politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » We shouldn’t rule out the possibility that a Corbyn leaders

MTimT said:

@ ScottP and @ TimB - Uh-oh! What did I tell you? Bust!!

"Griffin was under constant pressure on Thursday, taking three sacks and several hits through four series. He was 2-of-5 passing for 8 yards and fumbled twice before leaving the game."

You need to let go emotionally. RGIII still says he's the best QB in the NFL. Just let the Washington Native American Warriors go, adopt America's Team, and the pain will stop. When you come out of the tunnel, I will be there.

It's copacetic.

The idea that Jeremy Corbyn could be even remotely successful as Leader of the Labour Party is doubleplusridiculous bordering megasillythink.

Unlike (for example) Michael Foot, he has no experience of being on the front bench, either in government or in opposition.

Unlike Michael Foot, he would have been elected leader with the support of only a small number of his MPs.

He has little interaction with other Labour MPs (two of whom tweeted the other day that they had not spoken with him or met him properly in 10 years of being MPs). He has been grumpy, irritable and evasive in TV interviews. He would be completely out of his depth in terms of writing and formulating the details of workable policies (regardless of whether they are far-left-wing or not). He would be very awkward having his regular meetings with the Prime Minister on confidential matters ("Sometimes tea, sometimes not tea"). He has little sense of party discipline or loyalty, having voted against his own party's whip hundreds of times.

That's all before we get to scrutinising or analysing any of his actual policies.

If he became LOTO (and, when it comes to the crunch, I don't think he will) his leadership and authority would fall apart within months. He's a lame duck already, albeit that he has two functioning legs and he's a hippopotamus rather than a duck.

-----

When he was in Croydon two weeks ago, one of the questions was "How will you ensure that Labour MPs won't derail your leadership, when most of them are pro-austerity [and didn't vote for him]?" It is not enough for him to point to the mass membership of the party as his source of authority. The job of the Leader of the Labour Party is to lead a group of MPs and get them disciplined enough to win a general election. Being frenziedly backed by a proletarian mass is not enough.

5/2 is wrong.

More like ~1.4 (Corbyn gets the gig) x ~1.5 (he lasts until an election) x ~1.05 (William Hill still being in business in 2020) = ~6/5

AndyJS said:

Labour with Michael Foot were ahead in the opinion polls for most of the first 12 months of his leadership, including a poll from MORI on 19th Dec 1980 with figures Lab 56%, Con 32%, Lib 11%, (a few weeks after he was elected). NOP on 9th Jan 1981 had similar numbers: Lab 51%, Con 35%, Lib 12%.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/voting-intention-1979-1983

Michael Foot was of course a towering colossus of statesmanship, intelligence, rhetoric, erudition and lots of other things, compared with the fifth-rate nonentity Jeremy Corbyn.

dugarbandier said:

"Maybe the public has moved on from identikit Oxbridge educated party leaders with full heads of hair still in their 40s never having had “a proper job”. "

Has Jezza had a proper job?

And doesn't he have a creditably full head of hair for someone of his age?

And if so, how come they just gave David Cameron an overall majority, albeit a small one? There were non-Oxbridge party leaders (albeit no bald ones ...)

I don't think it's the age or background of leaders that Corbyn's electorate are turning against, but the gimmicky, ultra-focus-group tested version of politics which targets minute slivers of the centre ground and never seems quite to deliver what it promises. Copyright Phoney Tony Blair and nicked by D Cameron.

And anyway we mustn't of course confuse Corbyn's electorate of 600k with the UK's (and in particular the English) floating electorate - the 10-15% of voters in marginal constituencies who decide elections. Perhaps the biggest difference is that those who are motivated to vote in leadership elections are more likely to care about ideology, whereas floating voters (almost by definition) are less likely to care about that and much more likely to care about competence (or at any rate perceived competence). I think the latter is why they turned so quickly against the Tories in 1992 and so much more slowly against Blair after Iraq.

None of this is original of course, and it doesn't preclude Corbyn getting a short honeymoon after he's elected. But I think the requirements to be popular with NPXXMP and the (enlarged but still small) Labour Party selectorate and the requirements to "resonate widely" with the Great Unwashed in Nuneaton are very different.

JohnLoony said:

AndyJS said:

Labour with Michael Foot were ahead in the opinion polls for most of the first 12 months of his leadership, including a poll from MORI on 19th Dec 1980 with figures Lab 56%, Con 32%, Lib 11%, (a few weeks after he was elected). NOP on 9th Jan 1981 had similar numbers: Lab 51%, Con 35%, Lib 12%.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/voting-intention-1979-1983

Michael Foot was of course a towering colossus of statesmanship, intelligence, rhetoric, erudition and lots of other things, compared with the fifth-rate nonentity Jeremy Corbyn.

True, Mr Loony, but these things are relative, and many, including me, would say the same about Margaret Thatcher compared with David Cameron!

Many things were better in the 80's, and British politics was certainly one of them.

About the only thing that's better these days is that we don't live in daily fear of nuclear annihilation. (Also many types of medicine and computing have improved).

Pong said:

5/2 is wrong.

More like ~1.4 (Corbyn gets the gig) x ~1.5 (he lasts until an election) x ~1.05 (William Hill still being in business in 2020) = ~6/5

How about say 5% p.a. compound interest allowance on one's stake which over 4.75 years would take the return from 6/5 to around 6/4 ?

Nope, not for this Labour member. While it's true that being less of an identikit politician is clearly, all things being equal, an advantage - all the evidence we've seen over the years indicates that when such politicians are that way because they're ideologically outside the mainstream they become incredibly popular with a small group of people and turn off millions of others. We might hear media talk of Corbyn's popularity and transformational political touch but really it'll be waffle from people desperate for a Guardian byline.

I suppose it depends on what you describe as 'successful' and who for. A party with hard left policies getting 25% of the vote and winning the odd convert (while of course turning off millions of others) could be judged as successful by those on the hard left. That however is a disaster for a Labour Party, one of whose reasons to be is to seek power - to be the party of the left which does make the compromises with reality needed to challenge a Tory party which has traditionally had no qualms about doing whatever it takes. Farage has done brilliantly with UKIP for example, in boosting their popularity within particular groups of voters, but no one in their right mind would say it's a good idea to make him Tory leader.

To give a cricket analogy about Corbyn's possible success, these days you'd probably say that your ideal Test opener is capable of scoring at five an over, aggressively dominating bowling and playing outlandish shots - it's become hugely beneficial to be able to put pressure on the opposition. However, that ability is of no use whatsoever if you're no good at keeping out opening bowlers and have rubbish technique - you might smash the odd 50 but you'll average in the 20s. Similarly Corbyn may have an attribute that other politicians could do with - personability and appeal as the outsider - but it will only gain him brief, inconsequential bumps in the polls when he's got absolutely no credibility whatsoever due to his ridiculous economic and foreign policy prescriptions.

Trouble with this article is that most over 50s can remember the 1970s and 1980s and don't want no return to those days.

And they vote. In large numbers.

Just wait till immigration is raised as an issue. Corbyn will lose lots of Labour support with unlimited immigration...

peter_from_putney said:

Pong said:

5/2 is wrong.

More like ~1.4 (Corbyn gets the gig) x ~1.5 (he lasts until an election) x ~1.05 (William Hill still being in business in 2020) = ~6/5

How about say 5% p.a. compound interest allowance on one's stake which over 4.75 years would take the return from 6/5 to around 6/4 ?

I agree that 5/2 is generous. Labour talks a lot about removing poor leaders. They have a very poor track record in doing anything effective about it. There is also the risk that Corbyn would resign, which we shouldn't ignore. He could go for the sake of the party if he is leading it to disaster but more realistic is that he chucks it in in a fit of pique at some point when the realities of leading an opposition conflict excessively with his preferred policy stance.

Indigo said:

Fishing said:

None of this is original of course, and it doesn't preclude Corbyn getting a short honeymoon after he's elected. But I think the requirements to be popular with NPXXMP and the (enlarged but still small) Labour Party selectorate and the requirements to "resonate widely" with the Great Unwashed in Nuneaton are very different.

Never mind his views or his policies. The British Public won't vote a 71 year old into the job of PM. The chances of all sorts of effects of ageing becoming manifest, not least of which is dying, will be too high for a electorate used to election people in their 40s.

Disagree there. It's true that if Corbyn is elected, he'll immediately become the oldest person to lead any of the three established parties, and the oldest to be elected leader, since Michael Foot in 1980. If he made it through to a 2020 election, he'd be the oldest leader of any of the parties since Clement Attlee in 1955 and if he won, he'd become the oldest person ever to first become PM. Should he then serve through a full term, he'd be one of Britain's oldest ever PM's

But I don't think that's relevant while his health is in decent form. Perhaps for a moderate, centre-of-the-road politician it might be but with Corbyn, the passions for and against his policies will far outweigh any minor concerns about his age or health, unless there's evidence that it really is more than a theoretical risk.

In any case, the joy of a parliamentary system is that if a PM falls seriously ill, you can simply replace them with someone else.

I've been saying this for ages. Labour need to elect Corbyn, not because he's a political titan, but because they're unelectable in their current form.
Labour needs to be destroyed, so that it can then rebuild itself into something that actually functions as a political party for the masses. Corbyn is the man to destroy the current Labour party.

Labour needs less of the Owen Jones and Polly Toynbee types and more of the Southam Observer type, in my book. I could vote for the Labour party then.

There's an energy about the Jeremy Corbyn candidacy that's undeniable. Because of his many flaws he looks more like a John the Baptist figure than the Messiah himself but the dynamism that he has unleashed will change British politics.

The bad news for Labour is that might well happen outside its ranks if it does not handle the consequences of his election with finesse. And there is no sign at all that Labour will handle the consequences of his election with finesse.

5/2 on his being leader in 2020 might give rise to some definitional questions about the party that he is leading at that date. But it is a good bet.

The key questions on this bet are:

1) Would Labour remove him?

2) Would Corbyn resign?

3) Is a Corbyn-led Labour party likely to prove a complete, total and unanswerable disaster?

The answers to those questions make me think this is a value bet:

1) No. Labour have never had the stomach to remove leaders - not even total failures like Foot and Brown. The logistics of ousting Corbyn are nightmarish - triggering a leadership election is the only realistic way to do it, and there is no guarantee he wouldn't win if he stood, as under Labour's rules he is entitled to. The fact that such figures as Johnson and Beckett (Beckett!) have been mooted as possible successors reveal the paucity of potential leaders to take over from him in any case. There seems little point in even trying to act unless something better is on offer. The only thing that might change this is if the deputy leader puts in a barnstorming performance and becomes a plausible alternative - but that doesn't seem likely.

2) No. Corbyn, as we have seen, is a man who does not make mistakes or deal in things like logic. He seems to have become more arrogant as his campaign progresses and he laps up attention from the adoring crowds he pulls. As long as they keep coming, he'll want to keep going.

3) No. That is, it will be a disaster. No question of it. But as we saw with Miliband, the mere fact that in the real world everyone thinks you are completely mad and wouldn't trust you with a packet of polo mints counts for little as long as a vocal, easily led and totally unrepresentative minority continue to support you, which the Labour left surely would with Corbyn no matter what happens (look at how every legitimate question about him becomes 'an establishment stitch-up'). As long as he has Owen Jones, Charlotte Church, Russell Brand and their intellectual fellow travellers behind him, he and they will continue to think they can win - even if they are bouncing at sub-20% in the polls, which as @Andy_JS pointed out is implausible - indeed, they might even lead in the polls for a time. Remember @SouthamObserver's vivid if rather gross simile. Labour's leadership are quite capable of pulling away happily, thinking they are showing their passion, while everyone else is pointing out that they look like a bunch of weirdos.

So if Corbyn is elected, the only reason I can see why he might leave early is (a) a major scandal, and it's hard to think what could come out that's more serious than the allegations made against him already or (b) health. And the latter is more than a 5-2 shot even at his age.

Ladbrokes have the exact same market up with the more or less correct price of 6-4 (Though perhaps not a good bet with the time value of money) for Corbyn as leader in 2020.

Indigo said:

Fishing said:

None of this is original of course, and it doesn't preclude Corbyn getting a short honeymoon after he's elected. But I think the requirements to be popular with NPXXMP and the (enlarged but still small) Labour Party selectorate and the requirements to "resonate widely" with the Great Unwashed in Nuneaton are very different.

Never mind his views or his policies. The British Public won't vote a 71 year old into the job of PM. The chances of all sorts of effects of ageing becoming manifest, not least of which is dying, will be too high for a electorate used to election people in their 40s.

The trend towards younger leaders has hardly been an unqualified success though. There are plenty of reasons why Corbyn will never be PM, but his age isn't one of them IMO.

foxinsoxuk said:

TwistedFireStopper said:

I've been saying this for ages. Labour need to elect Corbyn, not because he's a political titan, but because they're unelectable in their current form.
Labour needs to be destroyed, so that it can then rebuild itself into something that actually functions as a political party for the masses. Corbyn is the man to destroy the current Labour party.

Labour needs less of the Owen Jones and Polly Toynbee types and more of the Southam Observer type, in my book. I could vote for the Labour party then.

I agree. The only way that Labour could revive as a party post Corbyn would be to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the existing one. The rebirth will take a lot of hard work by those that stay and fight.

I wouldn't touch this at 5/2. Corbyn will get a honeymoon, but I can see him polling around 20% in a year and slipping into third place, possibly fourth, before being deposed.

Labour won't poll sub-20 in opposition. Those sort of scores are reserved for governments in crisis (Major in 1995, Brown in 2009). There is simply not enough that an opposition can do to disillusion the marginally engaged for an opposition to fall that far. Besides, Corbyn will be saying things that many people find attractive and will pick up petition-support: people who'll go along for now to express support for this protest policy, or that. It won't count when the serious business of forming a government has to be thought of but that's for later.

PeterC said:

Indigo said:

Fishing said:

None of this is original of course, and it doesn't preclude Corbyn getting a short honeymoon after he's elected. But I think the requirements to be popular with NPXXMP and the (enlarged but still small) Labour Party selectorate and the requirements to "resonate widely" with the Great Unwashed in Nuneaton are very different.

Never mind his views or his policies. The British Public won't vote a 71 year old into the job of PM. The chances of all sorts of effects of ageing becoming manifest, not least of which is dying, will be too high for a electorate used to election people in their 40s.

The trend towards younger leaders has hardly been an unqualified success though. There are plenty of reasons why Corbyn will never be PM, but his age isn't one of them IMO.

If he were 60, I'd agree. But 71 is getting on a bit. It's past compulsory retirement age in most occupations even today. Moreover, he would be 76 by 2025, if he lived that long, and we haven't had a Prime Minister of that age in the age of universal suffrage, with the sole exception of Churchill (who was a fairly ineffective PM mostly because of his advanced age - he should really have been replaced by Eden in 1949, before the Tories returned to power).

It's also an issue with Trump, Biden and Clinton, of course, and one reason why I don't think we should assume they are as clear front-runners as the odds would indicate.

PeterC said:

Indigo said:

Fishing said:

None of this is original of course, and it doesn't preclude Corbyn getting a short honeymoon after he's elected. But I think the requirements to be popular with NPXXMP and the (enlarged but still small) Labour Party selectorate and the requirements to "resonate widely" with the Great Unwashed in Nuneaton are very different.

Never mind his views or his policies. The British Public won't vote a 71 year old into the job of PM. The chances of all sorts of effects of ageing becoming manifest, not least of which is dying, will be too high for a electorate used to election people in their 40s.

The trend towards younger leaders has hardly been an unqualified success though. There are plenty of reasons why Corbyn will never be PM, but his age isn't one of them IMO.

I always thought the argument ran to the effect of age = experience. From what I've seen and heard, Corbyn has the same opinions at 66 as he had at 26. Not sure that's learning from experience. dogmatic and absolute certainty, perhaps.

TwistedFireStopper said:

I've been saying this for ages. Labour need to elect Corbyn, not because he's a political titan, but because they're unelectable in their current form.
Labour needs to be destroyed, so that it can then rebuild itself into something that actually functions as a political party for the masses. Corbyn is the man to destroy the current Labour party.

Labour needs less of the Owen Jones and Polly Toynbee types and more of the Southam Observer type, in my book. I could vote for the Labour party then.

Exactly , there is a huge byre needing mucked out for sure.

DavidL said:

What I think Mike is right about is that the excitement that Corbyn has generated will undoubtedly reinvigorate Labour at grass root level, bringing many more younger and more active members into the party.

Where I disagree with Mike is whether that will actually help. It has been a long running debate on here about how effective or important a good ground game is in a national election (I would not dispute for a moment that it can be key in a by-election).

If the price of having these shiny new activists is being a party that alarms the middle of the road swing voter who basically wants a government that does not screw up too badly and otherwise leaves them alone it will be a terminally bad exchange for Labour. But I can see a party full of these new activists deluding themselves about that. After all, who believes the polls anymore?

It will possibly create a new set of activists that IOS will be so enthused about that he wont be able to talk about it.

Corbyn and Livingstone have very similar eyes:

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/60053000/jpg/_60053324_60053323.jpg

Shifty....

EDIT: They also have very similar politics. Imagine trying to get Red Ken elected as Prime Minister for the leafy suburbs and market towns - and you'll see why Corbyn is doomed.

ydoethur said:

PeterC said:

Indigo said:

Fishing said:

None of this is original of course, and it doesn't preclude Corbyn getting a short honeymoon after he's elected. But I think the requirements to be popular with NPXXMP and the (enlarged but still small) Labour Party selectorate and the requirements to "resonate widely" with the Great Unwashed in Nuneaton are very different.

Never mind his views or his policies. The British Public won't vote a 71 year old into the job of PM. The chances of all sorts of effects of ageing becoming manifest, not least of which is dying, will be too high for a electorate used to election people in their 40s.

The trend towards younger leaders has hardly been an unqualified success though. There are plenty of reasons why Corbyn will never be PM, but his age isn't one of them IMO.

If he were 60, I'd agree. But 71 is getting on a bit. It's past compulsory retirement age in most occupations even today. Moreover, he would be 76 by 2025, if he lived that long, and we haven't had a Prime Minister of that age in the age of universal suffrage, with the sole exception of Churchill (who was a fairly ineffective PM mostly because of his advanced age - he should really have been replaced by Eden in 1949, before the Tories returned to power).

It's also an issue with Trump, Biden and Clinton, of course, and one reason why I don't think we should assume they are as clear front-runners as the odds would indicate.

As a teetotal, non-smoking vegetarian in seeming good health Jezza looks good for at least a decade, but nothing is certain of course.

Mentioning possible 'unity' replacements for Corbyn, a fun fact for the day (ok, not that fun but worth bearing in mind anyway):

There are only four survivors of Blair's final cabinet still in the Commons: Beckett, Benn, Johnson and Timms. That's a pretty remarkable rate of attrition given that it's only eight years ago.

Age shouldn't be a problem for Jezza. The nearest analogy would be the Politburo and they all looked to be in their eighties. Jezza's still mentally young - about fourteen - and he's stayed that way.

Mr, Mark/Mr. G, indeed, Vespasian and Titus were good emperors.

CD13 said:

Age shouldn't be a problem for Jezza. The nearest analogy would be the Politburo and they all looked to be in their eighties. Jezza's still mentally young - about fourteen - and he's stayed that way.

The age of the Politburo was though one reason why the USSR stagnated and then declined in the 1970s and early 1980s. It was also a source of endless jokes:

'What has four legs and forty teeth? A crocodile. What has forty legs and four teeth? The central committee of the Communist party.'

'What's the difference between Tsarism and Communism? Under tsarism, the crown went from father to son. Under Communism, it goes from grandfather to grandfather.' (The word for 'grandfather' is used to mean 'old man' in Russian.)

'What support does Gorbachev have in the Kremlin? None - he can walk without help.'

ydoethur said:

PeterC said:

Indigo said:

Fishing said:

None of this is original of course, and it doesn't preclude Corbyn getting a short honeymoon after he's elected. But I think the requirements to be popular with NPXXMP and the (enlarged but still small) Labour Party selectorate and the requirements to "resonate widely" with the Great Unwashed in Nuneaton are very different.

Never mind his views or his policies. The British Public won't vote a 71 year old into the job of PM. The chances of all sorts of effects of ageing becoming manifest, not least of which is dying, will be too high for a electorate used to election people in their 40s.

The trend towards younger leaders has hardly been an unqualified success though. There are plenty of reasons why Corbyn will never be PM, but his age isn't one of them IMO.

If he were 60, I'd agree. But 71 is getting on a bit. It's past compulsory retirement age in most occupations even today. Moreover, he would be 76 by 2025, if he lived that long, and we haven't had a Prime Minister of that age in the age of universal suffrage, with the sole exception of Churchill (who was a fairly ineffective PM mostly because of his advanced age - he should really have been replaced by Eden in 1949, before the Tories returned to power).

It's also an issue with Trump, Biden and Clinton, of course, and one reason why I don't think we should assume they are as clear front-runners as the odds would indicate.

Compulsory retirement ages are illegal now unless prescribed in law. However, while HM is still on the throne in her late 80s or early 90s, while her husband is still at her side in his mid-90s, and while her heir remains older than Corbyn, he has a ready-made answer. True, the demands on a Head of Govt are more than those on a Head of State but a HoS still has a lot of commitments and has to avoid putting a foot wrong.

Corbyn's age will only become an issue if his health becomes an issue: he wouldn't be given a free pass on a health scare in the way a leader in their 40s would. But until then, it won't be that that does for him, if anything does.

foxinsoxuk said:

malcolmg said:

madasafish said:

Trouble with this article is that most over 50s can remember the 1970s and 1980s and don't want no return to those days.

And they vote. In large numbers.

Just wait till immigration is raised as an issue. Corbyn will lose lots of Labour support with unlimited immigration...

The 70's were great.

Was that the last time Scotland won a football match? Or is it the Bay City Rollers that you are remembering fondly?

Be fair - Scotland qualified for the 1998 World Cup. But they've not qualified for any international finals competition since devolution (eight so far, and counting).

david_herdson said:

Compulsory retirement ages are illegal now unless prescribed in law. However, while HM is still on the throne in her late 80s or early 90s, while her husband is still at her side in his mid-90s, and while her heir remains older than Corbyn, he has a ready-made answer. True, the demands on a Head of Govt are more than those on a Head of State but a HoS still has a lot of commitments and has to avoid putting a foot wrong.

Corbyn's age will only become an issue if his health becomes an issue: he wouldn't be given a free pass on a health scare in the way a leader in their 40s would. But until then, it won't be that that does for him, if anything does.

Good point about HoS, which I hadn't thought of. I was aware of the theoretical illegality of compulsory retirement ages when I wrote that post. However, in the public sector at least enforced retirement is still pretty common, although as most employees in those circumstances tend to go for 'phased retirement' (i.e. part time for a bit, then pension) it's often hidden. I think the Church of England also still enforces a retirement age of 70. Private sector businesses may be different, and I imagine it depends on the business and the amount of physical effort involved.

Corbyn has caught fire with the loud, nasty bastards on the left who personally eviscerate anyone who disagrees with their world view. These people haven't had a great white hope since the early 80s.

I suspect Corbyn will initially gain huge amount of media coverage, say some popular things but still lose badly. Then his supporters will re-coalesce in their anti-establishment comfort and continue the nastiness unashamed. They are no different to the LibLabCon bunch of the Telegraph web pages. How would they fare if Nigel Farage became PM?

I doubt Corbyn would fight a GE though. I think by winning he will feel he has proved a very impressive point. I think he will step down on the agreement that Labout adopts a more compassionate stance towards the poor and the lower-paid workers, and allow somebody more suited to leading a national party take the job.

"identikit Oxbridge educated party leaders with full heads of hair still in their 40s"

Its the hair thing that really matters Mike?

Mr. Financier, not sure the WWC will welcome his pro-immigration perspective, especially when compared with UKIP's rhetoric on the matter.

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Financier, not sure the WWC will welcome his pro-immigration perspective, especially when compared with UKIP's rhetoric on the matter.

But if they become financially better off - or have strong hopes of doing so - then they my hold their handkerchiefs to their noses.

Mr. Financier, but increased immigration reduces the value of their labour by flooding the market with workers able and willing to work for less than native Britons (disregarding social aspects of large scale immigration, which may also be unwelcome).

Jeremy Corbyn has never had a proper job has he?

Jezza would be a disaster. I can't see any real plusses.

Kendall, with time, could give the Tories a run for their money in 2020 but she's unelectable in the present Labour party.

The Mogadon Pixie has ovary ownership issues, so that leaves Burnham as the safest choice to go to a manageable defeat.

MarqueeMark said:

david_herdson said:

malcolmg said:

madasafish said:

Trouble with this article is that most over 50s can remember the 1970s and 1980s and don't want no return to those days.

And they vote. In large numbers.

Just wait till immigration is raised as an issue. Corbyn will lose lots of Labour support with unlimited immigration...

The 70's were great.

I was born in 1974. Just about my only recollection of the 1970s beyond family and friends is of power cuts; of having candles stuck in old wine bottles to be ready for when the lights went off again.

Without wishing to cast aspersions on the state of your memory, I thought that power cuts were essentially 72-74? Didn't the unions bite their lip under the Social Contract, it only going to rat-shit in the winter of 78-79?

Sure it wasn't your folks refusing to feed the meter?

It’s not often I agree with you, Mt Mark, but as one who was raising a family, running a business and poltically active in the 70’s, that’s my memory, too! And IIRC the whole cpountry wasn’t affected in 78-9, my memory is that the strikes, rubbish in the streets etc, were in some fairly small (as a proportion of the UK) areas.

Inflation was coming down by the end of the 70’s, too.

david_herdson said:

Compulsory retirement ages are illegal now unless prescribed in law. However, while HM is still on the throne in her late 80s or early 90s, while her husband is still at her side in his mid-90s, and while her heir remains older than Corbyn, he has a ready-made answer. True, the demands on a Head of Govt are more than those on a Head of State but a HoS still has a lot of commitments and has to avoid putting a foot wrong.

Tasteless/treasonous though it may be to speculate about it, there has to be a significant chance that Brenda dies or is incapacitated in the next 5 years. Would Corbyn be able to restrain his republicanism at that point? The Corbynistas certainly wouldn't.

Indigo said:

TwistedFireStopper said:

I've been saying this for ages. Labour need to elect Corbyn, not because he's a political titan, but because they're unelectable in their current form.
Labour needs to be destroyed, so that it can then rebuild itself into something that actually functions as a political party for the masses. Corbyn is the man to destroy the current Labour party.

Labour needs less of the Owen Jones and Poly Totnes types and more of the Southam Observer type, in my book. I could vote for the Labour party then.

Blair didn't get his landslide because people loved Labour, he got it because Tories stayed at home. The Labour vote went up by 2 million, the Tory vote dropped by around 5 million, the LDs got 28 more seats on the basis of essentially no more votes.

Deeply flawed reasoning given that the drop in Con vote was actually just 4.5m and turnout in 1997 was 7% lower than in 1992. Once you adjust for that you get a straight Con to Lab swing of 3m votes.

not_on_fire said:

Indigo said:

TwistedFireStopper said:

I've been saying this for ages. Labour need to elect Corbyn, not because he's a political titan, but because they're unelectable in their current form.
Labour needs to be destroyed, so that it can then rebuild itself into something that actually functions as a political party for the masses. Corbyn is the man to destroy the current Labour party.

Labour needs less of the Owen Jones and Poly Totnes types and more of the Southam Observer type, in my book. I could vote for the Labour party then.

Blair didn't get his landslide because people loved Labour, he got it because Tories stayed at home. The Labour vote went up by 2 million, the Tory vote dropped by around 5 million, the LDs got 28 more seats on the basis of essentially no more votes.

Deeply flawed reasoning given that the drop in Con vote was actually just 4.5m and turnout in 1997 was 7% lower than in 1992. Once you adjust for that you get a straight Con to Lab swing of 3m votes.

???
Turnout down. Did he not say the tory vote down ?

SouthamObserver said:

JohnO said:

david_herdson said:

malcolmg said:

madasafish said:

Trouble with this article is that most over 50s can remember the 1970s and 1980s and don't want no return to those days.

And they vote. In large numbers.

Just wait till immigration is raised as an issue. Corbyn will lose lots of Labour support with unlimited immigration...

The 70's were great.

I was born in 1974. Just about my only recollection of the 1970s beyond family and friends is of power cuts; of having candles stuck in old wine bottles to be ready for when the lights went off again.

Were there (politically driven) power cuts after Labour returned to power in February 1974 until they left office in 1979 when you would be five? I was at university from 74-77 and can't recall any during that period. And even in the 1978/79 winter of discontent I can't recollect electricity supplies being affected: everything else, yes, but power cuts?

Am I misremembering?

There were very few politically driven strikes at any time in the 70s. Most, if not all, were about pay - improving, maintaining in the face of rampant inflation and preserving differentials between skilled, semi-skilled and non-skilled labour. In fact, you could argue they were all about aspiration. Often, union leaders struggled to control members - almost all of whom were white and working class, by the way.

The nature of the Labour party links with affilated unions means that any strike is political to a greater or lesser degree (if from an affilated union). Historically the two are interwoven and linked.

foxinsoxuk said:

ydoethur said:

PeterC said:

Indigo said:

Fishing said:

None of this is original of course, and it doesn't preclude Corbyn getting a short honeymoon after he's elected. But I think the requirements to be popular with NPXXMP and the (enlarged but still small) Labour Party selectorate and the requirements to "resonate widely" with the Great Unwashed in Nuneaton are very different.

Never mind his views or his policies. The British Public won't vote a 71 year old into the job of PM. The chances of all sorts of effects of ageing becoming manifest, not least of which is dying, will be too high for a electorate used to election people in their 40s.

The trend towards younger leaders has hardly been an unqualified success though. There are plenty of reasons why Corbyn will never be PM, but his age isn't one of them IMO.

If he were 60, I'd agree. But 71 is getting on a bit. It's past compulsory retirement age in most occupations even today. Moreover, he would be 76 by 2025, if he lived that long, and we haven't had a Prime Minister of that age in the age of universal suffrage, with the sole exception of Churchill (who was a fairly ineffective PM mostly because of his advanced age - he should really have been replaced by Eden in 1949, before the Tories returned to power).

It's also an issue with Trump, Biden and Clinton, of course, and one reason why I don't think we should assume they are as clear front-runners as the odds would indicate.

As a teetotal, non-smoking vegetarian in seeming good health Jezza looks good for at least a decade, but nothing is certain of course.

How senile is he? He is already politically senile.

Syriza splits.... foreshadowing what might happen to labour?

F1: P1 coverage starting on BBC2, though session itself starts at 9am.