Why has a woman never led the Labour Party?

Could we for once and for ever abandon this idea which some GNetters seem to perpetually repeat (perhaps in the hope that it may become true) that the Labour party is composed of young members.
a YouGov poll of Labour members nationally after the election, carried out for Professor Tim Bale at Queen Mary, University of London. It found their average age was 53, not much lower than the average age of Conservative Party members, 57. It found that 77 per cent of Labour members were in the higher ABC1 social grades, and that 53 per cent were men.
So hardly the young as asserted.

No, they want votes Think Glastonbury, Corbyn the aged hippie

Of course they want votes. All parties want votes and neither the LP or the tories are particularly fussy about what they do to get them. though on balance I would say that the tories are even less fussy than Labour

When does Corbyn & Co talk about the elderly, no its school meals, tuition fees, free musical instruments ,

Interesting that things that we all benefited from in our youth and which Labour wishes to restore are now apparently being condemned as bribery by older voters. No wonder there is intergenerational resentment.

Most commentators will note that the tories concentrate on policies which will please older voters because they know that older people use their vote more than do younger people and that they are more likely to vote tory. The Labour party cannot be condemned for being rather more forward thinking and trying to engage a new, younger generation of voters to give themselves a secure base for the future.

Which means they have no interest in their older voters, or even the middle aged ones.

IMO it means that they are less interested in offering bribes to older voters whose voting habits are more established and who are less likely to change their party allegiance whatever is offered them.

No, they want votes Think Glastonbury, Corbyn the aged hippie ?

Which means they have no interest in their older voters, or even the middle aged ones.

Yes lemon, even after Iraq. I have canvassed in Wales and England for years, I listen to what voters say not lecture them . I remember one house which had always been Labour, they bought their council house, come an election the wife had vote Labour poster in the window, the husband vote conservative poster.

The far left feel safe now, the young they have targated know nothing of the seventies and eighties yet today’s far left movement is from that time , think how one poster keeps dismissing Tory supporters as over 70. When does Corbyn & Co talk about the elderly, no its school meals, tuition fees, free musical instruments , they are doing ‘a Clegg’ it worked - short term.

Really? Was it three times Annie, well, that says it all, people are generally happier with a centre led Party.

Blair was mocked by the militants for his education , comfortable upbringing , yet no different to Corbyn. Hilary Benn been mocked too. Now more than ever a Labour MP must have lived in social housing, Son or daughter of a bus driver with a mother who worked in a factory.

MawBroon, I read that Emily T claims they did live in some kind of social housing after her father left. Still, it's hardly the kind of difficulties in life faced by Alan Johnson is it. He was orphaned at 15 and only managed to avoid care because his 17 year old sister and a creative social worker kept them together in the council flat they'd grown up in.

Further to the post which tells how Emily Thornberry claimed to have had no money in her childhood, it may depend on what one calls “money” (ranging from the Rees-Mogg variation to being able to pay the rent)
Anyway, looking for information on Sir Christopher Nugee (Mr Emily Thornberry) I came across a reference to her father
Cedric Henry Reid Thornberry was an international lawyer and Assistant-Secretary-General of the United Nations, for which he worked for 17 years
Hardly a housing association flat then .
Why is it so necessary for some politicians to feel the need to establish (or create) a working class background? Yes it may give an indication of how far they have come, but clearly can sometimes also be more than a bit disingenuous.

Blair won three consecutive elections, Kinnock had to fight back from the strikes of the seventies and the disastrous 1983 loss.

Tony Blair won...twice and he was centrist.

I'm sorry Anniebach but I just don't understand your argument. If you're right, then why didn't Brown win? Or Miliband? Or Kinnock for that matter as you've previously praised him?

Which brings in the votes on polling day, far left or centre left? I really believe if the centre left took control again .labour would definately win.

of course a lot of us would prefer the Labour party to be left wing ..as they originally were .Not that I'll ever vote for them but at least they would BE an opposition .Well if they can get their act together to stop abstaining and voting with the tories !

Liz Kendall was too far to the right , Mary Creagh wanted to stand but couldn’t raise enough support , I wanted Caroline Flint and Ben Bradshaw to win the deputy leadership , difficult .

I doubt the party will move back to the centre until it has another crushing defeat

Of course Dianne Abbott stood in the 2010 Labour Leadership Election.

The 2015 Labour Leadership female candidates were Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall.

I think the next batch of candidates could well see Emily Thornberry , Dawn Butler in the running.

However it will depend if Labour are still shifted to the 'left' or whether the ' center' ' have regained hold of the party.

That is the question that is most interesting and only time will tell.

I heard Ed Milliband speak at our town hall, in a small room which was packed with party members and a large group of Trade Union leaders. I voted for him in the leadership election because I was impressed by what he said, the manner in which he said it and the way he responded to challenges from the audience. I didn't vote for his brother because of my distress at the war in Iraq, I saw David as contaminated by all of that.
A number of journalists and commentators commented during Ed's leadership, that the positive way he came over in meetings just didn't make it to the tv screens.
Politics eh -who'd ever get involved.

Tessa was very involved in forming New Labour as were the majority of MP’s,

Labour Party members and the unions vote for the leader, if it had just been party members David Milliband would have been leader, the union vote swung it to Ed Milliband

Since her recent death, Tessa Jowell has been showered with praise. She was a successful Labour Party politician, and everyone talks about how nice she was. Did she never become party leader, or even aspire to be leader, because she has too nice?

It's nothing to do with sexism, there just has not been an inspirational female firebrand, Sturgeon inspired the SNP for a while, Thatcher the Tories for far too long. Beloved Theresa doesn't count because nobody else wanted the job.

Because the Labour Party "Members" elect the leader any successful woman has got to be a firebrand well to the Left of the party and a more inspirational speaker than Corbyn.

Wether that makes them unelectable, we will see.

Just what I need , an expert on all thing connected to unions.

Why did unions keep Lord Robens in his position regardless of the findings of the enquiry into the Aberfan disaster and why did they try to stop the tips being removed and then insist the villagers pay part of the costs from the memorial fund money?

Anniebach, in response to your posting today (15/05/18 @ 14:46) in which you stated I offered no evidence of the Conservative party nineteen twenty two Committee which includes Jacob Rees-Mogg being driven by personal monetary gain in many matters. In that, below is a section of a report published in RT in regard to the hypocrisy of JMB.

Report starts here:-
Jacob Rees-Mogg has been accused of hypocrisy after details of Russian profits from his fund-management firm were revealed. The Tory MP had said that Russia should be “hit financially” over the Skripal poisoning.

Rees-Mogg is a co-founder, director and shareholder of Somerset Capital Management (SCM) – an investment management firm which specializes in emerging markets. SCM confirmed it runs a fund with a stake worth up to £60 million ($84 million) in Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank. The MP profits from the bank – through his position as a shareholder – that has been a target of EU sanctions since 2014.

The news sparked outrage on social media, with users racing to blast the Conservative as“hypocritical”and"arguably the stupidest man in parliament.”

Report ends.

The full report can be viewed by following this link:-https://www.rt.com/uk/421905-jacob-rees-mogg-russia/
Cut and paste if direct link does not connect.

Further reading on the matter can be viewed in the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Daily Mirror and much other online news media.

So anniebach, once more you have demonstrated your total lack of knowledge in regard to a subject you post and comment on in this forum. The foregoing would pair easily with your demonstrated lack of knowledge on the structures of the Labour movement and even the palimenterary Labour party, the party you "claim" to have been a member of for fifty years.

Work has taken me to London for a few days, but will post again on this when time allows.

I agree about the timing and Clare Short. But the unions do their best for the majority of their members ? Like keeping Lord Robens as head of the NCB even though the enquiry into the deaths of 128 people found him at fault. And the many miners who lost their homes in the miners strike whilst Scargill aquired a £600,000 house . And what about The Grunswick Dispute? Then bringing down a labour government more than once .

This dream of ‘workers of the world unite’ has long gone