Labour Leadership 2016

bawbag

So stop kvetching about your £25. Yeah?

I don't think a similar claim has been made against the other side.

I think the claims of a covert conspiracy to take over the whole party is similar. The fact is most MPs are very torn, and not part of either extreme.

http://www.thecanary.co/2016/06/28/blairite-labour-coup-plotters-protected-media-giant-tied-tony-blair/

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/07/22/smee-j22.html

Huh?

Where in those two articles is it claimed that "Murdoch affiliated, sharp suited Blairites" are taking over constituency meetings?

I think you've misunderstood my post or you're trying to make a point I'm missing. Either way it doesn't matter.

I think in the broader debate, the specific fora, e.g. costituency meetings, are incidental. I'm surprised you cant see any symmetry in the claims from both sides of the argument. If it didn't matter we wouldn't be on page 45 of this thread...

It was a joke at Watson's expense. That's all.

It's irrelevant, but I'm happy to acknowledge that there are people on the left have made claims that those on the right have conspired against Corbyn, if it makes you feel better.

It was a joke are Watson's expense. That's all.

It was also a comment about the legitimacy of his dossier. If we all dismissed responses we didn't like as irrelevant there'd be no discussion. Chill out or just ignore me.

It was definitely a comment about the legitimacy of his four page dossier.

Let's just say the kind of paranoia that got the various aspects of left distrusting each other in 30's BCN did no one good.

'There might only be 200 amongst the 300 000 new members who are Trotskyites, but that's still 200 Trotskyites'.

And it's disgustingly rude bullying to tell twats like this to shut the fuck up.

I don't know, Orwell had quite a popular book published, so Victor Gollancz probably did OK, and then Ken Loach turned it into a film.

Haaaaaaa

Some of the last few days' stories, featuring plenty of unelectability, superciliousness, infighting, and whatnot.

Corbyn's clearly deeply unpopular in his party, considering 16% of Labour constituency parties don't back him (apparently, these nominations are meaningless, though, in view of 'one member, one vote').

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/15/jeremy-corbyn-wins-backing-84-per-cent-local-labour-parties

Now we know that Corbyn's an 'innocent little saint'. I look forward to other Labour grandees further upping the insult stakes, and I can't help but feel that every time one of them comes out with choice quotes like that, they build Corbyn up a little more (at least within his party, since every child knows that he's completely unelectable outside of it):

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/15/labour-split-risks-handing-tories-unfettered-power-says-margaret-beckett

Beckett is really rather wonderful in saying that the leadership contest is not a personal attack on Corbyn while at the same time personally attacking him:

But she cautioned against viewing the contest as a personal attack on Corbyn. “This is not
about persecuting some innocent little saint who happens to have become the leader of the
Labour party,” she said.

She may well claim that she didn't actually mean to call Corbyn that and was speaking in an ironically-assumed voice of a Corbynista, but I don't think that attempted irony, if it is that, works at all.

Also, an appeal against the Appeal Court's decision is not going to be brought by the five original plaintiffs, who appear to have raised enough money through crowdfunding to at least pay off their debts from bringing the first court case:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/14/labour-party-members-leadership-election-challenge-supreme-court

While I can't claim to really understand what's going on there, on superficial inspection I thought that the NEC's use of 'freeze' dates normally meant to be applied shortly before such a contest was rather fishy, as in that they set one six months before the contest, but I haven't seen it explained properly anywhere, so that may be nonsense.

Disclaimer: I like Corbyn personally and really mainly find the flak brought against him quite irritating, although I also do take the (so far unevidenced) claim seriously that he wouldn't win a general election. I just find it quite an interesting process that's going on at the moment, and I'm intrigued about what the final outcome of it all will be.

5 more years (at least) of the Tory party being in charge.

You're wrong there. It's less than four years to the next general election.

http://www.jta.org/2016/08/14/news-opinion/world/major-jewish-donor-to-britains-labour-party-compares-jeremy-corbyn-to-nazi-storm-troopers
odd that the usual PLP suspects have been pretty quiet on this one. imagine the to-do if ken livingstone had proffered such an opinion.

Foster really ought to know better than to draw comparisons like this. The SA was a paramilitary organisation known for its extreme brutality. It terrorised the population in the power vacuum that had been created in Germany by the limitation of the official army, the Reichswehr, to a mere 100,000 soldiers. By contrast, by the early 1930s, the SA had hundreds of thousands of members. They fought down rival paramilitary organisations such as those associated with other political parties. They routinely broke the law and were a major factor in the Nazis' rise. I haven't seen too many reports about Corbyn supporters murdering and beating up adherents of rival parties or opponents within the Labour Party. Anyone who draws comparisons like this only severely undermines any confidence one might have in their own judgement.

I don't know what's more bizarre about Foster's stance--that his op-ed piece appears in the Daily Mail, which obviously has only the best interests of the Labour Party at heart, or points like these:

Smith now has a real chance of winning this contest. He is supported by the vast majority of his parliamentary colleagues.

Smith will most likely win the £25 sign-up vote too; as many right-minded middle class and working class people, are tired of the Corbyn rhetoric that has bought almost nothing in the past ten months for the people Labour is meant to serve.

I thought the general received wisdom was that even among £25 supporters Corbyn supporters would form the majority?

Love the use of 'right-minded' here.

what an utter BASTARD.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/16/jeremy-corbyn-floor-three-hour-train-journey-london-newcastle

tho it does look a little staged-y

I do get that it is nice that JC is willing to sit on the floor as it shows he is "one of us", but I don't think that really says anything at all about his competency (or otherwise) to run a major political party...

i didn't suggest it did. tho you just did.

Not really, but anyway.

What was the point of you posting that article, though?

tax reasons.

#mmc

another one for the "imagine if crobyn said that" files.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37104864

#mmc

i don't know what that means.