Sensible discussion on Labour Leadership hopefuls

To re-use a good old quote...Corbyn is a modest man, with much to be modest about.
The blame can be laid at his door for everything, handling of the LP’s Brexit position, policies, weak leadership, the anti-se mitism within the LP, and his own history of befriending terrorists and any enemy of the UK, and Marxist credentials,
Encouraging Momentum etc etc.
Blaming the ‘right wing press’ is a cop out (of humungous proportions.)

Why do you you feel such a need to pile it on?

Corbyn will soon be history. What are your suggestions for the future?

It's interesting to think ahead. Comments of tomorrows newspapers on Sky have been discussing the Labour leadership. One of the commentators said Labour has an issue reconciling University graduates and it's former working-class base while Johnson decided to go for the working-class base. Apparently, we now know that people who voted Tory had lower educational levels than those who voted Labour and lower educational levels than those who voted Tory before. That will be very challenging for both parties.

Not Ian Lavery PLEASE. He has too many skeletons which would be plastered ALL OVER the Daily Heil front pages.

Long Bailey and Lavery would be the end of the LP as a viable party..

lemon it would be nice if just for once you could try posting some evidence for the right wing media hype you choose to echo.
Interesting about the evidence for educational levels and voting choices. Could it be connected with the tabloid press and the vile things alleged about Corbyn? Of course not. Educated people don't view the MSM with more scepticism do they?
I actually think Ian Lavery would give the tabloids a run for their money. He's much more vocal and less pacifist then Corbyn. (That doesn't mean that I think pacifism is wrong just a different way of handling things. Corbyn chose to try and rise above allegations I think Lavery would deal with things differently)

Corbyn didn’t try to rise above allegations, he avoided answering questions or gave pathetic excuses for past actions .

Grany

" Just gathering numbers here but how many are ready to take to the streets against this Tory Corporate Dictatorship inflicted on us by a Billionnaire corporate media & press?

Are you ready to take the French approach to remove a far-right dictatorship?"
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" Thing is it would need millions. We've marched & shouted till our lungs bleed, where's it got us? We'd need a massive plan of peaceful Civil disobedience & to win public over. Latest vote doesn't look like that at the moment! I'm beginning to give up on the UK working classes!"
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" There will be a role for everybody, you can use social media to grow our numbers & spread awareness because we can be sure the mainstream media & press won't want to be reporting it as it doesn't fit with their biased right wing narrative to make Britain look attractive to visit."
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" We need to get smart and break the grip the right-wing media & BBC has on the UK

There is only one way to do this - persistent engagement with those in our immediate vicinity"
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Grany these statements could have come from groups such as Momentum/Socialist Workers Party/ St Petersburg Misinformation Factory.

The country has just had a General Election that showed your far left view, where you sit politically have been resoundingly kicked into touch by the electorate.

Does it surprise me the far left blame the media/BBC, NO, because they refuse to accept facts and refused to listen to what Labour MP's have been saying since Corbyn/Momentum took over the party. Labour became a party within a party amidst intimidation/threats of deselection/Hostile List /antisemitism all of which has been rife. What Corbyn/ Momentum/far left activists do not see that others do is they are part of it. They think they could transpose the blame onto those who report bullying /intimidation as though it is all a conspiracy theory.

The country has seen through it!

McDonnell once called for ' Insurrection' and to be honest when I read the above I worry that many on the far left will resort to just that because they cannot accept there has been a rejection by the country toward them.

It is not the Tory party I fear to be honest.

I do fear the skullduggery both verbally and physically which may be coming down the line by those who cannot, will never accept a democratically elected government not of their choosing and have only ' insurrection' ' and the belief in
' silencing ' those who dare to challenge them such as the press and other institutions as their mantra/reason to carry on having suffered rejection.

As for ' giving up on the working classes ' that is pure irony at best denial at it's worst, the ' working classes ' have just ' given up' on those who spout such rubbish.

POGS, there was a programme about the overt bias in the MSM on BBC Radio 4 recently.

I've posted before about the findings (massive backing for CP, huge lies and personal attacks on LP) but the fact that a 20 minute program was dedicated to it demonstrates the depths the media has sunk to.

Deny it all you like. It's factual.

Grandad

Re your post 21.26

"Therefore I believe that the Labour Movement should maintain its left-wing stance and policies for the foreseeable future while that wider Labour movement "sorts out" the problems there undoubtedly are in the Parliamentary Labour Party."
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Your stance is Labour should maintain it's left wing stance not just for the ' foreseeable future ' but ' for ever ' if I have read your posts correctly.

The General Election was foremost about which party/parties the country wanted to govern with all due respects.

Brexit was indeed a major contributor as to which party the voter felt suited them best. Their answer was not Labour nor Lib Dem, they were resoundingly rejected. I believe Labour voters never forgave Labour for reneging on it's previous Manifesto and it's stance on Brexit in 2019.

Neither Corbyn nor Johnson were universally liked but why do you think Labour voters did not want, chose not to vote for Corbyn? Surely the choice of who leads the government is a major factor also.

It is repeatedly said the electorate liked ' the progressive ' Manifesto Labour put forward and Labour should stick with it. If that were the case why did Labour voters not voter for it?

It is repeatedly said the Manifesto pledges were fully costed in the ' Grey Book ' yet the public saw through that and when more and more ' pledges ' kept coming ' after' the Grey Book was published they simply could not answer where the money was coming from.

I guess what I am asking/saying is if everything was so hunky dory with Corbyn/the Labour Manifesto/Financial expediency /Brexit stance why did Labour lose so badly especially in it's heartlands? What is the reasoning of keeping to the same ideology that was rebuffed in the 70's, 80's and now again in 2019?

All I can see is Labour can and will do it because of the power of the Unions / Momentum which hold all the power from the NEC down, at least for now. The finances will be removed from the democratically elected Labour Party Members if your words come to fruition.

Is that really how Labour will gain back the Labour Heartlands, by more of the same and even more factionalism/disunity? . Do you honestly think the Labour voters, not the Membership which is a total different kettle of fish, will have a different mind set, change of heart if all they get is more of the same?

Apparently, we now know that people who voted Tory had lower educational levels than those who voted Labour and lower educational levels than those who voted Tory before

Annoyingly Boris won! Shows how many thickos there are eh? Never mind Labourites. At least, even though not in government, you can console yourselves that you’re cleverer than us wot voted Tory!
?

The problem with Corbyn is he doesn’t understand the working class. They are the ones standing wearing poppies in November because they bore the brunt of two world wars. Being English or British is all they have left so a Labour leader who doesn’t appear to respect the Queen or our troops is lucky he held on to any seats in those communities.

The stark contrast between him and Callaghan who openly congratulated Mrs. Thatcher in a dignified way when he lost in 1979.

This country’s safety would not have been guaranteed with this man and Labour would do well to remember that when they choose a new leader.

Don’t make the same mistake again or you will be out of power for twenty years. Angela Eagle would be my choice. Choose a winner for once.

Unbelievable, claiming long standing labour voters who this time voted Tory have lower educational levels , so all those who voted labour for years had lower educational levels , explains why Corbyn won the second leadership contest with such a high majority ?

Maizied

'Despite what Grandad wants I don't think that the LP will get anywhere if it persists with the Momentum approach. It needs to have absolutely appeared to have changed, even if its aims stay very similar to those of today. Another apparently 'far left' leader will not revive the party in any way.
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Grandad as I mentioned before at least is not a ' fair weather friend' ' and has stood by what he has posted in the past unlike some who argued up hill and down dale Momentum/Corbyn were the future, the bees knees. Of course that was until they lost the Election by getting a drubbing and it seems memories have some what been selectively erased.

There is a lot of it about.

The position that Labour finds itself in now is this: Does the party want to appeal to the hard left? Or does it want to appeal to the electorate and form a government? Because it cannot do both.

GagaJo Sun 29-Dec-19 23:03:06

"Not Ian Lavery PLEASE. He has too many skeletons which would be plastered ALL OVER the Daily Heil front pages."
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trisher Mon 30-Dec-19 10:15:07

lemon it would be nice if just for once you could try posting some evidence for the right wing media hype you choose to echo.
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If Ian Lavery has as stated ' too many skeletons' why the hell should the media not report them? They could become conspiracy theories as people who cannot accept the truth like to refer to facts. Does being a Labour MP dissolve the media from reporting on them unless it is favourable?

As for ' evidence' of the right wing press hype being requested, as per usual, when evidence has been provided, not only from them but the from the left wing press /media, Hells bells even from Hansard, it is rejected as guess what, Conspiracy theories by the same posters who repeatedly call for ' evidence'. .

I doubt if there are many people around today who can still remember the First World War.

If you were that clever Urmstongran and have always voted Conservative, you would realise that trisher didn't claim that everybody who voted Conservative is thick.

I don't see why anybody is surprised or outraged. Surveys since the GE show that fewer than half the people who voted Labour this time belong to the "traditional working class". I thought one of the big gripes of the "northern traditional working class" was that Labour supporters are the "Islington elite" and don't understand them. It's not true that everybody in Islington is elite, but the new Labour voter does tend to be young and better educated.

Traditionally, the Conservatives have had higher educational qualifications than Labour voters, so of course the "new" Conservative voters will, on average, have lower educational qualifications.

Grandad as I mentioned before at least is not a ' fair weather friend' ' a etc.

Hope you're not addressing that to me in particular, POGS. It sounds distinctly judgemental..

Grandad can stay as true to his principles as he likes, but they won't win Labour any elections without modification.

I have voted Labour in the past.

What Labour needs at the moment, more than anything, is a leader who can rebuild the party to look like a government-in-waiting in five years (as Tony Blair did) , ditch the nasty left-wing rhetoric and showcase to the public that In the 119 years of Labour's existence there is so much to be proud of.

When Labour is at the top of its game it delivers magnificent, society-changing progress - the NHS, the minimum wage and so on.

Tom Watson was absolutely spot-on to point out recently that MOST of what happened between 1997 and 2008 represented excellent governance of this country - he was right, and that is why it also represented Labour's most successful period at the ballot box, in the party's history. The electorate could see the same thing.

All that Labour is doing at the moment is distancing themselves from the main electorate. The direction feels comfortable to people within the party with left-leaning views, who are too wrapped up in the righteousness of their views to realise that it is the 71 out of every 72 of the electorate who are NOT members of the Labour party that you have to appeal to, not the 1 in 72 who ARE members of the Labour party.

but the new Labour voter does tend to be young and better educated.

That made me laugh, growstuff

I guess we just don't have enough young, better educated people knocking around.

Maizied

I am addressing that particular post to ' anybody' who has posted in favour of Corbyn/Momento /left wing ideology and finances but has since the Election given the impression they did not hold that opinion when it has been as plain as a pike staff to all who follow the politics threads that is exactly how they have posted.

It is not particularly a charge I lay only against GN posters who may at some time or another be seen as changing their opinions it is something that can be witnessed by some in the media and some commentators too.

Grandad is not one of them.

I agree POGS. Stephen Kinnock being one who has really changed his tune!

we need someone who can and will stand up to Boris. At present I would go for Emily Thornbury.