Labour Party leadership election 2015

[Silent Hunter]

With the special exception of Syriza (and maybe something else that I forget) the former type of party simply does not win elections in the Western world. And I feel Corbyn really falls on the wrong side of that line.

And it certainly does not win them under FPTP.

[Silent Hunter]

Has anyone here read A Very British Coup? I'm reading it at the moment.

[Silent Hunter]

This election is turning into a dog's breakfast. If it's close, then the losing side are going to claim "entryism" or "unfair barring" or whatever... so the winner will have questionable legitimacy from the get-go.

[Silent Hunter]

I was also referring to Tories voting. It may not make much of a difference in reality, but truth is frequently irrelevant in things like this.

[Silent Hunter]

There's some comment around how he was talking to the IRA before the British government did. Ignoring the fact about whether we should have negotiated with them at all (it's entirely possible that the PIRA might have been crippled anyway after 9/11 due to its American backers pulling out), it ignores the fact that they didn't have a charter calling for the destruction of the UK.

Oh and when Tzipi Livni visited the UK, he wasn't interested in talking with her - he wanted her arrested.

[Silent Hunter]

Many of these policies receive majority support amongst Tories, it is a testament to the gulf between the PLP and the membership that these aren't our accepted policies.

As I've said before a tory in kent supporting rail nationalization isn't going to simply vote Labour because of one policy. Our last manifesto has scared me off retail politics

In addition, people may like the policies but doubt the credibility of those promoting them.

[Silent Hunter]

Depends entirely on the Tory in question? If they're by no means a committed one, and they see eye-watering amounts leaving their pay packet each year just for privilege to commute to work and back, they may well just do.

While railway renationalisation may be a popular policy, it's probably not that high on most people's list of priorities. I'm a heritage rail enthusiast and I really, really don't care whether my local rail services are privately or publicly run, just that the service is decent.

And in my case, one of my local services, c2c (whose franchise has just been extended to 2029) is a huge improvement on the service in BR days.

[Silent Hunter]

Agree; that whole energy price freeze polled well, definitely, but Ed Miliband came across as more like Mr Bean than a Prime Minister.

Also, it's worth noting that the second biggest of the "Big Six" energy companies, EDF, is in fact basically owned by the French government - the initials stand for Électricité de France. Essentially "nicking" a multi-billion pound asset from a foreign government is the kind of thing that has literally caused wars in the past and would not go down well with other EU nations.

[Silent Hunter]

Labour's policies in the 1960s were actually to the right of Corbyn, certainly in terms of defence. In some areas, Corbyn is actually to the left of the 1983 manifesto, which was still committed to NATO membership.

[Silent Hunter]

In addition, it has not been in the historical interest of the UK to stay neutral; especially if being so meant another European power dominating the continent. We are only 26 miles from France for one thing.

[Silent Hunter]

He was opposed to the 1991 Gulf War I believe.

[Silent Hunter]

1. Abortion was illegal
2. Life expectancy was about a decade shorter
3. Homosexuality was illegal

Yeah, if only we could return to the good old days, eh?

I would point out that 1 and 3 were both legalised under the Wilson government.

[Silent Hunter]

There had already been some quite significant immigration from former British colonies by the 1960's. For example, London already had a sizeable population of West Indian origin by that point.

True, but the Asian population hadn't really arrived yet.

[Silent Hunter]

Hmm? Mass immigration from the Subcontinent happened between a pretty narrowly defined window (late 50s through to mid 70s) with the last really big primary influxes happening after the Bangladesh Liberation War and the expulsion of the various Indian communities in East Africa.

I stand corrected.

[Silent Hunter]

Personally I'm worried about the speed at which the inner factionalist in a lot of people has been unleashed in recent months, but slightly encouraged by the fact that there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm for that type of thing in the wider Party (i.e. so far its just the sort of people - whether Right or Left - who care deeply about the outcome of NEC elections). Things were different back in the 80s.

On another forum I frequent, the thread on this has been frequently locked to allow people to cool down.

[Silent Hunter]

Besides there's no where else for Labour voters to go. The mortal wounding of the Lib Dems will do them a favour there.

If you're a white working class person, there's always UKIP.

[Silent Hunter]

Could be something, could be nothing. However, I think this election has done serious damage to the party regardless of who wins - a lot of nasty things have been said in both camps and it won't be easy to mend the clear divisions.

Also, we're polling worse than we did at the General - and 5 years ago, we were at 37%.

[Silent Hunter]

There's going to be a lot of Blairite MP's who will thank the gods that JC doesn't win, but then realize they've got Burnham as leader

To be entirely honest, none of this lot are stand out and I honestly think Labour can write off the next election now. The Tory line will be "if they can't run a leadership election properly, how can they run the country?" and at any rate, we failed to beat Thatcher with 3 million on the dole.

Labour has gone back to its traditional position - a party of opposition.

[Silent Hunter]

Post-war Labour only failed to govern for most of the 50's and 80's, and even then they were robbed at the 1951 election.

Nearly half the 60s, an effective minority government in the 70s, out of office for over half of the 90s and pretty much all of this decade unless something very odd happens.

[Silent Hunter]

Ah, but such miserablism is the Labour Party way you see. A book was published shortly after the 1959 election with the title of Must Labour Lose?: the argument of the book was that unless Labour made massive changes then the answer was 'yes'. Labour did not make massive changes and was highly resistant to even very minor ones. Guess who won the next election.

With a bare majority against Douglas-Home... between the end of the war in August 1945 (the election was the month before) and 1997, Labour won precisely one working majority. The Tories won five.

[Silent Hunter]

Further fun fact; we got a lower share of the vote in the last two elections than the Tories did in 1997.

[Silent Hunter]

And another thing that Corbyn's going to have to spend time explaining

[Silent Hunter]

Another interesting Akehurst piece here. Obviously he stands where he stands (and you might want to factor that in to what he writes I guess) but its worth your time.

The thing is, assuming Corbyn wins, he's going to be doing so against the wishes of 80%+ of the parliamentary party and around half of the actual party membership. Being seen as having only won by union and £3 votes is not a good start - Ed Miliband had that problem after all.

[Silent Hunter]

Have there been many Corbyn-Labour match-ups against the Tories?

Not that many at all; there's been little polling since the election on overall voter intention at all. Possibly because many of the companies are still trying to figure out how they got it badly wrong in May...

David Lammy's Mayoral campaign is saying 20% of people they spoke to in London didn't get a ballot paper... and overall turnout appears to have been around 60% of the selectorate.

In short, this entire contest hasn't covered this party in glory.

[Silent Hunter]

Well, we can't say we weren't warned if this all goes Pete Tong.