Labour Party leadership election 2015

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I don't think I need to say anything...

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If the Labour Party elects a guy called Tristram as leader they should disband immediately.


e: Suggesting we refer to withdrawals as "a reverse Farage".

It appears Chukka was caught posting on some 1%-er social network asking where in London he could go to avoid "the trash" and whatnot.

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And by 2018 the damage will have been done as much of the Labour Right would have left the party.

An unexpected Lib Dem revival?

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Sources about this Progressive Party?

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I think what happens is that what-if wank goes in the what-if forum and not here.

Ok.

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I liked you.

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2010 - in the middle of the economic collapse and the lead-up to the bail-out - was probably the peak for the feeling that the Republic was a failed state.

There was such a feeling?

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Well Corbyn's prospects now look brighter...

The Welfare bill?

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Now heading into self-parody territory

Maybe she should move to the US. I imagine she, Chukka, Tristram, and her friends would feel much more at home with the Democratic Party.

As for the Privy Council, why exactly could Corbyn not be trusted, and could Cameron plausibly refuse to have him appointed?

EDIT: Also, is it true Corbyn divorced his wife because she wanted to send their son to a grammar school?

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There is also Blue Labour, who had Ummuna as the most prominent candidate. Not sure who they would vote for now (probably Burnham as they are decentralisers).

Not Kendall? Chuka himself is backing her.

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Given that almost any candidate who is half a century or more old is labelled as "too old" or "past it" nowadays...

Yes, why has this happened? Why has the age range for new leaders swung to the "early forties" lately? Chuka is 36!

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How can a land value tax possibly replace the income tax? How would this work? The rates needed to generate revenue on the scale of income tax would presumably have to be so high that I imagine that land ownership would become a dicey proposition financially very quickly. Is there not a property tax in the UK at the moment?

Or does he think it's 1915, and wants to break up the estates?

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Question for you all: do you still think nationalising "the commanding heights of industry" was a good idea in retrospect?

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Merging Morris and Austin was probably not a good idea, no, but old Labour presiding over state-run corporations was a particularly extreme form of regulatory capture, at least that much be conceded.

Emergency nationalisation is one thing, permanent ownership another completely.

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British Leyland was a monument to the unions.

The thing is, that isn't actually true even if it is widely believed. The problem was that the chronic mismanagement that plagued BMH a) carried over into the new mega-firm and b) that attempts to counter the toxic legacy of BMH mismanagement by former LMC figures were disastrously incompetent. Its well publicised industrial troubles - and it is always worth remembering that the issue here was shop steward militancy rather than anything directed from national union leaderships - were also largely a consequence of mismanagement and even if they doubtless contributed to the sense of chaos were not actually responsible for the firms structural failings (which were actually at there worst when it was still in private hands).

I will not pretend to be an expert, but Vauxhall remains in business and is manufacturing cars, yes? That may suggest something as to the fate of non-state owned comparable firms.

There is also of course something of a chicken-and-egg problem with poor management in an industry. When your competitors are terribly run state-owned firms and you both operate behind protectionist barriers, there is little incentive to operate at any significantly higher standard.

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Burnham has come out in favour of rail re-nationalization.

I don't think this is a terrible idea.

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Also, is it true Corbyn divorced his wife because she wanted to send their son to a grammar school?

I believe it is Simfan.

Corbyn left his wife over what?

The press report was that he left his wife because she wanted to send their kids to a grammar school, which is a state ran school that's often only open to higher ability students. For some reason our political class obsess about where our MP's send their kids

I've come to think of it as a perverse sort of strange horror movie-style test of how far one is willing to go to advance their political career. Instead of, say, sawing off your hand, though, you have to be willing to sacrifice your children's futures and send them to a comprehensive which are, for some reason, all like inner-city schools (the one in Corbyn's case was, I believe, particularly abysmal). Deeply disturbing.

I hope Tories don't have to deal with such sentiment as much?

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Good, most of what I know about this issue comes from Capaldi shouting in the first place.

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You know, there is the possibility that we haven't seen the last of Ed. John Howard's first spell as Liberal leader (1985-1989) was widely seen as a disaster and the man himself as inept, unpopular and awkward.

The difference being that Howard was an experienced and highly capable politician whose first attempt to become Prime Minister was derailed by a combination of the deranged 'Joh for Canberra' campaign and by Andrew Peacock. Ed Miliband may be a nice man, but he was hardly an experienced politician, and he certainly wasn't very capable.

Maybe this is all for another thread but I've always found the culture of state and private schools in the UK very strange. To hear people talk about, you would think that there must be a huge number of students going to private schools. But it's really no higher than it is in the US where it's never really talked about. Also, it's my understanding that basically every Conservative MP went to a private school which is mind boggling considering how small the pool is. Among the Republicans in Congress, I would guess most of them went to public (government run) schools.

This hasn't been true for a very long time. Indeed, there was an more than a bit of fuss about Cameron being the first public school boy to lead the Conservative Party since the sixties.

When it rains, it pours?

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Youthful indulgence. Or ignorance.

What was the occasion? Leavers ball?

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Can Corbyn really bring back Scottish votes or is SNP talk of a lack of a "true left wing alternative" just populist nonsense?

This suggests so.

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Who's our Jimmy Carter?

https://medium.com/@davidbutler100/jeremy-corbyn-labour-s-george-mcgovern-60b52a98bbfc

Harold Wilson and he died in 1995.

Surely that's a bit uncharitable to Wilson?

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Clive Lewis will be the next Labour Prime Minister. There.

Too old!

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Would Watson suggest full leftist?

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

I saw the movie.