Sensible discussion on Labour Leadership hopefuls

It could start to get more interesting now.

He isn’t a Corbynite

Yes; I remember him from 2015. Terribly sad about his wife but perhaps his time is now and wasn't meant to be back then. Interesting. If Long Bailey is elected I'll give up on Labour completely.

He might be the sort to be able to play Johnson at his own game; you'd think they'd fear him....

Callistemon I was watching tv whilst I was in bed with bronchitis. I was so enraged by Thatcher's speech that I was shouting at the tv and I started to cough badly. I then swigged from my bottle of Benylin and subsequently felt as though my lungs were collapsing. I then had a severe asthma attack and my OH called the doctors deputising service. They didn't come and so he called an ambulance who arrived very quickly.

That's how I ended up in hospital.

A head to head with Mark Francois, whose military experience stretches to being a former part-time TA officer and the son of a D-Day veteran, would be interesting!

Growstuff

As for Dan Jarvis/Mark Francois

I would think Labour MP Dan Jarvis having a service history could well see him in a head to head with say Conservative MP's such as Johnny Mercer, Bob Stewart, Tom Tughandat, Tobias Ellwood having more in common with them than Dan Jarvis had with likes of Jeremy Corbyn / John McDonnell and many in the Shadow Cabinet..

On another note I understand why some seem to belittle /joke about the Territorial Army but they can be ignorant of the fact many reserve service personnel have seen ' active' service. Not saying Francois has seen active service , I have no idea.

POGS I don't think Francois has seen active service. What really annoyed be about him was when he stated that he was a patriot because his father was a D-Day veteran. So what? Many of us have parents who saw active service on D-Day and many other battles. It doesn't make us patriots. I really despair that people are still boasting about events which happened over 70 years ago, in which they weren't even involved.

PS. I confess I really dislike Francois.

I have some respect for both Tom Tugendhat and Toby Ellwood - I don't know that much about the other two.

Oh dear Dinahmo
Best watch Love Actually if you are ever feeling poorly again!!

Although we thought what MT said was very funny.

The Mrs T quote on ‘ we are a Grandmother’ was obviously meant to be grandparents, ( who cares!)
Wasn’t Blair called teflon Tony at one point?
If there is any dirt to find on a potential candidate for Leader, be sure it will be found, maybe that’s why Long Bailey is being pushed .... a vanilla lifestyle and personality?

Oh dear, is she really, really boring?

Sigh

The Labour Party National Executive Committee is not meeting until the sixth of January and that is the only body within the Labour movement who has the power to trigger a Parliamentary Party leadership contest. At that meeting, it may well be decided not to call such a contest as consultations with the Broader Labour movement in the country could be considered essential prior to a ballot date being announced.

There is strong grassroots feeling against quite a number in the Parliamentary Party who it is considered undermined Jeremy Corbyn from the day he was elected as leader, and many will wish to ensure that cannot happen again.

Should such assurances prove to be unobtainable then it could be that the trades unions through their grassroots activists will be pressured to "pull the plug" on this Parliamentary Labour Party and set up a new Labour movement political wing by way of the TUC.

So, perhaps the leading contenders have not "thrown their hats into the ring" because there is no ring as yet to throw their hats into, and the consideration that some fundamental problems have to be resolved in the Parliamentary party are at the forefront of their thoughts.

Interesting Grandad43...... and a good idea, as the very left wing can then stay idealogically ‘pure’ ( and extremely unelectable) whilst a sensible moderate LP can go full steam ahead and possibly win the next GE...or at least form a credible Opposition.

Or the many centre left MP’s left the party, there are so many of them.

The NEC will keep delaying a leadership contest until Corbyn and MacDonald decide Long Bailey can stand

Tom Watson has given an interview in the Guardian, he left
the party because of - brutality and hostility

This current Labour Party makes the Tory party seem honest

Tom Watson is no stranger to hostility towards innocent people.

I was flicking through one my old threads on Labour/ Corbyn and I found the ' Could Labour split ' thread which I started in July 2016.

Interestingly it was way back then Tom Watson had called off talks with the Unions/McClusky over Jeremy Corbyns future and refusal to ' stand down ' when there was at the time a suggestion there was a leadership challenge on the cards, which as we know did happen and Corbyn won. Deja vu though!

It was interesting to read posts and links such as :-

Guardian June 2016.
' Corbyn should resign with immediate effect, the responsibility of being leader of the Labour party is beyond his capabilities and the stakes are far, far too high for him to continue.'

How opinions have ebbed and flowed over Corbyn /Momentum/Unions for years but this Election I guess will now force Labour to once again go through a similar soul searching exercise and it will be interesting to see which
' faction ' wins this time, Far Left/Unions/Momentum or Parliamentary Labour Party centre/centre left MP's.

My bet remains with the power base who hold the nuts and bolts, finances, clout over Labour and that is Momentum and the Unions. Although of course Labour does have /did have some very wealthy individual backers, ( albeit some like to disown that fact perversely thinking it is only the Tories), maybe just maybe there will be a resurgence in donors to a new party of the centre.

Funny things happen in politics when a party has been so badly damaged as Labour.

Callistemon Fri 27-Dec-19 22:50:31

'Tom Watson is no stranger to hostility towards innocent people.'

Very true.

Andy Burnham has said he recognises what Tom Watson says

Tom Watson is justifiably gone with his downfall being very much of his own making.

Margret Hodge should have been expelled from the party following the "covert recording" incident along with much more in her behaviour. Had she carried out such a recording while working for a commercial organisation she would undoubtedly have been immediately dismissed.

The fact that Corbyn and the NEC did not insist on at least the whip being removed from Hodge and others of similar behaviour, very much demonstrates that the leadership has been too easy-going on those that have continually set out to undermine Corbyn and all those that surround him.

There can be no such continuous threat held against whoever the new leader is either from those on the right of the Parliamentary Party or from those on the left. Should that prove impossible to ensure, then the wider Labour movement should pull the plug on the present Parliamentary Party and start again.

POGS, private donors only gave to the Blair government because it was not a socialist government with true socialist policies. So, the bankers gave, non-dom tax exiles gave, and even Rupert Murdoch gave, and we all know now what happened then.

Wilson, Callaghan, Foot, Corbyn Leaderships, , Unions in control

Blair government, Unions not in control.

If what Grandad is saying is correct, I'm even more concerned about the future of the LP than before.

lemongrove in regard to your post @22:13 (27/12/29) you state that the centre-left of the Labour Party would be free to go it's own way if the wider labour movement abandoned support for the present Palimentery Party.

In that, who do you believe would fund such a grouping in the knowledge of what happened to the Independence Party (or was it Change UK) in the last parliament.

Further to that, if there is room in the British body politic for such a centre party, why then did the Liberal Democrats fail so lamentably in the General Election recently held.

Surely in that election, if there was ever an opportunity for a centre party to break through it was very much then?

Hell bells, the Change U.K. were 9 members.

Big difference if the centre left MP’s, broke away , there would be enough to become the official opposition .

Anniebach in regard to your post @12:01 today, it would very much depend on how many of those on the right of the Labour Party remained with any new socialist grouping or were allowed to remain.

There are quite a number at present in the Parliamentary Labour Party who have never been true socialist in their views and in that have been far more aligned with the Liberal Democrats for a considerable number of years.

Of course, forming a new left-wing party which would have a strong presence on the political stage would not be straight forward or easy to accomplish even with the funding of the broader Labour movement. Setting up effective individual constituency organisations would be just one challenge to give as an example.