Corbyn and the centre ground

I did see that claim Anniebach and thought to myself 'he must be joking'!?

Or Deluded lemon

Annie, I found the article in the Times. It was an interesting read.

His view has been challenged by a Times poll which shows that only 5 percent of voters see Labour as inhabiting the political “centre” and 63 percent see it as “left-wing”, including 36 percent who say it is “very left-wing”.

Even Labour voters reject Mr Corbyn’s notion, with 65 per cent saying the party is left-wing, including 8 per cent who say it is “very left-wing”.

But that's 104% in the 'we'll ask everyone' survey.
I think someone at YouGov has been at the cooking sherry today

I'm definitely not one of the 5%. I think you knew that already though!

Primrose, I think they included two sets of figures together,

Whatever, I am in the 8% and I didn't listen to the conference .

Who's going to tell him he's wrong?
This is what happens when no one dare argue with their beloved leader.

There was nothing in their 2017 manifesto that was particularly left wing if you judge it on present day social democracies or on the post-war consensus which existed before Thatcherism. It's just that politics has moved to the Right in the past 40 years. Most of it looked just a bit left of centre to me.

And we won't forget the irony of the tories stealing some of Red Ed's policies for their 2017 manifesto... or will we?

No one is allowed to question Corbyn. I begin to see how dictators rise to power. No dissent is allowed.
Where does he think the money is going to come from to pay for all of this? We will have so many strikes as the Unions will have such power.

Interesting story from The sun (of all papers)

FRUSTRATED voters are lurching to the left and backing Jeremy Corbyn’s Socialist ideas, a major study has revealed.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/4573175/voters-leftwing-jeremy-corbyn-renationalisation-plans/

Yes, well if you let more and more people into the country and then cut back on services ,you will cause discontent. You could almost write it as an equation. Cameron and Osborne have a lot to answer for. Blair and Brown as well.

Voters will not vote just on a manifesto, anyone who has canvassed for the party will know this fact.

We weren't talking about voters voting on manifestos. I only used it as an example of apparent Labour thinking.

What we are talking about is whether or not they occupy the centre ground. In my opinion, for the reasons I stated in my post, I think they're just left of centre.

And the report from The Sun seems to support a feeling of a shift back to less far right wing politics.

Also, the poll that GG posted a link to on another thread seems to indicate approval, across the age groups, for re-nationalising at least some of the privatised industries. (though I do appreciate that it is from a self selecting sample)

There is no doubt however that the centre ground is there for the taking.

Corbyn I think was arguing that the Tories have vacated the right of centre and have lurched to the right, therefore leaving the centre ground. Whether the country as a whole has moved to what it sees to the left as he is claiming is a moot point, but I think that there can be little doubt that there is a need by the populace for a different type of politics and one form has been a move by many members of the public towards what they would argue for policies that ensure greater equality and fairness in our society, and away from the failed austerity where the wealthy has gained and the poor have suffered over the past decade.

There is another movement that argues that what we need is a totally free trade low tax, low regulation economywhich will succeed much better once we are outside the EU. This of course would be a large lurch to the right taking us even further away from the centre ground. I for one would be extremely alarmed as I think Thatcher tried this and very quickly realised her mistake and quietly turned rapidly away from what she realised was a disaster for the uk economy. Remember the empty stores up and down the high streets and the level of bankruptcies? The 3 million unemployed? There has never been a period like it since.

Not since because we had three centreleft Labour governments

I;m sure its possible to pay for everything he has suggested IF they stop squandering our taxes on other things ,but of course to some Trident and HS2 and London crossrail and the London sewers and the refurb of the HOC and Buckingham Palace are all essential .....or what about the 44o MILLION spent on armed vehicles that cant be used in the heat of the desert...even though thats where they were sent or the food and drink bill for the Lords...champagne anyone?. and countless other things our "wise" Westminster government spend on .Dont hear many complaints about all that misspent taxation

What Corbyn said was that you have to accept that the centre ground moves.

He's been saying that since before last year's conference, so why has it just been picked up now?

For proper left wingers.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuh8vk3-x60

Wonderful speech by Skinner about Tony Benn. Thanks for the link DJ, I hadn't heard this before.

Thank you dj for posting that link. What a wonderful tribute to a legend by another legend. It brings tears to my eyes.

How telling that the benches were almost empty, even on the Labour side. They should have been ashamed.

since Corbyn became leader we have envy, bullying ,

I think it may help to look at what Jeremy Corbyn did actually say:

Conference, it is often said that elections can only be won from the centre ground.And in a way that’s not wrong – so long as it’s clear that the political centre of gravity isn’t fixed or unmovable, nor is it where the establishment pundits like to think it is.It shifts as people’s expectations and experiences change and political space is opened up.Today’s centre ground is certainly not where it was twenty or thirty years ago.

A new consensus is emerging from the great economic crash and the years of austerity, when people started to find political voice for their hopes for something different and better.2017 may be the year when politics finally caught up with the crash of 2008 – because we offered people a clear choice.

We need to build a still broader consensus around the priorities we set in the election, making the case for both compassion and collective aspiration.This is the real centre of gravity of British politics.We are now the political mainstream.Our manifesto and our policies are popular because that is what most people in our country actually want, not what they’re told they should want.

So I posted the actual word rather than the DM style reportage but Jeremy Corbyn also said this - and the two things tie together:

As the Financial Times put it last month our “financial system still looks a lot like the pre-crisis one” and the capitalist system still faces a “crisis of legitimacy”, stemming from the crash.

There seems to me to be a great deal of agreement that capitalism, or rather the neo-liberal capitalism that has moved the Conservative party so far to the right, is now being found a counter balance in the proposals coming from Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party and, importantly, no where else.

This is certainly moving what has been the accepted "there is no alternative" view and opening up a move to consider a different sort of economics . This is certainly moving or consolidating many people's view, as we saw in the last election, away from the far-right neo-liberalism toward what JC is offering.

The soft right of the LP would once have only offered more of the Tory message but with softer words but they actually appear to have nothing to offer currently. Belief in the so called 'hard choices' that had to be taken is dying and people are seeing that the choice of so called austerity is only the choice that has to be taken if you believe in neo-liberal capitalism.

From the day Corbyn said that the LPs quest was for a decent and better society and talked about the hope of so many for a different Britain, a better Britain, a more equal Britain, a more decent Britain he allowed them to believe that being fed up with the inequality, the injustice and the unnecessary poverty was a legitimate feeling something the Tories had tended to make fun of for decades.

Some began to feel hope that this far-right view of the economy which feeds the rich and kills the poor could be different. The Jeremy Corbyn Labour Party may not have all the right answers but enough people now believe that the rhetoric of the right is just that. There are no hard and fast rule about their sort of economy - it is what they have chosen and this is certainly moving the centre ground.

Excellent posts GG, thank you

You have all said what I wanted to say but didnt