Another leadership contest is highly unlikely. Corbyn has a large mandate and it seems his approval ratings from within are good, i heard something on R4 this morning about over 66% of those elegible to vote in the leadership contest see him as doing a decent job.
I genuinely think the majority of the public are pissed off with those sections of the media who seek to discredit him based upon irrelevant bollocks like not bowing low enough and giving Diane Abbot one. Irrespective of his politics he seems a decent sort and, whilst he needs to play the media very well over the next 4.5 years, I’d be suprised if he isn’t the main opposition leader come the next election (short of being caught sucking off a horse or something like that).
This is what is daft with the media - they don’t need to sweat the petty stuff. Corbyn is perfectly capable of scoring own goals which make him look out of his depth and they have some juicy policy clashes in the wings to get their teeth into (eg trident) without having to dredge up the small beer.
The May elections are make or break. I think we’re going to see the same thing happen there, tbh. If this campaign has taught the British public anything, it’s that the media is not an honest broker. Various media barons have totally laid into the bloke and it’s my view that it’s ultimately counterproductive.
As others have said, comes across as a genuinely compassionate chap with conviction. The negative press works just as well for him, especially when some wag decides to point out just how ridiculous it is. Also, people don’t like being told what to do, especially what to think, and as deferent as the British public can sometimes be, we’ve also got a giant streak of “fuck you” running through us.
Since announcing his intention to run, he has continued to surprise everybody. I think we need to see how a Corbyn led Labour performs in elections before writing his political death certificate.
Interesting piece in the New Statesman. Jezza is making a good impression of those who supported other candidates during the leadership contest.
A new poll shows Corbyn is going nowhere.
I then spent most of yesterday talking to Labour party members – and my impression, of a membership that is only growing more supportive of Jeremy Corbyn’s project, was confirmed by today’s Times/YouGov poll.
They find that 66 per cent of Labour party members believe that the new leader is doing “well” in his new job, a seven point increase on his his 59 per cent landslide. Almost half - 49 per cent – of members who backed Andy Burnham in the leadership race, are pleased with Corbyn’s leadership thus far, while 29 per cent of former supporters of Yvette Cooper also present a favourable view.
Covering the Labour party feels increasingly like reviewing a particularly patchy Choose-Your-Adventure novel. Two-thirds of party members, and perhaps ten per cent of MPs believe that the party is headed for the sunlit uplands. The remaining third – and most of the parliamentary Labour party – thinks that the party is heading for a heavy defeat in 2020 at best and annihilation at worst. They can’t go on like this – someone is going home in an ambulance: either Corbyn, or his internal opponents. My instinct is that it will be Corbyn who triumphs.
Interesting piece in the New Statesman. Jezza is making a good impression of those who supported other candidates during the leadership contest.
A new poll shows Corbyn is going nowhere.
I then spent most of yesterday talking to Labour party members – and my impression, of a membership that is only growing more supportive of Jeremy Corbyn’s project, was confirmed by today’s Times/YouGov poll.
They find that 66 per cent of Labour party members believe that the new leader is doing “well” in his new job, a seven point increase on his his 59 per cent landslide. Almost half - 49 per cent – of members who backed Andy Burnham in the leadership race, are pleased with Corbyn’s leadership thus far, while 29 per cent of former supporters of Yvette Cooper also present a favourable view.
Covering the Labour party feels increasingly like reviewing a particularly patchy Choose-Your-Adventure novel. Two-thirds of party members, and perhaps ten per cent of MPs believe that the party is headed for the sunlit uplands. The remaining third – and most of the parliamentary Labour party – thinks that the party is heading for a heavy defeat in 2020 at best and annihilation at worst. They can’t go on like this – someone is going home in an ambulance: either Corbyn, or his internal opponents. My instinct is that it will be Corbyn who triumphs.
So 1/3rd of the party are unhappy…that’s a bit worse than I thought. Especially as he hasn’t really dealt with any of the real tricky subjects that could end up sinking him.
He’s got a 6% bump in approval ratings within his own party, attracting people that didn’t have him as their first choice candidate. This is against a backdrop of some of his own PLP members briefing against him.
What sort of numbers and performances were you expecting?
Essentially I wouldn’t expect those that didn’t have as first choice to automatically be disapproving, I would have expected the main bulk to be a case of ‘wait and see how he approaches it’. If only 6% of those think he’s doing well, when he has only had to face the challenge of the idiot right wing press, then when he actually gets onto policymaking he could have some big issues.
I think most of his policy platform is fairly popular, some of it among Tory voters. Trident will remain a stick to beat him with while it’s an issue of division within the party, and among the nation in general, but it’s not an unwinnable argument. 167 billion sterling is a lot of money which could be spent on other things.
I’m intrigued with the difference between much of the punditry and the polling. Big difference between what the narrative says is happening and people’s genuine feelings about the party under his leadership.
This was supposed to be disaster, wasn’t it? I remember when he first assumed the mantle; the likes of the Telegraph and Mail jumped onto a poll saying he had the lowest approval ratings for any new Labour leader ever. Somewhat quieter this week, when the IPSOS poll put Corbyn on top.
You can’t get too excited about a couple of polls, but it looks as if he’s slowly gaining ground within the membership and with the wider public.
I do not think this can be acruate, just like the opinion polls that had the Tories and Labour neck and neck at the last general election, which turned into a landslide victory for the Tories. It seems to me that these polls are well off the mark in recent years. Not only this but the time it really counts to be on top is in the run up to a general election. This is the time (1 year after being re-elected into number 10), that the party in power tread on a few toes, test the water and upset many. They then reel it in ready for the next election, by saying all the right things.
Pas long as the economy keeps ticking along and the ‘stats’ tick all the right boxes, the joe public will be happy to proceed as things are, sadly!
Have you all not worked out yet that it does not matter which party is in power the average working person is screwed.
If Labour are in power the under priviledged get a little bite of the cherry and the average worker gets screwed for as much as they can get him for, business’s get taxed a bit more,
If the Tories are in big business get a reprieve on taxes and the average worker gets screwed for as much as they can get him for the under priviledged get told to find a job more often and some benifits get taken away.
Nah, that’s a massive mis-step that’s going to hang around his neck for a while. Even if you ignore the red commie come backs, you can’t quote a mass fucking murderer (in jest) to score a cheap point. He could have done it without the theatrics of actually having the book on the premises, but instead he’s just fucking shot at goal from the halfway line and skyed it.
This’ll be coming back to haunt him. Fucking stupid.
McDonnell doesn’t have a monopoly on making unfavourable comparisons with unfavoured historical characters. The Tories refer to Labour politicians or policy as Stalinist with depressing regularity, Corbyn’s lot get called Trotskyites (who led the killing of a lot of people in the Russian civil war), and no-one makes much of a fuss. It is, for the most part, a laughable double standard.
The new bit is the prop and the direct quote, the furore giving a good illustration of the hypocrisy of the easily offended wetpants wankers. McDonnell quotes a Communist, and gets shite. Cameron and co do huge trade deals with Communists, including a huge deal to build a nuclear fucking reactor here (with their illustrious homeland industrial safety record) and that’s alright.
In the meantime, this manufactured outrage diverts from actual issues.
