Voted Labour all my life but the current unedifying shambles is a new low. With Boris out and Theresa May looking totally statesmanlike and with more balls than Michael Gove, it suddenly doesn't seem to matter whether Clueless Corbyn stays or goes. Angela Eagle would struggle in a general election against May, Corbyn would be an embarressment. Labour are lower than Barnsley at the end of November.
And they cant sign Adam Hammill to kick start the revival. Hate to say it but I think the best hope for the country is if May gets the Tory Leadership - but the way things are going it will be Gove wont it - everything else is going wrong so why stop now
in Scotland the disillusioned Labour people voted for the Scottish Nationalists. Where is the disillusioned English Labour vote going -- UKIP ??
The current Labour shambles is not Corbyn's fault though is it?..... He was elected with a big majority and since then has been constantly attacked by the media (even to the extent of how low he bowed at the cenotaph), and, shamefully, has been attacked by politicians in his own party who have constantly sought to undermine him from day one. The guy has had no respite from personal attack and no respite from ill-informed, scare-mongering by people who are scared of what he stands for. If the Labour Party (PLP) would get behind him we might possibly have a left of centre government which really tries to do something about the dreadful inequality in our society. Your comment about 'clueless Corbyn' seems to me to have no basis in fact. He has lots of very good clues!
As you must know, the point about Corbyn's 'majority' is hardly the full story. To function as the leader of a viable opposition, let alone a prospective government, Corbyn must command the confidence and support of his front bench team, as well as the wider parliamentary party. This he has evidently failed to do. There is also the democratic point that whilst he undoubtedly does command the support of a majority the membership, the Labour MP's who have lost faith in him are in post via the support of millions of members of the electorate. The current Labour party arrangements make no provision to marry internal member support with wider electoral approval. The result of that is the shambles and chaos that we are seeing at the moment - under Corbyn's leadership. It's clear that there is a power struggle going on at the moment between the hard left membership and the traditional centre right element within the party. If the hard left win it will be a pyrrhic victory because Labour will remain unelectable for more than the 18 years they were in the wilderness between 1979 and 1997. You may recall it took a more centrist positioning and a brand of Labour with popular electoral appeal to break that spell in opposition. While that sort of party and government can't achieve everything on the socialist agenda, an unelectable party can achieve nothing. In the midst of all this, the suspicion is growing that Corbyn is little more than a puppet of the likes of McDonnell and Seamus Milne, who control his movements and utterances, ushering him away from probing journalists. The intimidation of those who disagree with them has no place in British politics. That Corbyn could tolerate all this under his 'leadership' demonstrates to me that he is utterly clueless.
The PLP have plotted this from day one. I maybe wouldn't mind so much if they'd even given it a chance and got behind Corbyn and the progressive agenda he's been elected on. Instead they've undermined him from day one and missed opportunity after opportunity to hold the Tories to task. The many successes he's had have been ignored by the media to print off the record and even on the record criticism from Labour MPs. That is a disgrace. And against all that the evidence doesn't even support their view that Corbyn is failing. All he has failed at is preventing an orchestrated coup designed before he'd even won the election. The PLP are not fit for purpose, and once again they will wrongly see a solution to a problem, in this instance Brexit, with a lurch to the right. Maybe Corbyn would step down if there was an alternative candidate to lead the mandated agenda and he felt it wouldn't return to Tory-lite. But there isn't because the PLP has filled itself with parachuted in Blairites.
Lets put it this way, what would you say if somebody offered you the chance for your football team to played a style that you loved but that same style meant it would never win another game ever and would end up in the Blue Square or something whilst your local rivals were winning everything in sight?
You mean like Corbyn has always stood by the PLP in the past? How many he times has he defied the Labour whip? Isn't it something like 600? How can he expect loyalty with a teach record like that?! I've a lot of sympathy with many of the things Corbyn stands for but the fact is he's simply toxic as far as most of the British public are concerned. There ought to be a special place in hell for Tony Blair but at least he got a convincing mandate for Labour that provided a platform for at least some progressive policies (as well a many that were disastrous).
Absolutely valid point. But the world was a different place in 1997. He was elected on a platform of hope by post industrial communities that had been ravaged by Thatcherism. There's an argument that New Labour did the best they could for post industrial Britain under the constraints of Neoliberalism. But that's the point. It's a system which fails those people. They've seen wealth inequality grow, skilled well paid jobs replaced by low pay, transient jobs and irregular working patterns. None of those problems can be solved by centrist politics, and those areas feel betrayed by New Labour. Coupled with the rise in the SNP and an electoral system that works against them Labour absolutely face an existential crisis. What the left needs in this country is a progressive left alliance. One that saves the union by working with the SNP to devolve more power and give Scotland hope that it's not doomed to Westminster Tories. One that brings in the increasing Green vote. That forms a narrative for working class communities about how they won't be the ones to suffer from the excesses of capitalism. And one that puts public services and the welfare state at the heart of what it does. A centre ground Labour party that ignores all that are as unelectable as any other, particularly without Scotland. Most importantly we all need to stop arguing amongst ourselves on the left. But at the moment to me and many others it feels like the PLP are telling the party none of the above is up for debate, that the only way is their way. Which lost the last two elections.
Some valid points but is it true he's electorally toxic? That's not what the by elections and council elections show.
Respect your opinion, but I think you'd have to accept that it's the puppet master McDonnell who is the "the only way is my way" merchant. The PLP, most of whom Corbyn has alienated, actually contain a broader sweep of opinions from centrist to harder left. But hardly any of them think Corbyn is up to the job. He managed to alienate Pat Glass within two days.
There are a lot if people out there that like Corbyn for reasons good and bad, but he's not going to swing the floating voters in the marginal constituencies where general elections are typically won or lost. If Labour want to make it back to power they're going to need genuine mass appeal. That's not Corbyn.
The trouble is that McDonnell's way has the mandate. It's just sad that the PLP became such a closed shop of former SPADs that there isn't another candidate who reflects that mandate or maybe Corbyn would step down. Although I'm still of the view that it is the PLP who have alienated themselves and the way they've treated Corbyn has done irreparable damage. Particularly to the young people who voted him in. Once again, a week after Brexit, politicians have let them down.
But the rise of the SNP has changed everything. The best Labour can hope for without the Scottish vote is to stop a Conservative majority, particularly if the Tories force through their undemocratic boundary changes. Winning a handful of marginals isn't enough if the core vote collapses. They need to be working with parties of the left and embracing the new kind of politics. Thanks for your thoughts, and Orsen Kaht. Wherever the fault lies it's disappointing we're all talking Labour turmoil when the Tories are in disarray.
I agree with some of what you say in relation to the mismatch between the PLP and the membership. However, I think the manner of the attacks on Corbyn have been, quite frankly, appalling and the guy has NEVER been given any leeway or support from the time he was elected leader. It should heve been incumbent on the PLP to back the leader after his election victory as a mark of respect for the wishes of the party members who put him there.. As to the criticism of his leadership.. a) He is not being 'allowed' to lead now and never has been by the right-wing of the party who are frightened he will steer them away from their pseudo-Tory agenda b) On issues/events where he is often criticised as a weak leader and someone who is electable he is, in spite of his enemies winning by-elections, increasing voteshare in council elections and, if statistics are correct, getting well over 60% of the Labour vote out for Remaining in the EU. I think, in this country there is a change in the values/attitudes of large numbers of classes of people for various reasons which we could discuss. If Labour end up jettisoning Corbyn and the type of politics he espouses however then the Labour Party will be sunk because more core support will drift, in despair, to parties like UKIP. Labour is already wiped out in Scotland because of this trend. It is the dinosaurs within the PLP that are the real problem for Labour In essence, Corbyn, for me, is not the problem, so I think I'll have to disagree with you.... Best wishes in any case
If I was a football manager I'd not be bothered about globalisation, austerity, the EU though would I? I'd be managing a team to win and hopefully play nice stuff at the same time... The analogy's not quite right...
Ask yourselves this, why do the media attack him so much why do the Tory party do their best to belittle him...answer.. they are running scared for what he stands for plus at grass roots the younger generation hold him high esteem and the amount of folk who voted for him to become leader was if im not mistaken a very large majority...if only the older generation of Labour supporters rallied we might just get a socialist government in power sooner than expected,,,,my only concern was i do think he scored an own goal by towing the party line to vote remain when in principle he knew it went against his core values