If you read anything today please read this by John Harris.
I think John has summarised a lot of arguments pithily and well.
Many are remarkably similar to things I have been saying, I admit.
And his conclusion is realistic, if grim.
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And one might add to the gloomy conclusion that, whilst Labour is reduced to conflict and ineffectuality, the Conservatives seem likely under any new leader to move to the right and the shoring up of the kind of corporate interest led economy that prompted many to vote ‘Leave’ they will at the same time try to assume a populist and ‘one nation’ mantle.
Which is why I said it’s time for a real unity leader
The only one I can see is Owen Smith
Can’t find much to agree with in that article.
Unions and Industry in retreat?
How did that happen then?
People not knowing what labour stands for?
The blairite tactic of providing sinecures through safe seats over the wishes of constituencies is the cause of the loss of connection between labour and potential labour voters.
15 years plus for an alternative to emerge (from what I am not sure)?
So for the forseeable future, we can have red or blue tories.
John has more patience than most.
JC has only had 9 months, totally unsupported by the parliamentary party.
You have said there is promise in his policies, but none of these principled MPs seem willing to promote them.
I understand the blairites position, they see their whole way of life being swept away, their PR campaigns,their cherished expenses ,tridents and foreign interventions and those networks built lovingly to be passed from father to son.
They face being discarded like coal miners.
Jeremy Corbyn is not perfect, but who is?
I’ll take his faults over the scant alternatives.
While it is deeply unfashionable in a time where people are divided into winners and losers (boxing gloves for the latter,finst kid for the former), I think of Reinhold Niebuhr:
“The temper and integrity with which the political fight is waged is far more important for the health of a society than any particular policy.”
As the coup plotters have neither temperament,integrity or compelling policy, they are the permanent road to oblivion.
I am sorry, but Jeremy was a disaster at westminster
Why ignore that fact (it is a fact)?
If he cannot manage the party you are backing the wrong person
I have changed nothing in my political opinions
But if I want them to be delivered I have to change the person I back to do so
Jeremy never will
I amy elaborate but your analysis is miles from anythiong that I can consider remotely realistic and that’s depressing
It’s hard to manage a party if its already being managed by someone else, for want of a better term; the blairite network.
Such a well choreographed show of principle from the same people who ran and hid rather than vote against the vindictive ‘welfare’ bill rather than being seen as soft on scroungers, shows a very well managed team.
Admittedly one which seems to have very skewed priorities.
However, the wheels seem to be coming off already, but they can take comfort in letting the tories off the hook.
I have no love of Blair
But I think that while there are some who so subscribe still to think they still control is absurd
Please try to persuade me, with clear, convicing evidence that JC is not a good leader. I haven’t seen any yet, just countless assertions as if it is a fact.
80% of the PLP – the people who work for him – voted for a motion of no confidence
What more do you need for heaven’s sake?
Angela Eagle has been nominated (pushed forward) into a leadership bid against Jeremy. If she is successful, I imagine many will be watching her to see how things progress.
If she puts together a cabinet that includes JC and JM, in addition to the Right wing and those who stayed loyal to Jeremy, there may be some hope. If, however, JC. JM and many of the loyalists are excluded from a cabinet that contains many of the Right wing in key positions (Liz Kendal, Chukka Umanna, Yvette Cooper and Tristam Hunt to name a few) I suspect the Labour party is finished, and will likely split. Which will be a devastating blow to those that depend on having a progressive voice in Parliament.
Politics was ever fractious, but a number of things have changed in the landscape :
1) The days of loyal party voters in a bi-partate system are now over. Voters today are more educated, have more sources of information and opinion through the internet, and represent an increasingly diverse social and ethnic population. Furthermore the Brexit referendum has split the whole country in ways that cut across every political party, making the old spectrum of left and right less relevant than ever before. Voters will respond to leaders who have a clear and simple agenda that addresses their biggest concerns. To this end a credible policy on immigration looks like the hot ticket for the next general election, combined with a constructive approach to our place in the European single market.
2) Politics must now operate on multiple levels, combining international cooperation, national governance, and regional devolution. Brexit encapsulates all three, interlocking unkown negotiations with the EU ahead, a critical debate on the future direction of austerity vs public investment within the UK, and the potential independence of Scotland. Voters and politicians alike may yearn for the simple national agendas of the 20th century, but the World has changed and we must change with it.
3) The World is now Global. If any good can come from the disaster of Brexit it may be to encourage a change in thinking away from regional European issues to a new Global agenda. This will require the G20 to take on a much more prominent role in future. Voices in China and elsewhere already talk of moving the G20 from a focus on crisis response, towards a more institutional role. If anyone can broker such a move, China is probably in the best position to make progress as it chairs the G20 summit this autumn. Unfortunately the heads of both the UK and USA will be the outgoing leaders at this summit, so immediate changes are unlikely. But if we are to address our biggest Global problems including climate change, Global tax evasion, and effective regulation of the World’s financial markets, we must find ways in future to make such international cooperation work. The age of national politics as we knew it in the 20th century is already over. Parties that wish to thrive in the new age must take this on board and find new ways to connect with voters on the issues that really matter.
http://www.TheGlobalRace.net
He’s right; start building bridges with the anti-austerity coalition beginning to form. You have so much to offer them and share their aspirations. But don’t be surprised when push comes to shove if they hold it against you that you took the side of the PLP in the last few days. You may wish to claim this is not the case or was not your intention but those claims fail against the wider perception. Sorry to say.
I called for a new leader because Jeremy cannot deliver
I did so as a non-Labour party member
For reasons that will be obvious to anyone who ends up in a coalition if it is to happen
I read this article, and like more and more that I read in the Guardian (which is now less and less) it seems to be backward looking, doom and gloom, and just more “yesterday’s news” with no inclination that we may be on the cusp of real political and economic change which should be used as a force for good over evil.
This seems all part of the get Corbyn out agenda from the outset, from people who would much rather go back to politics and business as usual, while staying within their comfort zones (that is not aimed at you Richard, I mean the ringleaders in the shadows who never ever wanted him anywhere near the labour party leadership anyway!)
But today we know the identity of the contender being put forward as the new Great Leader. So why not spend a bit of time looking at the options available to the Labour members in the coming weeks/months?
They are going to have to make a choice as it is clear that Corbyn is not going without a fight – clearly something many people think he does not have, but may perhaps be proved wrong.
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/is-angela-eagle-more-electable-than.html
You might as well say it is aimed at me
I’ve written most of what John says here of late
And much of what he says is spot on or I would not have said so
And candidly to say John (who I know, a bit) and I have not tried to be on the cusp of real change is pretty hard to understand
Keith, I’ve just re-read the article by Harris and apart from his assertion that Corbyn has been an awful leader – which people obviously disagree on – the rest of the piece is an extremely measured and accurate statement of where “the left” is and of some of the things that need to happen to recover and reform and thus, as you put it, get to that ‘cusp of real political and economic change’. Consequently, how you can dismiss it as ‘yesterday’s news’ and ‘backward looking’ is beyond me.
I’ll concede he is doomy and gloomy. And why wouldn’t he be? The situation that we – by which I mean on the left/progressives – find ourselves is pretty shite, is it not. Unfortunately I’m old enough to have been an active member of the Labour Party and of NUPE (as was) at the time of Michael Foot’s leadership of the Labour Party – which I backed and argued in support of for several years. And much that I see and hear now reminds me of what went on then, not the least being the treatment of Corbyn by the media, which is pretty much a replica of what happened back then, but without the added complication of social media and the internet.
But regardless, we know what the outcome was then, and picking up on a point that Harris makes, I cannot see much of a different outcome now other than the Labour party splits. What happens after that? Well, Harris makes some useful suggestions that for me count as a stab at the ‘options’ open to Labour members over the coming months/years that you rightly say need discussion. If my memory serves me correctly, some these are likely to be remarkably similar to the choices we had to make through the Michael Foot era.
Best wishes.
Never the less -there IS a radical difference in that article to what Richard was saying a couple of days ago and it is this:
” But in all its fundamentals, the state of his party is hardly his fault. To blame him is to fall for the same delusion whereby a supposed challenger — Angela Eagle, Tom Watson, Dan Jarvis — can put the party on the road to recovery.”
Richard WAS mentioning challengers; and he certainly implied that there WERE people who COULD create a viable challenge to the Tories.
He also states: ” The party as we know it may be finished.” hardly the message that ‘Labour needs to move on’ that Richard (sorry for addressing in 3rd person!) has proclaimed.
Caroline Lucas has made a good call – a ‘real’ Left/Green alliance and let the neo-lib shirts and blouses find somewhere else to go. Otherwise: let Labour slit and reform from the grassroots.
I agree with Caroline
And I think you are trying to find difference where is nothing of substance
Ivan, perhaps it was his doomy and gloomy tone that got to me more than his actual words. I have become more cynical by the day at the lack of any impartiality from most political commentators, even those in the Guardian who I used to have time for.
Take today’s headline at the moment – Corbyn appears to compare Israeli government to Islamic State.
As far as I’m concerned their political editor should be hauled over the coals and sacked for this, I have watched the video several times and listed to his words very carefully and at no time did he “appear to compare the Israeli government to Islamic state”.
And yet this is now classed as quality journalism, when it would not even be worthy of the Beano in my opinion.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/30/jeremy-corbyn-appears-compare-israeli-government-islamic-state-labour-antisemitism-review
As for the future of the Labour Party, I’m not a member but I would like to see it returned to a party representing the interests of working class people, which in my view it ceased to be when the majority of the PLP was purged of almost all of those of working class origins and any hint of a socialist perspective on life.
So if Corbyn has taken the fight to the Blairites who clearly do not want to give up their hallowed ground in both Westminster houses, then he should be given a fair chance of recovering the party for the people it should be representing. And a fair chance is not what he has been given so far in my view.
Keith
I am sorry, but this is getting utterly inappropriate now
I have watched the video and read the statement and I can see exactly why Ruth Smeeth was upset and why Jeremy Corbyn’s words have been interpreted as the Guardian (and many others) have suggested. The comment was insensitive at the very best in any situation, and extraordinary given the context whilst the failure that appears to have occurred to address comments from a Momentum supporter seems like a remarkable lapse
I think your comment is just wrong
I am publishing it only to have the opportunity to say so
Richard
PS I have read Kate McCann’s twitter feed and I gather from it Labour officials did remonstrate with the person from Momentum but he has done their cause massive harm
I think it’s a good article.
However, it may not actually be important what happens to Labour — at least, not in the short term.
As it stands, Brexit is entirely a matter for the Tories, who will conduct an internal dialogue over Brexit at the same time they choose a new leader. Come early September, they will have finalised and I think must implement one of the following strategies:
1. Kick Brexit into the long grass (no clear strategy for this as yet).
2. Abandon the promise to limit migration (requires managing expectations of leave-voting public).
3. Abandon the single market.
The candidacy of Michael Gove this morning is the strongest indication yet that abandoning the single market is an option. There’s a bit on leaving the single market by Steve Keen:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevekeen/2016/06/27/what-next-after-brexit/#50be5c3d46f8
Gove is likely to approach the issue with a different ambit to what Keen might like to see. But the underlying issues would be similar. For example, the impact to the City of London’s operations may be smaller than expected. And the necessary rebalancing away from financial services would be good for the country (admittedly, Brexit is the wrong way to achieve it, but we’re stuck now).
I think it’s very unlikely that the Conservatives will hold a general election. The urgency by many in the Labour camp to prepare the party for a snap election is more likely to be to put pressure on Corbyn, rather than in response to any signalling from the Conservatives, or any obvious strategy for the Conservatives.
The downsides for the Conservatives to a general election are numerous:
– A party standing on a platform of abandoning Brexit may win.
– The Conservatives themselves cannot credibly stand on a platform of abandoning Brexit.
– Reversing the Brexit result via a general election would cause civic unrest.
– Even sending the public to the polls so soon after the disastrous referendum campaign will create unrest.
– I’ve heard rumours of financial issues as well — neither party has the money for a campaign just now.
With no general election imminent, it doesn’t really matter what Labour do.
For Labour, the issue is really that the party has been in decline ever since Blair delivered a significantly smaller majority in 2006. Many of the voters — mainly poorer voters living outside city centres — who had delivered Blair’s stunning landslide in 1997, and who gave him more time in 2001, realised that they had been duped, and that Blair wasn’t acting in their interests. Once Blair was replaced by less talented political performers — first Gordon Brown, then Ed Miliband — this falling away became precipitous.
Labour’s decline crystallised with the loss of Scotland last year. As I’ve just outlined, this wasn’t the fault of Miliband, who I think performed well in the face of very hostile media coverage. And it all happened well before Corbyn took over the party.
It may well be that working class voters in the North of England are already gone for Labour. This would be more of a continuation of what happened to Labour in Scotland, rather than a response to Corbyn’s leadership. All the indications are that Corbyn was well aware of the issue — moreso than the rest of the PLP. It explains what many have described as a lacklustre performance by Corbyn in the referendum campaign. What I think is more likely, is that Corbyn was avoiding alienation of Labour voters in the North of England who he thought would be inclined to vote Leave. This is cannier than many give him credit for. For example, I doubt any Leave voter — 51.9% of the country — is angry with Corbyn for the way he came across in the referendum campaign. The only people angry with Corbyn are the more right-wing Labour contingent who wanted Corbyn gone anyway.
I think it’s best for Labour to split. There’s room for a party — which could in at least the short term be the main opposition party — which comprises the bulk of the current PLP. It would then be up to Corbyn and followers to attempt to rebuild the Labour party along the lines of something like the original vision of the Labour movement in Britain. This could end up being timely if (for example) we get an exit from the single market and a rebalancing to manufacturing over financial services.
I suspect the current battle in Labour is over who gets custody of the party name, the machinery, and whatever’s left in the party coffers.
The party is in debt
To the tune of millions
The NEC are personally liable as far as I know
I think the ‘Saving Labour’ group is looking into the legal issues surrounding the use of the name ‘Labour’ if they split from the Corbyn group.
Excellent analysis in my view m-ga. Looking into the history show that it is possible to trace the Labour decline and the inception of neo-liberalism back to 1976 and the IMF debacle. Curiously the same year (more or less) that housing started to bubble-no coincidence , that is for sure.
What a depressing but wonderfully profound analysis. Definitely worth reading. Shakespearean tragedy indeed.
Since we cannot do to make you friends. How can anyone arbitrate the swelling difference of their hate.
Mr Harris, I fear is right. How dreadful, the fallout from all this. How long before calm waters, wish I knew.
John Harris is an interesting jornalist , with an ironic approach. He observes and listens giving space to those he speaks to. His reports have some of the quailty of George Orwell. Reading and listening to his reports of visits to different often neglected communities help to explain the Brexit vote, which is made up of an inconpatible alliance, right wing low tax so called libetarians and the alianated forsaken, from ex industial areas.
It is difficult to anticipate how things will develop.
I have been reading this blog for about 5 years and am always interested in what you have to say but I do think everyone is getting this wrong (so, inevitably, I will be too). While the right of the party believe that only they can win elections and have consistently sabotaged Corbyn, who is not a natural leader and far from perfect, the hard right are positioning themselves as the party of the working class (UKIP etc). Jeremy Corbyn appeals to those more than any other party leader. With the right of Labour so determined to tack to the ever moving centre, those people will be lost for good. So too will the left wingers who held on through the Blair years of increasing inequality so who apart from soft Tories, will be left.
If there were a candidate capable of unifying the party that is who I would vote for but with the right wing so determined that only they can run things I don’t see a way forward. Undermining the leader from the very beginning and then mounting the coup in the way they did was extremely irresponsible and destructive and they in no way look like a party capable of government. What a shambles.
John Harris is always worth reading. His analysis is usually spot on. It makes uncomfortable reading but those with an interest in progressive politics must address the considerable issues ahead of us.
I note that Owen Smith is considering running for Labour leader. Hope he does. He looks to be a better candidate than Angela Eagle, whose connection with the Blair/Brown era and Iraq is one that would harm her.
Smith is the one I’d go for.
Having watched last night’s Panorama, I could never bring myself to vote for anyone who supported Blair’s decision to invade Iraq. Anyone MP who claims that they were misled by the ‘dodgy dossier’ is either a liar or a fool and in either case should not be a member of the Labour Party, let alone it’s leader.
I hold no brief for Corbyn, but currently he is the only candidate to support the progressive agenda that you have advocated and I and many others support. This is not 1997, as Harris puts it;a Blairite leader espousing neo-liberal economic policies would have no more chance of winning a general election than a Corbynite – for want of a better term. Whoever puts up, I suggest party members (or ‘activists’ as the Radio 4 Today programme labels us all) and supporters vote for the policies, not the individual.
I am still rather hoping the policies I have suggested remain in place
Let’s hope we won’t be disappointed when Angela Eagle takes the party back to it’s New Labour roots then
John Harris is a bit harsh on Corbyn but otherwise I agree with what he says. But where do we go from here ? I notice that the green party is calling for a progressive electoral alliance talks to stop the formation of future Tory governments and I would support such a move. For instance here in Cornwall must Labour, Lib Dems, Greens & Mebyon Kernow fight every seat & thus split the progressive vote which results in 6 Tory MP’s going to Westminster.
I agree with the Greens on this
A lot of people in the real world do. But so far very little from other politicians. Needs a very brave move by someone…but could pay off in a big way
At the hustings I shall be asking one question of the candidates: “Are you prepared to push the nuclear button?”.
Secretary
Labour CND
It was very insensitive of JC to touch on Israel and Jewishness, at this chaotic time, it was a little low and not, for want of a better term statesmanlike. I think he has every right to highlight the Palestinian cause, perhaps a little inappropriate just now.
All getting tribal, understandably. Some younger members of my wider family, who voted remain, have caused such hurt to parents who voted leave, I shall have words with a favourite nephew who has upset my dear brother, he who put him through university, supported him emotionally and financially, with love, not with strings attached. I expect we can all recount such. My very best wishes to posters and especially Mr Murphy, who really needs a flak jacket on.
‘especially Mr Murphy, who really needs a flak jacket on.’ I think Richard’s flak jacket has been tested for many years, though I think we know by now that underneath the ‘Kevlar’ is a very sensitive soul. Good combination -which is why he’s good at his job.
Thanks Simon
Only one thing hurts me a lot, which is having my integrity challenged
This week has hurt on occasion
I have not changed any opinion in the last week far the fact that Jeremy Corbyn can’t lead his party but could be a good cabinet minister
I have not enjoyed the abuse for saying so
And I hate the venom that has generally been unleashed against many event people who I know who are MPs and have not in any way deserved what has been said about them
I agree that the Harris article is very good. But I still see no adequate definition of this holy grail called ‘leadership’ being put forward by him either.
I also thought that what he wrote about the ‘working class revolt’ that could happen in the referendum was also very prophetic (The Guardian, 17th June).
He is someone to be taken seriously obviously.
I too have suggested more coalition politics in past comments especially on the Left or amongst the real progressives and I am proud to be associated with this idea. I hope it happens. Now is the time – especially as the forces the neo-libs stand for devour the very parties that support them – like the Tories.
I also look forward to there being more political parties and a more convoluted politics of loose affiliations – not fewer – these extant monolithic ‘broad churches’ as they are do not seem to work anymore and do not reflect the complexity of people’s voting choices.
The only elephant in the room is if the electoral FPTP system is not changed.
As for the Tories, the election expenses scandal seems to have highlighted that there is very little actual local activism amongst Tory voters (this is why they have to bus people in apparently). This is a factor awaiting exploitation.
But then again, with the Telegraph, Daily Mail, Express, The Times and the Sun doing all of this for you as people sit and have their breakfast or when commuting….
The referendum for me was ultimately a victory for the right wing press.
Never is a very long time, but we have effectively been without a Labour party
for a long time already.
I think the writer was spot on regarding the dearth of analysis within the party.
In the eighties their meetings were a politics free excercise in oiling the wheels of the machinery – an off putting and dis-spiriting way to spend an evening.
John, I joined the Party in September 1988, in the throes of Kinnock’s “Meet the Challenge – Make the Change”, which was a laudable, and in many ways highly successful, attempt to update Labour’s thinking, in the face of the Thatcherite juggernaut. At least Party members were expected to question long-held views and assumptions.
The problem was that there was no real mechanism for transmitting ideas to the centre under “Meet the Challenge – Make the Change”, something Blair purported to deal with via the National Policy Forum, set up by the 1997 Conference to which I was a Delegate from my CLP.
And this alleged solution itself came with three problems:
1) the NPF was part of the Partnership in Power project, voted through at the 1997 Conference – a wonderful piece of Blairite window-dressing, which gave with one hand (a supposed say in policy, via the NPF), but took away with two (by reducing both ends of the policy-making process: hiving off power from Conference to the NPF, and from Branch and Constituency Labour Parties that had been able to send up motions to Conference: still possible, but on a different basis, and usually as Emergency Motions, at the mercy of the Conference Arrangements Committee)
2) the NPF was itself very unwieldy, and frankly a bit like the Wizard of Oz’s curtain, with a great deal apparently going on, but with the actual workings very unclear. All of this was made worse by the method for submitting proposals to the NPF: a complex document would come down from the NPF for discussion at a General Committee Meeting (typically lasting 2 hours, on a monthly basis, held in the evening, to an audience composed largely of pensioners or certainly middle to old age, with few younger than 45 – I facilitated one such on International Development), where it was expected that a CLP view could be sent back to the NPF at the end of the evening!!!
3) Other CLP’s MAY have adopted the route I wanted, as Political Education Officer, of working parties that could come together over a number of sessions to flesh out a real response for final approval by the General Management Committee, but I suspect my CLP’s practice was quite common, and this derived from my third objection to the NPF, and to Labour generally, already referred to by you in your description of the Labour Party in the 80’s.
This is the fact that Labour, even by 1945, had long left behind its origins in the Wesleyan inspired workingmen’s clubs and meetings where ideas WERE vigorously and enthusiastically discussed, and had succumbed to the, I think largely English suspicion of ideas and intellectuals, wonderfully encapsulated in Herbert Morrison’s answer to the question “What is Socialism”. He answered, “Socialism is what Labour does”!!!
In consequence, getting people truly to think and discuss – even in the quite intellectual constituency to which I belonged – was really quite difficult, made all the worse by the practical obstacles I have referred to.
Properly managed, I believe it COULD have worked, but, alas, clearly did not, nor will any revival of Labour fortunes occur until serious attention is paid to the question of political education (especially, given the nature of this blog, to money, banking and taxation), and how best to deliver it.
(PS, as I’ve posted before, I left the Labour Party in 2001, I’ve Blair’s failure to implement the Jenkins’ Report, and only came back in 2007, when Gordon Brown took over. Alas, nothing much had, or has, changed on the political education front, though to be fair, by then my experience of politics was via the Christian Socialist Movement, where discussion of ideas was very much the way of doing things. Alas, they too wussed out in 2006, adopting new Aims and Objectives, and dropping one I felt to be essential, and are now , in a fit of post-“end of history embarrassment”, now call themselves “Christians on the Left”, to hide their very Socialist origins.)
“80% of the PLP — the people who work for him — voted for a motion of no confidence
What more do you need for heaven’s sake?”
Er, not quite sure that’s “clear and convincing evidence” that he’s not a good leader, Richard! (Though it might be clear and convincing evidence that 80% are politically very different from him.)
So, as I said, where is the evidence?
I happen to know Jeremy
I have engaged, with effort, with his team
I know how hard it is
I believe the many MPs that I know who say they wanted to give him a chance but simply could not do their jobs blindfold because nothing was ever said to them and nothing they said was heard
These people are not disagreeing with him politically
They are begging to b an opposition
If you don’t want to believe that then you will clearly nit trust anyone
But not do you want Labour to oppose
Jeremy Corbyn was always going to be an electoral failure with the wider community. There’s more to leadership than simply having good ideas however ‘progressive’ they may be. And to discount ‘image’ as irrelevant in today’s media environment is just naive. I know many (most?) people who comment here are passionate about confronting the Neo-liberal agenda and hopeful to get a more progressive social agenda into the mainstream. But just having ideas and saying the words is meaningless in political terms. Surely the Michael Foot experience proved that in the 1983 GE. The Mirror headline was vote Labour and “Stop the waste of our nation, for your job your children and your future”. While the SDP—Liberal Alliance didn’t help, Thatcher none the less won a landslide victory with classic Neo-liberal policies. Some times history does repeat itself, even though the circumstances appear completely different.
Angela Eagle would be a disaster for different reasons. Have you ever heard her talk … lecture more like it. I’m sure she’s a lovely person. However, if Theresa May is elected we’d have two women leaders confronting each other over the dispatch box and no prizes for guessing who would come out on top. I know that’s that not a very sophisticated criterion but it matters in terms of establishing authority. What is it with Labour? Every time they’re confronted with an open goal they start discussing who’ll take the penalty and then chose someone who has never scored one before, even in practice. Maybe they’ve been listening to Roy Hodgson too much.
The Tories may be in total disarray but it’s the Tory party, doh! Given the time & space they will coalesce around their new leader and continue where they left off. They have form. They’ve been doing it successfully (for them) for over a century. They’re survival professionals because they are hungry for power for power’s sake. And, of course, they have most of the MSM on their side.
For the sake of the next generation, Labour must get its act together over the course of the next 3 years in order to be match fit in 2020 (let’s hope there is no appetite among MPs for a GE; Theresa May has said she wouldn’t call one). It’s not an impossible task if they stop bickering among themselves. The rallying cry is for all the potential front-bench to sign up to anti-austerity economics. No more talk of balancing the budget, national debt and all that nonsense. They have to stand up straight and level with the public. There is an alternative and it would resonate positively if spoken with conviction and unanimity. We know there will be an avalanche of media criticism and insults from the Tories. It’s going to be a rough ride so the leader has to be someone with natural authority and sufficiant personal charm to convince enough of the electorate that they are right and the Tories wrong.
We could go on discussing it for eternity. “To know and not to do is not to know”. Two of the most eloquent and forceful party leaders are Nicola Sturgeon and Caroline Lucas. Talking to them would be a good start for the PLP. Goodness knows where it will all end. But if nothing positive is achieved within 3 years then I fear for the long-term future of progressive politics & policies in the UK. Margaret Thatcher remained in power for 11 long years. Has everyone forgotten? It really is time time to put differences aside and CO-OPERATE. You’d think that was a word the Labour Party would understand better than most. Robert Owen will be turning in his grave.
Well said
‘No more talk of balancing the budget, national debt and all that nonsense. They have to stand up straight and level with the public. There is an alternative and it would resonate positively if spoken with conviction and unanimity.’
many of us were saying and wanted this pre 2015 and Richard was saying this -they didn’t remotely do it. I cannot see what has changed.
Richard let me make a straight appeal to you on this:
You are in the loop, you communicate with Labour Politicians and know a reasonable number. Do you know something that ‘we'(on this blog) don’t that could support the idea that ‘this time it will be different’, that Labour has the capacity to tell the British people what has really gone wrong for them over the last 40 years and could explain with sound economic reasoning why the Government is not a household and what the real choices regarding jobs/infrastructure investment/green investment actually are?
I’m just a bloke living in the middle of nowhere getting all my info from internet and books and for the life of me I cannot see Labour delivering this when and if Corbyn goes, I just cannot see it -please tell me I’m wrong and the evidence is there.
The best hope as leader would be Owen Smith
I think he does get this
I would hope he would keep John McD as shadow Chancellir
But I make no promises
Although I admit to knowing Owen, enjoying his comoany and did work with him when he was in the shadow treasury team
I have yet to be convinced that the PLP will (1) produce a leader who will talk to others about a broader coalition and (2) be less tribal than any other Labour politician. I just do not see it at the moment.
And yes – I want to be wrong. Of course I do.
I can’t really see anyone but Owen Smith doing that
As I have said since first asked
Here’s Tony Benn on the history Owen Smith will need to remember then:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX-P4mx1FLU
Thanks for the Tony Benn video link Simon, I’ve not seen that for a few years and I still cannot find anything to disagree with him about!
Should be mandatory watching for every Labour MP and party member (if only I was the Leader!). I’ll be pleased when Benn’s views are seen as the centre ground of the PLP, rather than the ridiculous characterisation of Benn and Corbyn et al as far left.
It’s very clear to me that Jeremy corbyn who was elected the labour party leader with a huge mandate has lost the confidence of his own MP’s, on the other hand the party members appear to like his vision of a fairer more inclusive society. It’s his stance on trident and his appeasement tendencies that I believe would prove to be toxic for the labour party if he was ever to run for Prime Minister lumped together with what is often inferred about his office being administered very haphazardly.
So I think think the party need to elect it’s leader who believes in the economics of Jeremy Corbyn which I think is essential in recapturing the working class vote and has the confidence and charisma to appeal to the centrist that often decide the outcome of a general election. If the referendum taught us anything it taught us that the people are tired of relentless uncaring capitalism. Labour need to harness this disillusionment as they are the only party that offers something different than what we have had to endure for the previous 40 years.
You have lost all credibility as far as I am concerned. This of course will not matter to you but if others feel as I do your views about taxation will not carry the weight it once did.
infund that quite bizarre
The very judgement that you respected is one you now says means tax abuse does not matter as much as it did
How does that work?
Because now I distrust your judgement.
You say you are a Quaker but you are prepared to support the faction of the Labour Party who was/is for the Iraq War, the bombing of Syria and the renewal/replacement of Trident. All policies which JC has opposed.
I supported no faction at all
I am not a Labour Party member
I did not vote for Jeremy Corbyn
I did not ask people to vote for him on this blog or lose where – see what I said to Andrew Neil
All I have said is I do not think Jeremy can now deliver the policies this country needs which seems to me to be true
Everything else you made up
Mr Marsh – your statement is worthy of a mention in the publication ‘Non Sequiturs for Dummies’ should there ever be such a publication – lol!
Richard what in my last post have I made up?
By supporting the defenestration of JC you have allied yourself with the Blairites.
Have I made up the fact you are a Quaker?
Have I made up the facts that people like Angela Eagle, Hillary Benn, etc all supported the Iraq War, the replacement of Trident and the bombing of Syria?
Have I made up the fact that JC voted against all three of the above?
Again please tell me what facts I have made up!
I was quite specific once, with reasoning supplied
I do not need to repeat myself
An article that continues John Harrison’s “decline of Labour under Corbyn” motif. Have watched and read many of his pieces. He’s determined to be depressed (or has a Guardian brief to be so). We may end up with a split party, that’s hardly surprising since the first past the post electoral system bizarrely forces such different political movements into single parties in order to win elections. That’s beginning to burst apart. We have certainly had two competing narratives in the last 9 months. The establishment tell us Corbyn (whose tie is a real problem) should never have been allowed. His extraordinary election was a mistake. We must never see his Leadership as workable. He must go. The normal trajectory of the neo-liberal project will be resumed as soon as possible. But on the ground, here where I am in my renewed, enthusiastic and growing Labour CLP inspired by Corbyn and his policies the narrative is different. Far more positive, hopeful and progressive. When John Harrison recently visited our town and did a depressing piece on the hopelessness of everything he didn’t include us. I wonder why?
I read it and profoundly disagree.
The problem boils down to ‘Who Owns the Labour Party?’ Is it the PLP or its members?
The situation we have is like a football team whose players refuse to play for a manager whose tactics, they believe, won’t win them promotion.
Well, the manager is appointed by the owner, or shareholders, and, ultimately, they are responsible for the team’s success.
Corbyn’s job is to reform the PLP.
You clearly don’t understand football
Managers have the job of managing the conflicting goals of many people
They survive if they manage that
Many don’t and not least because the players make clear they have no clue what he (in football) wants of them
That is what is happening here
The ability to reconcile is not present
So you think the players should choose their manager?
Maybe its your understanding of footie that’s lacking!
We all know that if managers cannot keep their players happy they go
A fact often (not always) true elsewhere
Although I think it fair to say that in most businesses, clubs, associations and political parties, the primary funders (shareholders if you like) do have the final say on whether to sack the players, the managers, the directors or just take their money somewhere else.
Which is probably what the major Unions are having to decide right now – with all options no doubt on the table!
Now to consider possible events being manipulated in the EU itself, as just as devastating, as in the UK. The EU has a winner take-all plan, a super country-Europe with no borders, its own money and army, autonomous from NATO. Mainly centered from a far more powerful Germany, along with France in alliance to rule all of the EU exclusively….No vote mind you, just a ‘what else can we do coup’–similar it might be added, as was done in the Ukraine by Victoria Nuland of the US(while the world watched and said and did nothing)—All done and aimed for the US goal of setting a perimeter of missiles pointed at various cities in Russia……Does anyone think the US would not have already declared war and demanded all allies fight their battle them too…..Never seems to matter that the US fabricates, to start all these wars, but the bumbling allies forget to think for themselves and simply lock into step and do the US bidding. Just like Trudeau is doing now–not one sentence explaining the Ukrainian coup —still no data to back up all the propaganda and hate mongering against Russia as though we were back 40 years and just as stupid. For the US to have started and continued all of these wars based on lies and more lies—makes the US more of a war-criminal than any other country—period.
Regardless, since the UK is no longer around to do the hop-to bidding of the US, the EU feels so empowered to begin their collective for power….over the rest of the European countries whether they want or like it …..or not….So much for democracy—–mostly a farce for some time…
I am cynical
But this is way beyond that
Who has this masterplan?
Where?
Let’s try a different analogy.
If the LP were a company it would be owned by its shareholders. The employees are refusing to work with a manager who was appointed by a shareholder majority vote. He was chosen, presumably, because the shareholders agree with the direction he wishes to take.
The PLP is not an autonomous entity. It is there to represent the views of the LP.
So you are saying employees have n rights?
Now that’s an interesting suggestion some might have problems with
If you insist on the shareholder analogy… Then you need to add in the customers and the products or services
The CEO has lost the confidence of most of his managers. They are the ones who actually have to deal with real customers, understanding what enough of them will actually buy and doing most of the product development. If they say that the CEO and the shareholders are misreading the customers and the market, and they have no confidence in him, I’d be inclined to listen to them. And get a new CEO
In the real world, an obsession with shareholder value and shareholders as the only stakeholders that matter,is precisely what’s made the current phase of Neo-liberal capitalism so dysfunctional. The idea developed at the same time as neoliberalism. Before that, most businesses tried to reconcile the interests of customers, shareholders, managers/staff, and the wider community. It’s the framework that I and others used to develop organisational strategies
Maybe it’s not such a bad analogy. It explains why thinking that the only people who matter are the CEO and the shareholders, is a bad way to run a business. Or a political party. And why listening to the management (MPs) and customers (voters) is fundamental to the success of a business – or political party
Very good
Although I still struggle with any comparison between a business and a political party as they have entirely different purposes, operate within different systemic environments, and experience vastly different levels of competition within most Western democracies.
Which is why I do agree with Richard that coalition is the way forward, although I don’t see that as likely without some fairly major systemic changes to elections and government structure.
The current two party system is already designed to force an internal (and mostly invisible) coalition of interests within the two main parties, which means most voters haven’t really got a clue what they are voting for. Which sort of works except at a time of political crisis such as this, when much of the electorate gets completely confused by what any party is standing for
For example, the Tories do not fully represent the interests of the owners of capital, because if they did they would get very few votes. They must compromise their policies to some extent in order to gain votes and they are also experts in positioning themselves as something they are not.
The Labour party do not fully represent the interests of those who exist solely on the fruits of their labour, because if they did the country could no longer operate within a capitalist system. They must compromise their policies or face the full force of the private financial establishment wielded against them. They are perhaps less effective at positioning themselves as something they are not, although Blair did a pretty good job at mixing things up in the minds of the public.
And so the two main parties must always compromise if the two party system is to work. It was the same when it was the Liberals v. Tories, or Whigs v Tories as it is now Labour v Tories. But it creates a nonsensical position in that no party of power really represents anyone, apart from maintaining the status quo as much as possible on behalf of the established order/interests.
So the two party system is the problem in my view, as it tries to avoid external coalitions as much as it possibly can by keeping the real coalitions within the left/right split of the two main parties. Hence why perhaps the Lib Dems have never made any real traction at national level even though they are in many ways to perfect middle of the road political party.
Two’s company, three’s a crowd is the inevitable result enforced by FPTP voting.
Perhaps the fact there is a crisis in both the current main parties of political power may force through change, although if history shows us any lessons at all it is that the establishment will try their hardest to continue to rig the game in their favour no matter what.
Or maybe the left is just dead for the time being? Maybe the left really has nothing to offer. Maybe the public is ready to move on to something else. An interesting book “The End of Jobs”
by Taylor Pearson describes how more jobs may become self employment opportunities. More entrepreneurs less workers. I do not pretend to have the answer.