And now the next kerfuffle - the Labour Leadership

So, IT BEGINS.

There seem to be two front-runners right now.

Sir Kier Stammer - Shadow Brexit Secretary, pro Remain, probably involved in a plot last year to replace Boris Johnson with Kenneth Clarke, which may or may not have been stymied by Corbyn's refusal to "get out of the way". This is, to my knowledge, the most interesting this he has ever done.


Rebecca Long Bailey, Shadow Business Secretary - very pro Corbyn and therefore the "continuity candidate" or as I like to call her the "circling the plughole candidate".

Interestingly, Unison has come out for Stammer whilst Unite is expected to come out for Long-Bailey - indicating a split in the Union Movement.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...t-takes-early/

Where is a kinnock when you need one? Come on son!

#draintheswamp

Last thing I saw Kier had more votes from MPs than all the other candidates together. Given he's the only man running this is disgraceful mysogony. And even more disgraceful given how many MPs are women...

Anyhoo, the UK really needs an opposition that is vaguely competent and not just "not the government".

I didn't realise they internally use a proportional representation internally to choose their "leader". Apparently good enough for them but not something the country can be trusted with.

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

I didn't realise they internally use a proportional representation internally to choose their "leader". Apparently good enough for them but not something the country can be trusted with.

~:smoking:

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Clive Lewis supports proportion representation.

Keir Starmer and Long Bailey were part of the absent majority in the 2016 vote on proportional representation for electing MPs and reducing the voting age to 16 in 2016. But Starmer may be more open to it now? Here is a dedicated article to Labour leadership contestants on PR.
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/divis...mmons/mp/25353
https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/n...we-know-so-far

So in other words... even Labour is divided on how to proceed? Aren't they mostly Remain?

*Makes yearly post on how we should move to Single Transferable Vote. though this time, without video*

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

So in other words... even Labour is divided on how to proceed? Aren't they mostly Remain?

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The parts that didnt defect last month, maybe.

In a sign that cracks are starting to show Lisa Nandy attacks Corbyn for basically being a Russian stooge.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...ndation-widget

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

So in other words... even Labour is divided on how to proceed? Aren't they mostly Remain?

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Apologies for not addressing this earlier.

Most of Labour's MP's are pro-Remain as is the majority of their party membership - though it's a smaller majoirty than some would have you believe.

A significant majority of their "core voters" whom they rely on to win seats, especially older working class people, are Pro-Leave.

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Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

Apologies for not addressing this earlier.

Most of Labour's MP's are pro-Remain as is the majority of their party membership - though it's a smaller majoirty than some would have you believe.

A significant majority of their "core voters" whom they rely on to win seats, especially older working class people, are Pro-Leave.

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Where did you get this? What Labour constituency and Labour voter-centred polling I'd seen said that Hartlepool was the only Labour constituency where Labour voters had a pro-Leave majority. Every other Labour constituency had a pro-Remain majority among Labour voters.

We need to do the Nordic thing and get new blood in.

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Originally Posted by Beskar

We need to do the Scandinavian thing and get new blood in.

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Ooh, I have no idea what this means. Please explain.

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Originally Posted by Beskar

We need to do the Nordic thing and get new blood in.

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Well, Kinnock junior spent some time in Denmark...

Realistically, though, a lot of the candidates are quite young, it's just the front runner who's older, and he's hardly geriatric.

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

Where did you get this? What Labour constituency and Labour voter-centred polling I'd seen said that Hartlepool was the only Labour constituency where Labour voters had a pro-Leave majority. Every other Labour constituency had a pro-Remain majority among Labour voters.

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I respectfully don't really buy it. I'm not convinced people answer the polls truthfully.

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Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

I respectfully don't really buy it. I'm not convinced people answer the polls truthfully.

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So where did you get the information that you claim? If you don't believe something, but claim something else, presumably you have evidence backing your claim.

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Originally Posted by Pannonian

So where did you get the information that you claim? If you don't believe something, but claim something else, presumably you have evidence backing your claim.

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It seems that, despite the polls, there are always plenty of supposed Labour voters to be interviewed who support Brexit, especially older voters.

So it's anecdotal.

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Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

It seems that, despite the polls, there are always plenty of supposed Labour voters to be interviewed who support Brexit, especially older voters.

So it's anecdotal.

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Anecdotally, Question Time almost always had a Leave-heavy audience, even in Remain areas. Don't you think selection may have something to do with it?

The Remain argument was always complex, weighing pros and cons along economic and cultural lines. Thanks to our media, there never was an all-encompassing cultural or philosophical argument. And also thanks to our media, there were always simple red lines for Leavers to set as their decisive argument, such as rory's ECJ, your take on sovereignty, etc.

Faced with either minutes-long argument with an interviewee, or a soundbite under 10 seconds, which do you think newscasters will broadcast?

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Originally Posted by Beskar

We need to do the Nordic thing and get new blood in.

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So do a Finland and appoint young candidates?

(Sanna Marin, the new Finnish PM, is 34)

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

So do a Finland and appoint young candidates?

(Sanna Marin, the new Finnish PM, is 34)

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But all the old people have to take their turn​ first!

fingers crossed for nandy, we need a decent opposition.
starmer if we have to.
rlb if we all fancy a good laugh as labour collapses in another five years of bile and turmoil.

close to terminal...

I'd argue Labour has already fractured, actually, it's increasingly clear that traditional Labour voters in Scotland have gone over to the SNP which is why Labour now has such a hard time getting seats. Admittedly, the Conservatives don't do well North of the border either but if you'd told me ten to fifteen years ago they'd have more Scottish MP's than Labour I'd have called you a fool.

As far as the party as a whole collapsing in on itself, there'd need to be a viable alternative first. The Lib Dems could be that, but they'd first need to decide between being a mostly Urban or mostly rural party.

Reserving comment for only the contents of this article:

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“We live in the most dangerous moment in a generation,” the mailer says in bold white font at the bottom. “Who is ready to lead us?”
[...]
“Joe Biden: Strong, Steady Leadership.”

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Sounds familiar.

Edit: OK, you know what? I should have searched before I posted, because it's no mere resemblance.

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Joe Biden’s first Iowa television ad this summer flashed four quick photos of the former vice president with Barack Obama, along with a tagline about as far as possible from their old “hope and change” rallying cry.

“Strong, steady, stable leadership,” intoned a gruff narrator.

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Would a mod like to weigh in on whether or not this is Spam?

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Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

Would a mod like to weigh in on whether or not this is Spam?

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I would say it was posted in the wrong topic than spam. Probably meant for the Democrat one.

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Originally Posted by Beskar

I would say it was posted in the wrong topic than spam. Probably meant for the Democrat one.

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It's at least as pertinent to UK politics as it is to US politics.

Labour sees a 20% surge in membership off the back of the election race: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51245211

I wonder if this is people returning because Corbyn is on the way out, whether its people wanting to vote in another Socialist or people wanting to wrest the party back from the Hard Left.

we shall see.

With regards to the post - it's somewhere along the line between wrong post and correct post. There are parallels to be drawn between the two political systems but not so much in this case.

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Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

Labour sees a 20% surge in membership off the back of the election race: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51245211

I wonder if this is people returning because Corbyn is on the way out, whether its people wanting to vote in another Socialist or people wanting to wrest the party back from the Hard Left.

we shall see.

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I read a well balanced article recently in GQ UK about this - https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/politi...neral-election

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

With regards to the post - it's somewhere along the line between wrong post and correct post. There are parallels to be drawn between the two political systems but not so much in this case.

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I don't see how a Democrat adopting the rhetoric of a failed Conservative Prime Minister has anything to do with the Labour Leadership election. This is not a "general" UK politics thread and most of us agreed a few years ago that those "mega-threads" aren't really very useful - they're just a mess.

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Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

I read a well balanced article recently in GQ UK about this - https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/politi...neral-election

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So, I read that entire article. The author seems extremely harsh on both sides, and it's worth noting that they reduce both to being essentially morally bankrupt husks. It reads very much like a "call to action" for the moderate Left and centre-Left.

Speaking of Corbyn's supporters, it looks like Len McClusky is trying to have his cake and eat it:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51255529

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Speaking to the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Mr McCluskey said: "I'm absolutely convinced that there were those individuals who opposed Jeremy Corbyn's election right from the beginning, used the anti-Semitism issue - which I think is quite despicable that they did this on such an important subject - to undermine Corbyn, there's no doubt about that."

But he said that the party had "never handled the anti-Semitism issue correctly", adding: "We should have done things quicker."

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Now that he's in Power Boris Johnson is going to be rather difficult to remove - he's not unpopular, he's not stupid and he's not a bad political campaigner. None of which makes him necessarily the right person to by Prime Minister, though I think he probably was the right person to handle Brexit. Kier Stammer is the centrist candidate with the best chance of beating Johnson, but he's a bit boring and therefore difficult o differentiate from, well, anything else.

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Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

I don't see how a Democrat adopting the rhetoric of a failed Conservative Prime Minister has anything to do with the Labour Leadership election. This is not a "general" UK politics thread and most of us agreed a few years ago that those "mega-threads" aren't really very useful - they're just a mess.

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I should have posted it in the general thread.