Labour Party leadership election 2015

[Hifly]

Praying for Burnham

[Hifly]

Jarvis or Cooper sound like the best options.

To lose the next election?

Americans don't have a vote in this thankfully.

[Hifly]

Jamie Reed (Copeland) is considering standing.

Who?

[Hifly]

"Registered Supporter"?!? What the hell is that?

[Hifly]

So effectively this can turn into our equivalent of the UMP's primary.

[Hifly]

Every man and his dog can sign up as a "Registered Supporter" for no cost by clicking this link:

http://support.labour.org.uk/

[Hifly]

Chuka has withdrawn.

Praise the Lord!

[Hifly]

I still don't know which woman to put last on my ballot; Probably Kendall, who's gone blairite extraordinaire.

[Hifly]

Now I know who to put last for Deputy.

[Hifly]

Kendall is Tony Blair in a dress.

Tony Blair won three general elections, so that's not exactly a bad thing.

And is one of the reasons for Labour losing the last two.

In the highly unlikely event that Kendall wins, expect an exodus of grassroots members.

[Hifly]

You think so? I think it's more likely that we'd see crippling factional conflict.

Indeed, apart from greater exaggerated threats from certain figures and factions to disaffiliate and cut funding, it'll harm the CLP grassroots. Members in mine have threatened to resign membership if it does happen, unfortunately (although my CLP does have a particularly Bennite tendency).

[Hifly]

The "Old Right" trade-union backed factions which you see in many other Labour parties have been very much diminished here. It used to be emboldened relatively recently in the "Labour First" faction led by Luke Akehurst, but that's effectively collapsed after their turbulent relationship with Progress failed.

[Hifly]

Anyway, Unite have issued an official endorsement for whatever it's worth*: Corbyn for first preference, Burnham for second.

_{*Unite being, contrary to media belief, a very diverse organisation not really capable of imposing political will across its membership.}

My facebook feed has registered the massive fuss that has already been stirred up among members over this, because as you mention Unite's membership is politically diverse (and thus includes many hackish Kendallites).
I've also noticed that Kendall supporters tend to be more argumentative and hyperpartisan towards their candidate than supporters of the other candidates in general.

In principle, there is nothing out of order with Unite's decision. Executives of all affiliated organisations, whether they be unions, socialist societies or CLPs, have been democratically elected by the membership and thus have the full right to make a recommendation to their members. This endorsement has no direct authority in the final ballot, but is merely a legitimate recommendation which members are not obliged to follow.
  

[Hifly]

I mean there have been (and maybe still are) Labour councillors who are members of Shiromani Akali Dal so, you know.

And Neeraj Patil (former Labour Mayor of Lambeth and unsuccessful Labour candidate for Mayor of London this year) is an active member of the BJP.

[Hifly]

L

M

A

O

 I don't think a "progressive party" would have a hope in hell of succeeding, tbh. Say what you you like about Woy Jenkins, Dr Death etc. they were proven and talented politicians. Hunt, Kendall and Ummuna? Not so much.

YL, do you know when our CLP meets?

Finally, to all our Corbyn fans - the guy appears to be a homeopathy nut. So, err, there's that.

Sheffield Hallam is not holding a nomination meeting, apparently.

[Hifly]

Watson is the favourite of the Old Labour Right (Labour First).

[Hifly]

The deadline for submission of CLP supporting nominations is midday today. Last night would have therefore been the last night of CLP nomination meetings.
When HQ releases the official list of nominations, it will be interesting to see which CLPs we didn't take note of, or which CLPs forgot to offically submit their nominations!

[Hifly]

Well, the Trad Right is more "pragmatic" than "liberal" in the economic sense. Many of them are after all ex-union bruisers; while new Labourites typically align with think tanks, business or the third sector.

And with the Community Union, probably the most functionless union that exists. Membership is an obligation for all careerist blairites.

[Hifly]

Richard Angell has represented them, which tells you all you need to know.

[Hifly]

There have been vague rumours of an upset.

I've heard that too. Kezia is the sensible choice on the basis is that she's at Holyrood, is actually not that bad at FMQ's and is also easily replaceable. Ian Murray has been rather...subtle with his 'family man' rhetoric the insinuations of which I won't go into here. If he wins, it's not clear who will lead at Holyrood where at the moment Iain Gray is doing the honours, especially if Gordon Mathieson (who's one FOI request away from trouble) gets the deputyship.

err what?

[Hifly]

Katy Clark ♥

[Hifly]

Word (well, rumour) is that a majority has yet to cast a vote and that about a third is still undecided; this has led to some Labour insiders not being as convinced about a Corbyn victory as they were a week or so ago. Burnham's camp is putting out data suggesting that a plurality of the undecideds are leaning towards him.

Yeah the data I've seen shows that Corbyn will probably win on the first round but only with about 35%, meaning that Burnham has a good chance of coming back. Funnily enough we looked and 1 out of 16 Kendall voters have put Corbyn as there 2... make of that what you will haha

What data is this?
At our nomination meeting, one of the three people brave enough to vote for Kendall also second preferenced Corbyn, so these strange ones do exist!

[Hifly]

The Corbyn-on-35% data came from Burnham's phone bank data which media sources were made aware of.

In that case don't waste your time with it. I was volunteering at Burnham's last month and all their phone bank data is sh**t and irrelevant.

[Hifly]

I'm in the conference hall right now; the mood is wild