Labour Party (UK) Leadership Election, 2016

[Cassius]

Corbyn's situation instantly reminds me of Macmillan's Night of the Long Knives. In a fit of panic, he sacked one third of his shadow cabinet and isn't very likely to surivive.

Of course Macmillan had a badass staches.

To be fair Corbyn only sacked Hilary Benn - and that seemed to be an attempt to preempt him resigning. Not sure if that makes it better of worse, probably worse.

[Cassius]

RIP Angie the Eagle

[Cassius]

It's a pity that the attempted Welsh takeover of the Conservative party failed so dismally.

[Cassius]

Labour (and the Tories for that matter) should probably have left electing their party leaders with their MP's in the House of Commons.

The downside to that is...er, ask any Aussie.

Isn't that more a facet of Australian political culture rather than the electoral system itself (ie Margaret Thatcher would likely have been out by 1981 in Australia).

[Cassius]

Just watched a clip from one of the Corbyn-Smith debates, and it's actually painfully noticeable that Smith is a bit of a gobby motormouth who speaks before engaging his brain. I mean, he's addressing an audience which seems to be pretty pro-Corbyn anyway and he just jumps straight on the hook by questioning whether Corbyn voted Remain or not and then proceeding to make a rather mean spirited (and easily countered) sideswipe at John McDonnell for failing to attend a rally, when apparently he had health problems. I really do think that swinging behind Smith was a big mistake for the PLP.

[Cassius]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/labour-leadership-hopeful-owen-smith-8803113

Owen Smith comes out with yet another masterful turn of phrase.

[Cassius]

I think that the various tattered parts of the Remain camp need to put the Referendum firmly behind

, united around the LibDems into a strong pro-European party and try to hold the balance of power, making sure that any realistic UK government, be it Conservative or Labour led, gets committed to strong European integration in one way or another.

True, it is likely that re-entry into Europe will take a generation, but the goal should always be clearly stated and distancing from European institutions should be prevented. Hopefully, by mid 2040s England will be back in the EU.

Not enough people care that strongly about EU membership to switch on mass to the Lib Dems and give them enough support to even come close to holding the balance of power. Indeed, many of the areas in which Remain did best (London, the commuter belt, Scotland) are also the places with constituencies that, usually, one of the other parties is most strongly entrenched in (Labour, the Tories and the SNP). Whilst the Lib Dems (maybe) have an outside chance at regaining seats like Twickenham (Vince Cable's old seat) and Sutton and Cheam (both of which are next to their one remaining London constituency) Carshalton and Wallington, I can think of few other places in which such pro-EU sentiment might provide them a big enough base.