I do wonder whether he’ll get done up on AV. He’s quite a divisive character, so I’m not sure how many second preference votes he’ll attract. He’ll either need to get over the line first time, or convince enough voters that he’s not going to be a disaster for the party that some are predicting.
I’ve been listening to quite a few of his appearances. So far, nothing about collectivisation! It’s all good stuff. National Education System, a focus on developing engineering jobs, getting good at developing products in general so that we can provide meaningful work to people looking for it.
If elements of the Labour Party are trying to prevent him from getting the leadership, they are doing a bloody poor job. Kendall’s tactics are right out of the Tory locker, attacking the man, or at least the perception of the man, rather than anything he has said.
A very good read, SO5 4BW. Turns out that Mark Mardell writes far better than he anchors.
This chimed with me…
[on people deciding who to vote for] To them it looks as if becoming a leading Labour politician has become about how many of your core beliefs you are willing to jettison to get into power.
It’s probably worth remembering that there is still a bit of this campaign to do. Those that are presently lagging behind may be able to claw some of that support back. What’s very interesting is that so far, no-one seems to have been able to land much dirt on Corbyn.
I’m struggling to know what to do when my ballot paper arrives. My first choice will be Corbyn but what do I do about 2nd and 3rd preferences?
If I make a 2nd and 3rd choice and Jezza doesn’t win outright, will my (and other people’s) 2nd and 3rd choices diminish his chances of winning? Will I be able to choose to vote for only one candidate I wonder?
Any (genuine) thoughts about how to manage my votes?
I’d say reconsider your first vote. There are two quite spearate entities here: Corbyn, the figure on whom is projected a Syriza-like aura of radical newness and renewal; and Corbyn the actual candidate.
The latter has said nothing about the great social and economic changes that have been a cause of Labour’s decline as a workers’ party; nothing (consequently) about working with other left-of-centre parties (notably the Lib Dems and the SNP); nothing about what ‘anti-austerity’ actually means (Syriza is surely a sell-out warning on this!); nothing about voting reform; etc.
In short, Corbyn has just stood up, said a few plain-speaking things that only he can given his position, done nothing to modify an antique Tribunite political stance - and is ultimately saying little more than he’d do things as in the past but in a more left-wing way.
So once you’ve abandoned Corbyn, start to worry whether you can cast your vote for any of the others.
This is why we live in a democracy. So people can direct the votes of others!
One of the hallmarks of this site, purposefully aimed for, is that our posters are fairly fucking intelligent. As such, one would assume that hoofinruth had listened to the arguments of the candidates, and is fairly certain she’s choosing Corbyn, to the extent where she doesn’t know where to place her second vote.
Any intelligent person can and no doubt will ignore me. However, it’s hugely relevant that none of the candidates is worth voting for as a party leader capable of building a left-of-centre (potentially) ruling bloc. And that’s not even a controversial view - I’ve heard Corbyn supporters say it.
One of the most frustrating things about this campaign is how difficult it is to get a clear description of the platform that each candidate is capaigning on. Even the Labour Party’s offical site just lists frivolous stuff, like approving comments from grass-roots supporters.
If - as is regularly claimed - the whole point of this campaign, and the inclusion of Corbyn himself, is to encourage debate, it just isn’t happening. It’s merely a polarised contest (as hoofinruth’s post demonstrates) between Corbyn and not-Corbyn.
In that context, no wonder it’s so hard to cast second and third votes!
No-one really knows that. For what it’s worth, the only candidate that I think would be disastrous is Kendall. Burnham’s political fortunes have gone up and down, but he showed his best qualities (as did Cameron, actually) during the Hillsborough inquiries. I think it would be marvellous for Labour to have a female leader, so whatever misgivings I have for Cooper being a robotic political animal would be forgotten. I don’t think that option will be open to her if she wins anyway; people expect their leaders to have a bit of personality. Her people would iron out the kinks. I do think Ed Balls is a liability that will be seized upon by the Murdoch press.
I’m a supporter of Corbyn because I do think we’ve travelled too far in a certain direction, and I’m not even talking about left or right. It’s more about the primacy of the market over near everything else. We’ve travelled down this road many times in history, and the indifference of the market, in conjunction with other factors, has caused millions of deaths and an incalculable amount of social harm.
The country has a choice. Do we continue walking this path that Thatcher set us on, where the market is king and everything should be profit-driven, and anything that isn’t should be privatised? Or do we recognise that for some things, the market is not a suitable custodian? Corbyn is the first leadership candidate in years that has bothered to tell us we have a choice.
I’m struggling to know what to do when my ballot paper arrives. My first choice will be Corbyn but what do I do about 2nd and 3rd preferences?
If I make a 2nd and 3rd choice and Jezza doesn’t win outright, will my (and other people’s) 2nd and 3rd choices diminish his chances of winning? Will I be able to choose to vote for only one candidate I wonder?
Any (genuine) thoughts about how to manage my votes?
I don’t vote tactically anymore. I don’t want to tell you how to vote, but I always go out of personal conviction, and let the result be as it may. It’s one of the few chances you get to express official assent. I’m personally not okay with voting to meet the pecularities of the system.
All that means is that the ‘debate’ supposedly engendered by Corbyn’s candidacy is inducing the not-Corbyns to fall into some kind of approved line (so to speak).
The privatisation of the railways was a Major-‘inspired’ disaster. But it was mostly so not because of the multiplicity of train companies but because it separated the permanent way from the provision of train services. One significant consequence is that Network Rail carries the ever-inflating costs of improving a woefully under-invested infrastructure while the train companies cream off the profits.
In other words, yet another way in which wealth is transferred from the 99% to the 1%.
The lessons from the East Coast line are:
1.The East Coast train company (‘DOR’ or Directly Operated Railways) was brilliant.
A key aspect of that was a highly motivated, generally happy staff.
A well-motivated staff was possible because the operator placed great customer service at such a high premium.
The operator was kept honest and always in search of improvements by a nifty private competitor in Grand Central Trains.
The operator returned more money to the treasury than any equivalent private bidders.
The East Coast line demonstrated that even the most naturally profitable attracts private competition from idiots (National Express, which walked away from the franchise when it got its sums horribly wrong).
That such idiots will frequently win bids from a venal and short-termist Department of Transport.
That such idiots are again in control of the line (Virgin/Stagecoach, who have quietly ramped up prices considerably with the removal of many discounted fares).
The coalition decision to exclude DOR from bidding for the East Coast franchise was an act of political/idological spite.
So the challenge for a new centre-left political alignment is to find something considerably better and less anachronistic than nationalisation. This would be a policy that reintegrates track and trains, and makes such franchises a mix of public and private.
With that, you’d have something of the best of both worlds that we had on the East Coast line between 2009 and 2014. Good pricing, good service, good choice - and money being returned to the trasury in a straightforward way, rather than the horrendous mess of profits paying for subsidies paying for profits in a merry-go-round in which only the taxpayer and the train passenger are the losers.
Whether such a policy, or something like it, ever emerges from the wholly depressing Corbyn vs not-Corbyn ‘debate’ I very much doubt.
I agree with much of her analysis, but not her conclusion.
I find it difficult to conceive of a Labour victory in 2020, so a Corbyn win, or at least a contest where Corbyn seriously impacts the result is fine by me.
Corbyn on course to win a 53% majority on first preference votes.
What a turn of events. It’s almost as if the strategy of lining up almost every reviled former Labour politician or spin doctor, and getting them to say “Anyone but Corbyn”, has backfired.
Having Alistair Campbell come out and tell the party faithful how they will vote is a sure fire way of getting people to do the absolute opposite - maybe he is working for the Corbyn camp after all.
Lol, 2nd in command of Blairism urges people to vote anyone but the man looking to dismantle Blairism. I’m sure it’s totally coincidental that the “anyone” would also be a Red-tie Tory Blairite.
