Labour leadership race - Corbyn elected leader

Reasonably serious discussion
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Bletch, you write about Corbyn as if being centre left is some kind of compromise to appease voters, and Corbyn’s values are the true Labour Party. For many labour voters that may be the case. For many others it’s not.

After the efforts Blair made to modernise the party and move it away from the Unions, if the default is to constantly fall back as far left as this, then it would suggest the only way forward for the centre left is to create a new party. The public aren’t going to buy ‘modernisation’ a second time round.

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Originally posted by @Coxford_lou

Bletch, you write about Corbyn as if being centre left is some kind of compromise to appease voters, and Corbyn’s values are the true Labour Party. For many labour voters that may be the case. For many others it’s not.

And yet, I don’t see any positive arguments put forward for the centre-left, beyond the fact that it is likely to be less scary to the floating voters that decide election results in marginals.

Which policies, exclusive to the centre-left, can’t you live without?

For many voters, centre-left just means more of the same - and so it has proved. We didn’t stop privatising with a Labour government, we handed over democratic control of the Bank of England to private interests.

That’s all austerity is, really. Public money going to private interests. New Labour may not have laid the foundations for this debacle, but their centre-left-ness saw them enthusiastically erecting hastily planned extensions, like the huge black hole that awaits us with PFI.

After the efforts Blair made to modernise the party and move it away from the Unions, if the default is to constantly fall back as far left as this, then it would suggest the only way forward for the centre left is to create a new party. The public aren’t going to buy ‘modernisation’ a second time round.

Blair loves a classic too. Cough. Enabling act.

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Woo hoo - voting papers have just arrived!

To those of you able to vote please may I recommend my good friend Duncan Enright for the National Policy Forum? A really good man and I was privileged to campaign for him when I lived in his constituency.

Now to knuckle down to some serious reading about all the candidates although I think my mind is made up already.

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Gordon Brown’s full speech:

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I find the Corbyn debate really interesting. Is he actually ~ that ~ left-wing, or is it a sign of just how right-wing we as a nation are, particularly our press?

I do find it interesting though. I really believe what killed Labour was basically offerring a pro-austerity, Tory-Lite option. If you don’t want to vote Tory, why would you vote for this? It’s no surprise the SNP delivered an absolutely kicking to Labour North of the border. There was a viable alternative to the Tory pro-austerity choice. Granted, Scotland is not likely to go Tory in droves any time soon, but the absolute rejection of the Tory-Lite, pro-austerity Labour vote spoke volumes for me.

If the party do end up with a Blairite clone, which Kendall, Cooper & Burnham all are then I just can’t see how they will recover anytime soon. Who, really is going to buy into it? If you want a Tory government, why not just vote Tory? Corbyn offers an alternative, an actual decision to make. Which the other 3, and Ed Milliband just don’t.

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246

Right, so we’ve had 13 pages now which has included lots of waffle from Corbynites about how wonderful Jeremy’s principles are, and how it’s impossible for anyone to the right of Corbyn to have principles without dilution with realpolitik.

Could someone give a succinct 1-10 (or less or more) of what those principles actually are? An actual list? And I mean principles, not policies, as that’s been the tenor of the debate so far.

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Originally posted by @saintbletch

Was it the time?

But, yes there is an energy to that introduction; freshness, hope, vision.

Could do with a spoonful of that now.

It was the time, certainly. But what calls out most from that preamble to the 1964 manifesto is confidence. Contrast with now, when all our prospective leaders, Corbyn especially, is engaged in trench warfare - the statement and restatement of ‘principles’ as a defence mechanism against the horrors of modern life.

If the point, in Marx’s words, is to change the world (rather than to relapse into the confort blanket of principles over power), then we can take another leaf out of the Labour 1964 playbook. And that is to find a way of engaging with the modern world by turning it on its head.

In fact, there’s one issue above all others that is the key to doing this, and no one is talking about. And the clue is in the 64 manifesto. In essence, it’s this:

  1. The British state pumps £93 billion per year and rising into the private sector.

  2. A substantial part of that is in innovation (eg your iPhone wouldn’t work were it not for inventions and developments undetaken in the public sector). Read Mariana Mazzucato’s The Entrpreneurial State for a brilliant analysis of this.

  3. Yet the state uses virtually none of its leverage in order to create a better society. It is outflanked too easily (witness the West Ham deal - tip of the iceberg and utterly commonplace).

  4. At a time when the Tories are committed to a state so minimal that it will destroy lives, and yet are committed to maintaining the vast spending on private enterprise, it is time we came up with an equivalent of the 1964 clarion call: the state as an agent of change, but in a modern sense, alive to the way that technology (as in 64) is changing our lives.

A party that does this has every chance of reaching over the ideological divide.

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I didn’t intentionally write about Corbyn in that way, Lou.

He isn’t centre-left - at least not by the standards of current politics. What I was trying to say, is that I hope the effect he will have on politics will be a move to the left. I see his tenure, however short it may be, as a precursor of a relaunched or even new centre-left party/coalition.

Just as we’ve seen in Scotland, and at this time particularly, I believe there is a latent need for a party that proudly shouts its support for "left’ policies.

Labour went into the last election waving an austerity-lite banner. I understood why they did that. They had no choice. I support the position they took. It was the best chance. The general population wouldn’t have voted for a Labour party waving the SNP’s banner, after all “they were the party that caused the problem in the first place. Right?”.

Doing the same again in 2020 will get the same result and I don’t believe any of the other leadership candidates, or indeed the party as a whole, has the balls to do anything other than austerity-lite.

Our debt is of the order of magnitude that it will keep us in austerity for…well the lifetimes of all of the posters on here. We need a different approach. I don’t know that that is, but I want a party to vote for that at least discusses what an alternative to austerity might look like.

The level of austerity that this parliament will usher in will blight a generation and specifically a targeted section of society. And all so that we can reduce our deficit to a point where out debt has stopped getting larger. The debt remains, and after the deficit is under control we’ll, guess what?, we’ll start to tackle the, by then probably 2 Trillion quid of debt. So that’s another generation or generations where, unless you’ve pulled yourself into the lifeboat, you’re going to be bobbing around waiting for death.

Such a new party, in and of itself, is no use unless those that possess the latent need that I feel is there, are prepared to turn up on a Thursday and mark their card.

The passion I’ve seen behind Corbyn (albeit largely amongst activists) convinces me that the need is there. The fact that so many young people are being energised by discussing left policies gives me hope. The transformation in Scottish politics, not just in a generation, but within a parliament also gives me hope (albeit on the back of a nationhood debate).

I figure that after another n years of the Tories, people will come out to support that relaunched/new centre-left party/coalition IF, IF it is credible, principled, honest and DIFFERENT.

I recognise that there’s a lot of wish and hope in my vision, but I’ve got nothing else to cling to at the moment. I also don’t see the short-term risk because I can’t see Labour winning in 2020.

I’ve always held socialist (with a small s) views, but since I’ve been working with disadvantaged families and their kids with special needs, I don’t want the inequality pedaled by both sides to continue. One step back, two steps forward.

Re Blair. I hate Blair. That’s irrational as I’ve never met him. So I recognise my hatred leads me to conclusions that will be different from yours. It’s best not to discuss Blair with me, as I’ve got a mental block on seeing much of a bright side.

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Thanks to you Bletch, I’ve put YouTube on ignore.

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250

Give me a K, give me an R, give me a G.

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I don’t recognise my contribution on this thread as you’ve described it Furbs*. You mush be talking about pap.

I’ll give you one example, which has probably angered me more than anything and that was Corbyn voting against the welfare bill which most of the Labour party abstained per party line.

The principle at play? That the weakest in society need help from those in a position to provide it?

* Can I call you Furbs, are we at Stage III Forum-Friendship yet?

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Originally posted by @saintbletch

I don’t recognise my contribution on this thread as you’ve described it Furbs*. You mush be talking about pap.

I’ll give you one example, which has probably angered me more than anything and that was Corbyn voting against the welfare bill which most of the Labour party abstained per party line.

The principle at play? That the weakest in society need help from those in a position to provide it?

* Can I call you Furbs, are we at Stage III Forum-Friendship yet?

That’s not a principle specific to Corbyn, though. Every single one of the candidates would sign up for that. But it’s actually a hallmark, if anything, of one-nation Toryism, and the driving motive behind Victorian philanthropy (The Peabody and Guinness Trusts, the Rowntrees, etc).

I’m not sure about your measure. Isn’t Stage 3 terminal, or is that stage 4?

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But only one of them was willing to break with the whip-line, to vote with his conscience.

You’re right of course. I’m not suggesting that the others don’t, in some way believe that. It was just that when the party told them to do something, presumably for fear of how the Tories might be able to portray them as an SNP-supporting, borrow-more, boom-and-bust Labour party, they did it and threw their principles to one side in the process.

Principles can’t be traded that cheaply. They allow twats like me to form opinions like this. Burham knew this, and I know he plans to fight this in committee, but he still abstained.

I just feel that 5 years hence, with any of the other leadership candidates, there will be a situation where my support will be traded for something. I don’t get that sense with Corbyn.

It’s academic anyway, as I’ve said, Corbyn isn’t the endgame for me. For me, he’s the means to an end.

Re stage 4? Depends how this thread goes. We might have a relapse and stage III will actually prove fatal.

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I like the concept, but I wonder if something more fundamental needs to happen to first alter the demographic of those that vote.

I see the current low turnout continuing, and as such those that do vote will largely follow their entrenched view.

Bring new voters into that mix and you could sell such a message.

As much as I hate Blair, he would be the perfect person to lead such a vision. I’m not sure I’ve seen his like lurking anywhere in the party.

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1964 was about being proactive. So waiting around for something cataclysmic to happen to ‘change the demographics’ is a policy of despair.

Where’s the excitement? Where’s the new big idea?

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Agreed, and I don’t know the answer.

But, how big an idea, and how great must the excitement be to rip the blue pen out of the hand of middle-England.

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The big, burning issue among sociologists around the mid-sixties was the working class Tory. Deferentialism amidst a then-substantial British working class had led to predictions that Labour would never regain power after their 1950s ‘heyday’.

The political response to that was to appeal to working class and middle class voters with a brilliantly articulated future set in the blaze of the ‘white heat of technology’. Wilson won a slender majority in 64, but it was a remarkable achievement.

The blue pen of today is just as tenuous. The British middle classes are in decline just as the British working class had been. Salaries stuck in first gear, jobs - and job-types - vanishing in ever increasing numbers, technology displacing all clerical positions and even replacing many legal and technical functions.

So there’s all to play for - and just when that’s the case, the comfort blanket comes out and Labour retreats from the battlefield, warm in the self-righteous knowledge that at least it’s been ‘true to itself’.

It’s a disaster.

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As I said earlier, I don’t get the obsession with the new.

Neo-liberalism has had its chance and has been found wanting. Even amongst people that are politically Conservative, there’s recognition that some services don’t suit private ownership, and never will. The public are becoming ever aware that the system is arbitrary, and only really being run for the benefit of a few.

Getting rid of Trident isn’t a new idea. Kinnock campaigned for nuclear disarmament when running for general election.

Selectively re-nationalising core services and nuclear disarmament are not new ideas, but they’re not bad ideas either. The canard that private sector is better than public sector, or less demanding, is unravelling at a rate of knots. People want something genuinely different. I think they’re fed up with the prospect of a lifetime of debt and the deterioration of the world around them.

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There is no ‘obsession’. Politics is about imagination and vision. There is no imagination or vision in Corbyn’s platform. It’s just a retreat to ideas - borne of reformist-socialist traditions rather than principles - that may have superficial electoral appeal here and there until tested under election conditions.

The frustration is there IS an opportunity here for an imaginative reignition of electoral politics, and the comfort blanket of bits of old stuff - nationalise this, ban that - distastrously isn’t it.

By the way, how are we doing with that list of principles. So far we have just the one, which has its origins in Benjamin Disraeli.

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Sorry Furball; didn’t get much kip last night and have only just twigged that you’re demanding a complete list of principles, and from your last post, I can now see it was one of them bunged gauntlet moments.

I am surprised you’re asking really, because principles, big and small, aren’t actually that hard to unearth from Corbyn’s campaign. The market is not king, nor a suitable custodian for some vital services, such as energy, transport and housing. We’ll support our kids in their education (maintenance grants). We wll decide our own foreign policy. We don’t want to be the sort of country that solves its problems by spending 100Bn on weapons of mass destruction, top fucking table or not. An aside; I’ve always wondered how that’s supposed to work. How many diplomatic negotiations have we won by threatening to nuke someone?

Now maybe you and I have different ideas about what principles are, but for me, they are matters of conviction that you won’t be moved on and guide you day to day. Corbyn had enough of those before he made it a point of principle not to attack his opponents personally.

In Corbyn, I see a builder after a long line of wreckers. I expect that’s what a lot of other people see in him too.

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