Labour Leadership 2016

And then he froze when Osborne promised to get rid of inheritance tax. And then copied them. At exactly the point his job was to defend it as a fair measure and fundamental to centrist thinking, never mind leftist thinking.
One of the reasons he was popular for that blip was people thought he was a bit further to the left than Blair was. (It's notable as well that a huge amount of people in 1997 thought Blair was further to the left than he actually was. I think people voted then for redistribution and Blair kind of talked them out of it.)
As it turned out we were confusing Brown being stolid with him being leftwing, we read too much into him taking his holidays in Devon instead of on Berlusconi's yacht.

Interesting article, thank you, but I'm wondering why the Times isn't featured. By any measure of readership it outranks many of the papers listed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation
Yet it isn't in any of the rankings?
Wonder if there isn't some reporting bias in the article.

Methodologically it's an interesting question. Try tweeting the authors? But I'm not sure how not reporting one paper could be considered bias. Explain? Assuming Times reporting is perfectly neutral it doesn't change the results from the other papers.

I mentioned this up thread, but will repeat it again for your benefit because, well it's easier to just believe what you read in the paper, innit?.

Don't be so fucking patronising.

The membership of the SWP, Socialist Party, CPGB etc and all the other far-left parties combined is absolutely miniscule compared to the 400,000 odd people who have joined the party since Corbyn was elected.

Paid-up membership of the hard left has always been much smaller than the number of people who adhere to it, same way the Tory and Labour parties' membership is much smaller than the people who vote for them come election time. It's not a valid metric for the comparison you're making.

The idea that they could sway the vote decisively by joining en masse just does not stack up.

There we disagree. See my next point.

Corbyn won because he secured massive support from trade unionists, young people and new middle-class members (from London predominantly).

Well, that's the thing we can't quantify without better data. Talking to Labour party members and people who attend meetings and so on, there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggests a big chunk of the new influx is entryist. Maybe they're not paid-up Swappies specifically, but the Swappies et al are doing a lot of work to influence them and their choices.

Edit to add - does nobody remember Respect? It was basically a party coming out of the Stop The War Coalition, which was largely dominated by the Swappies - but they made an effort to keep out of the limelight, not least because they've never actually registered as a party because that would require them to open their books. I'd dare say 90pc of the people involved in Respect weren't paid up Swappies either, but their influence was clear to anyone with eyes.

Swappies = Socialist Workers?

I didn't put much (any) work into checking the validity of the papers selected for the study but assumed that it would be by circulation (if you are analysing the printed media) and the fact that the Times wasn't listed raised a red flag.

Just wondered if the papers listed were picked for their bias? Rather than for their relevance to British media as a whole.

I suspect it's a sample chosen to represent assumed political bias, from left to right. If they were picked for bias they would have avoided papers on the left.

Swappies = Socialist Workers?

Yeah

By your own metric, the number of people who adhere to to the SWP way is still tiny in comparison to new labour members (36k voted for TUSC in 2015).

someone's seeing reds under the bed...

Who are these radical brick throwers that everyone is worried about? I know a lot of Corbyn supporters and they're largely fairly well-to-do people (by UK standards) who simply want a party that campaigns on socialist principles and takes social justice seriously. None of them - as far as I know - are a secret cabal of infiltrators with some other hidden agenda.

New union members also barred from voting, same 6 month cut off.

https://mobile.twitter.com/LabourEoin/status/753530053451976704

Also, legal action (by private individual, donor) being taken against the party to stop Corbyn from being put on ballot without nomination.

Such lozzles.

While it's a bit non-U to speak of Blairites right now, there's no surprise that the current PLP has a loyalty to the ideology and tactics of those who put them in place. The problem is that it's yesterday's ideology, and it wasn't even really an ideology to begin with. Either way, there's a time-lag between PLP and LP. The membership has evolved, and the PLP refuse to evolve with it, instead looking to disenfranchise anyone who disagrees with their views on the good old days, back in the war, using tactics that are by turns childish, vindictive, dishonest and embarrassing. Tactics even Tories wouldn't consider. Tories, ffs. PLP is fucked.

More proof the Corbynites are flogging a dead horse: Ipsos MORI poll says 66% of the electorate say Labour needs new leader before a general election, up from 42% in October.

https://twitter.com/benatipsosmori/status/753568407170248705

Entirely unsurprising.

Who are the contenders who can satisfy the PLP, core members, and the public though?

Fuck it.

I'll do it.

I'll stand, I lead run the party and country.

My time has come.

Your love of Spando Ballet makes you entirely unelectable.

The fact that many people like the song and it was a hit in the 80s has no relevance. Times have changed and your music tastes are old fashioned.

It's perfect.

It's an anti-Royalist move, it won't be accepted but it gets the debate started so we can pick a decent song.

But staff in Labour HQ are worried about entryism, in which supporters of other parties could be joining specifically to sway the leadership election. The Guardian has been shown research by Labour party staff that elaborates on these concerns.

It highlights examples of parties on the far-left encouraging people to join Labour to back Corbyn. It includes a report to the Communist party’s executive committee saying: “Defending the socialist leadership of the Labour party at all costs” should be a priority; a blog post on the Alliance for Workers Liberty website urging people to “flood into the Labour party”; pro-Corbyn campaign material available for downloading from the Socialist Workers’ party website and pro-Corbyn statements from the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.

The paper also documents 10 examples of people who have boasted on Twitter about joining Labour to vote for Corbyn while also being members or backers of other parties such as the Greens. These cases are being investigated by Labour’s compliance unit.

A Labour source said: “There is a real problem of entryism. Party HQ has the will to deal with this but not the resources. And the leadership does not have the will.”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/10/angela-eagle-to-launch-formal-bid-for-labour-party-leadership

Ironically, I'd quite like something by Queen. They have a few decent anthems.

"We are the champions" might not go down well before sporting events though.

Best candidate so far...

You'll still run this place though right?

Oh I'll retire after I win. That's the kind of thing to do, right?

When @Velocio is PM he can scrap parliament and install LFGSS in it's place...