing themselves to the rocks just as the tide is rising.
Still, we'll see if they continue grumbling or line up behind Corbyn (or, indeed, jump ship).
What is true for the public as a whole is rarely the case for individuals at the same time...
I've been on holiday.
'normal' service will resume.
Does this mean in 2020 Corbynite labour will field a candidate against SDP labour? That could make for some interesting results.
Look at it this way, Labour are now the SWP and the new Labour Democrats are Labour. Who would your grandfather have voted for?
"Non-EU nationals applying for a one-year master’s degree at Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College and Bath will be able to access a streamlined process to obtain their visa.
The extra six months at the end of the visa could be used to seek a job that would allow them to remain in the UK under the Tier 2 visa programme, or to apply for another course.
PS I should add that Sandra White (SNP) is seeing this as a deliberate snub to Scotland. Personally, it's clearly a snub to OxImpbridge. Since when has Bath been a proper university
True Labour then!
That fact alone gives her more legitimacy amongst the Parliamentary Tory party than Brown - a man too scared and/or arrogant to put his claim to the leadership to the judgment of his peers - ever had.
Leanne Wood : “Have you ever done Question Time, Owen?”
Owen Smith: “Nope, they keep putting you on instead.”
Wood: “I think with party balance there’d be other people they’d be putting on instead of you, wouldn’t they, rather than me?”
Smith: “I think it helps. I think your gender helps as well.”
Remember, the Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi has just gone on extended leave for saying something which is not as bad as this.
The split will most likely occur at parliamentary level to start. I imagine that when it comes to local eelctions, Labours will do deals to ensure they don't let the Tories through the middle. I hope they split big time, Tories running Lambeth!!
How many have the guts and energy for that, really, I wonder. Some will be knocking on in years and hoping to string things out until 2020 to get out. Some are just straws in the wind happy to go with whatever the leadership decides.
Owen Smith
Hits Women
When Moist