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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Joff Wild says the key to a Labour moderate fightback is un
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Joff Wild says the key to a Labour moderate fightback is understanding the Corbyn tribes
Just because you know something bad is going to happen does not make it less painful when it does. Since the day that the Labour leadership contest was announced I had been pretty sure that Jeremy Corbyn would win again.
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http://tinyurl.com/z3t6n5n
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Joff wrote "If, as expected, this week’s conference votes to give specific representation to the Scottish and Welsh front benches then the non-Corbyn bloc on the NEC looks like being in a majority for the foreseeable future"
On BBC Sunday Politics discussion with 1 present member and 1 former NEC member the balance without these extra 2 was said to be +1 for anti Corbyn. Add in the Welsh and Scots if approved and its +3 for anti. But could the following happen?
1. Jonathan Ashworth MP chosen from front bench - AFAIK anti. Swap for a pro and the majority is then +1 anti.
2. Keith Vaz in the BAME group - said to have recently voted more anti than pro AFAIK. Again swap him for a pro-Corbyn and the majority becomes +1 for pro Corbyn.
It will be alright..the rule book will keep them in check..they can't do much if they don't have people in all the key posts..we'll be alright..just you see..These brownshirts will blow themselves out of hot air eventually.
No. Just more and more of Labour's voters. The massed ranks of Momentum's Black Knights will just see an election loss as a mere flesh-wound.
It is a very difficult situation. Do you fight for the Labour Party you were elected to represent or walk away from a Party that has been transformed almost beyond recognition?
The PLP should fight - falling into line with the violence and bullying at the heart of the Momentum/Corbyn project would be beyond dishonourable.
Mad doesn't even come close.
MAD - Momentum Assures Democracy?
Welcome to pb.com, Mr. Quango/Herr Von Papen.
Good piece, Mr. Wild (and my sympathies).
There's a timing issue, as per Ed Miliband coup murmurings. We've got likely just under four years until the next election. After the poor result of the rubbish Smith, the PLP may be very reluctant to try again unless they've got reason to be very confident.
Too close to the election will perhaps do more harm than good in the short term even if they succeed. Too near the boundary changes and MPs risk getting turfed out by their constituency parties. Too near to today and it looks ridiculous and as if they're being sore losers.
https://www.twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/780038745571618816
So no time is any good then.
You're not being very helpful...
He articulated some clear policies. He is in favour of investing in infrastructure in a big way to generate returns that will more than pay for it as well as as boosting employment and economic prosperity. He is against hard Brexit. He thinks more of the defence budget should be spent on emergency relief and that there should be more emphasis on diplomacy rather than force. We already know that he is in favour of the public sector being allowed to bid for railway franchises and against the private sector taking over more and more of the NHS and education.
Clear policies. Not very left wing. Probably popular. What are the policies of the anti- Corbynistas? An empty space.
He has shown he can win elections big time. The anti-Corbynistas have proven they can lose big time. Yet they accuse him of being an election loser!
I suspect that the "lefties" as described by Joff are by far the biggest group of Corbyn supporters, and are far bigger than the "whiners" on the other side who have been left behind, with no clear policies, no ability to win elections, frustrated and angry. They need to catch up or depart the scene.
A specific leadership election, which can effectively be rigged by entryists, yes.
Not much else.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3806455/Two-teenage-girls-Nice-17-19-arrested-terror-plot-directed-notorious-Syria-based-French-jihadist.html
Also, Barnesian [3.25pm] ignores how far the "centre" has moved to the right in the least 20 years, largely due to technological change.
LOL yes. And that one.
I don't understand how it is "largely due to technological change". I suspect it started with reaction against over dominant unions and the attraction of tax cuts by selling the family silver over the years. The "right" have also told their story more effectively until it feels like the truth. Many young people will not have heard any other story.
But post 2008 there is a shift going on. The pendulum swings. Sanders and Corbyn (and Trump and Brexit) are indicators that something big is happening.
I'm sure the other Party's will be fully behind them.
Fighting against the fourth dimension is a difficult prospect.
In my earlier comment I was thinking of the ability of new media to propagate abuse and otherwise promote selfishness.
The big thing that is happening, alas, is the eventide of representative democracy.
What a stupid article. It is so obvious that Corbyn is fighting off a cold during the Marr interview.
Should have gone for a hot pasty instead.
No group is homogeneous if you drill down deep enough - at the end of the day, we are all individuals and no two individuals think exactly alike. On that basis, the realisation that the "Corbynites" are heterogeneous brings a total sense of false security. Yes, they have factions with different outlooks. Like every single coherent political movement in the history of mankind! Way to go for spotting a weak-point...
But what about the non-Corbyn group? The non-Corbynites are in such a mess they don't really form a faction except by the negative definition of "the lot who don't fit into any of the Corbynite categories". In fact they're in such a mess they can't even be decomposed into sub-factions. They are just a useless, pathetic, undirected, ideologically-bereft, jellylike, vacuous, amorphous blob. And that's the second-kindest thing I can think of saying about them, after "Well, 38% ain't all that bad - third time lucky?"
They don't stand for anything. They don't have a clear identity to promote. They don't even seem to think anything.
Sometimes a lack of ideology is dressed up as a bonus, it's "pragmatic". But even pragmatism forms a coherent system of moral and political thought. This isn't pragmatism. It's an ideas vacuum.
Since the Brown government ran out of steam, it's as if all the ideas have run out. For all the Corbynista witch-hunting of "Blairites", they mostly left the scene when Blair did. If Labour actually had a coherent group of thirty or so hardcore ideologically-committed Blairites, perhaps under a different name, it would be a good thing. At least they could push some ideas or policy proposals out, form an alternative narrative, and if the left-wing project fails then there's a seed there for the next wave of Labour's history to grow from.
So a very big well done from me...it is something that I've meant to say for a long time, but I wanted to say it after being suitably impressed by one of your articles as per today.
Marr: 'it's 20% now'
#marr
Ye gods.... I mean WTF?
Labour are not in a bad place they are in a all consuming black hole which they insist they keep digging. They are done, they are never coming back ever. The worm has turned fully left now.
http://starecat.com/content/wp-content/uploads/hillary-clinton-holding-donuts-with-chloe-moretz-large-hole-small-hole.jpg
How about 2015's contest? Cooper somehow couldn't put a package before the selectorate that was more solid or coherent than Andy Burnham's. Couldn't even get more votes than him either. A risible showing from someone who probably had the intellectual heft to frame a new direction. I can only think she was trying to second-guess the preferences of the membership while third-guessing the long-run impact of her positions among the wider GE-voting public, and ended up sloganeering in an effort to sell the wishy-washy and the meaningless. Kendall was braver - stuck her colours to a mast - just a shame she wasn't about in the early/mid 90s. Notably she had few MPs behind her and hasn't formed the nucleus of a new ideas-powerhouse for MPs setting out alternatives to Project Corbyn.
With 2016, Owen Smith didn't repeat the Kendall "mistake". When addressing the membership, he at least pretended to be "socialism in a better suit" who would cut out the internecine warfare. But there were no "Smithites" because there's no such thing as "Smithism". As James Forsyth says, it was an intellectual surrender. It didn't get her v. far but at least one can imagine such a beast as a Kendallite.
When commentators talk about "Labour moderates", "Labour centrists" or "Labour social democrats" rebuilding, who exactly is to do the rebuilding? The non-Corbynite part of the PLP lacks clear leaders or uniting ideas. It is basically just a large but disorganised and rudderless rabble of marooned MPs. They may want to reach out to the two fifths of the membership who opposed Corbyn, but lack the organisation and communicational connections to do so. The three fifths who supported Corbyn may come from different backgrounds, but we know they are all left-wing (to varying degrees) and what kind of agenda they can get behind. The two fifths deemed to be the base for regeneration are spread out far wider across the political spectrum, so lining them up behind a common agenda is going to be a very hard slog. Who out there is going to put the necessary shift in - and do they even have the political nous to pull it off? The big beasts have moved on, and if Owen Smith is the best they can do then it just isn't going to be good enough.
Sorry, one doesn't high five with commoners: Canada's PM is left hanging as he attempts an awkward greeting with a VERY unimpressed Prince George at the start of the Royal tour
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3805952/Welcome-Canada-Kate-Wills-George-Charlotte-touch-Victoria-royal-tour-family-four.html
I really think you are going to need it.
The Trot end of the party will be looking to make it uncomfortable for the moderate members.
You can see it in see it in some local meetings already, shouting down, the acts of intimidation etc.
You guys are going to be in for a rough ride but I think the country actually needs you to win.
Or Labour needs to die and be replaced by a party where the entrists cant take over the asylum.
How about they take a neutral line until they have sufficient facts.
There seems to be a trend by Western governments to play down events.
http://order-order.com/2016/09/25/labour-delegate-rants-against-jews/
I like your posts below...they offer some good analysis. I posted here during the Brown years that managerialism is fine for Govt, but once out of Govt Labour were going to hit a problem which is now all too evident. I really do not know what Labour moderates are about, and I'm one myself. Joff's articles are superb on the strategic analysis, but offer little practical advice about what policy platform a left of centre party should pursue.
I am left of centre..on foreign policy I am pro Europe, agree to military intervention if it could help (particularly Libya now). I think the NHS (mixed market) needs much more funding via a combination of personal contributions for those who can afford them (GP's etc..) and taxation. I believe in means testing of pensioner benefits and free education from early years to university. I really do not know what the best rates of corporation or personal taxation are...I would like to see the Govt use ones that generate the most income. I am happy to cede some of my civil liberties around data etc...if I know this helps deal with criminals. I do not think renationalising anything offers something else.
And I would like to see more green subsidies and an end to the badger cull.
The Labour Party needs to slaughter some sacred cows and change it's rhetoric.
I still think the Labour Party best reflects what I want above, but someone with some charisma needs to package that up in a coherent platform and sell it to Joe Public.
Secondly and primarily, Labour have been in a similar position before when George Lansbury lead the party. Ok, the specific circumstances were different as were party rules but he was a pacifist, "extreme" left-winger, popular with the party membership but wholly unattractive to the electorate at large. The Labour party managed to get rid of him and went on to win back power (though the war probably did delay that a bit).
So nil desperandum, Mr. O., it will probably take a few years, but Labour may once again have an electable leader. God only knows who that might be though.
I am particularly attracted to the idea that those who can should cough up some personal contribution to the NHS. Charging for a visit to the GP seems very sensible to me. I also don't fully understand why I as a person richer in years should be deemed worthy of free prescriptions simply because of my age. Surely some form of contribution would not be unreasonable to expect. Just imagine the outcry if a Conservative government proposed such things.
I really do think that the difference between people like yourself and an awful lot of Conservative voters is one of nuance and prejudice. There have I think been several studies done in which people favoured a policy until they found out which party were proposing it.
But other than that, he's ok.
Two amendments: there is a sixth group - people who really like Corbyn. They are not all left-wing, and some are not even normally Labour. They find him honest, fair and hugely refreshing after an era of spin from all sides. They would not necessarily vote for another left-wing candidate. As Professor Curtice recently observed, people who approve of Corbyn personally (32% in his poll though it depends on the wording) exceed the level who approved of Cameron after he'd led the Tories for a year. I'm in this group (as well as the "left" group), though it's from long personal acquaintance so a bit of an unusual case.
And the the Owen Smith vote was also not monolithic. Many of my friends voted Smith even though they actually prefer Corbyn, because they are of the "we must win at all costs" school of thought and they don't think Corbyn will win. One of Owen's fundamental errors was that he attacked Corbyn personally - I know several potential Smith voters who reacted against that.
Of course, it would be set up so that those who get free prescriptions get free GP visits (or a similar scheme. But that would mean than only 12% of people pay for their GP consultations.
How much money would really be generated from this? How many people would be put off from seeking medical attention and who would go on to develop more serious conditions that cost even more to treat because they didn't seek help at the earliest point?
And when it comes to means-testing for prescription costs - how much would the bureaucracy cost to administer such a scheme cost and would there really be a net saving as a result?
How many billions have corrupt and crooked banks been fined in recent years? Where the feck do they get off demanding anything?
Joff, I really admire you & other like-minded people. All I've ever done is to stand on the side-lines & wish that Labour would become a party I could vote for.
Thanks for this article. I wish you well in your undertaking.
Good evening everyone - I'm just off out but wanted to get this comment in before the next thread.
I'd be interested in your opinion of Jeremy's political views. Is he a true Trot? Internationalism trumps nationalism. Communism must be world-wide? Parliamentary democracy is out-of-date?
"John McDonnell defends 'stain on humanity' attack sparking abuse row. Yvette Cooper says the shadow chancellor should apologise as failing to do so "sets a climate of hostility and abuse"
Be interesting if McVey reported this as a hate crime under the "other prejudice" line. Keep in mind the rules, as ridiculous as they are , only need the victim to perceive it as a hate crime.
Can you also just imagine the uproar across the left wing and their media had a Tory made a similar remark and then went onto endorse it on a national political programme.
twitter.com/CllrLeonSpence/status/779712582492024832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The age thing is a particular bugbear of mine. One day I was expected to pay about £120 a year as a contribution for the drugs I need to keep me alive. Then I had a birthday and suddenly they were all free. My financial circumstances had changed not a jot.
There are a lot of other anomalies about prescription charges. For example, I have kidney problems and have needed drugs for a long time, for which I had to make a contribution. My friend, at about the same time my kidneys went wonky, was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes - all his medicines became free (including viagra - which being single he used to sell in the pub).
"Wilson and Castle and the trade unions were engaged in talks on the Industrial Relations Bill. The final episode on 18 June 1969 involved a full day of meetings in the upstairs dining room at No 10, with Wilson and Castle on one side and the trade union leaders on the other. The Cabinet, waiting downstairs, were eagerly awaiting the outcome of this last round of negotiations." A bit over dominant?
I agree with your last remark. I hope you are wrong.
It would raise funds and discourage the worried well.
Labour delegates have voted not to debate Brexit at conference (didn't make top eight motions).
Labour - doing its best to be utterly irrelevant.
"He won’t ever win the chance to make his case. Like Ed Miliband before him, the public have already weighed and measured Jeremy Corbyn and found him lacking. Everyone who has knocked on a door for Labour over the last 12 months already knows this. They have him down as a weirdo who loves tyrants, hates Jews and wants to tax them, regulate them and boss them around. A typical nannying, gesture-politicking, 1980s throwback.
A man who won’t sing the National Anthem at ceremonies for war veterans and can’t even do up a tie properly. And whose own colleagues nearly all agree that he’s useless.
Someone surrounded by posh-boy hard left apparatchiks who are plying the same old Vanguardist nonsense, abusing the Labour party as a means to bring about their tin pot revolutionary socialist wet dream.
It is fantasy, utter mind-bending LSD-induced fantasy, to imagine him stood on the steps of Downing Street............Unless it’s to hand over a petition."
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2016/09/25/labour-mps-have-just-blown-their-best-chance-to-oust-corbyn/#more-21126
So shall I put you down as a maybe then?
The idea that Labour has a core, brand-based vote is going to be tested to destruction. The insanity of all this beggars belief. It really does.
They, like any commercial entity, with a legal and ethical duty to shareholders have expressed to the government their preferred outcome, and explained their options.
In what way is that threatening? Would you rather they:
(a) abrogated their duty their shareholders
or
(b) lied to the government
I don't see any other alternatives.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/24/brexit-warning-us-bank-bosses-from-goldman-sachs-morgan-stanley/
Does Goldman Sachs have shareholders?