Why has a woman never led the Labour Party?

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

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.

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.

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 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 !

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Can I point out that in Scotland ,Labour is dead on its feet.The SNP ,once called tartan tories by labour members is by far the most left leaning party in the country.Help for the low paid,mitigating austerity ,free tuition ,free eye and dental checks etc etc .The SNP have now been the largest party in Scotland for 10 thats TEN years .The general concensus amongst old labour voters is that "we didn't leave labour..labour left US "IF or hopefully when we get independence maybe the Scottish labour party will rethink its manifesto and not just give us the English supporting the tories version which will never win here .

I know please can we have the SNP as well!

Surely you you wouldn’t swop Corbyn trisher

"A report published by the conservative Bow Group has revealed that the average age of a Tory party member is now a startlingly high, 72 years old.

The news follows recent reports that suggest the Conservatives have lost nearly a third of their members in the past four years, with membership falling hugely by around 50,000."

evolvepolitics.com/average-age-tory-member-just-skyrocketed-72-seriously/

Now this article was written last October, but it is hard to believe that the average age of a Tory member has dropped 15 years since then. If the Tories cannot be accurate in finding the average age of their small membership, why should we believe any of the figures they produce?

There is a difference between members and voters you know Varian.
In the end it’s the voters who matter, since there are millions of them.

What I am saying is, that ages of members hardly matters,
An average age of 50 or 60 etc.it’s really only the voters who matter, most of whom are not members of any political party.