Ah, yes you’re not far at all! I always assumed you were in Southampton.
I asked a friend (who’s a local councillor) how he rated Corby’s chances. He just laughed.
Another interesting up and coming MP (though maybe for a future election) is Tulip Suddiq in Kilburn. I did some door stepping with her a few years back when she was starting out, and she is good … young, but energetic, empathetic, and talks the talk. I think she’ll do well.
why can’t I see the previous page? Don’t have the option to click on page 1
Whoever it is has got some serious work to do in the next 4 years or so. Nothing doing as far as I can see. Unless someone makes a massive step up we’ll just have to wait until the middle ground become sick of the Tories again. It’s going to be painful…
Now I can see the previous page - thankyou gremlins!
I think there’s a bug, hence Fowllyd and Goatboy always posting first on a new page to unlock the bug!
Babygate.
Labour leadership candidates say in almost unison. We are not Harriet Harman.
Seems like an obvious point, but one they felt worth making as the interim leader refuses to criticise the welfare plans.
Can you just leave the Labour Party, Liz? FFS.
She has been getting dogs abuse on the Unite Facebook page
And less retweets and favourites on her leadership Twitter account than Sotonians currently manages!
Great campaign, Liz. You’re really reaching people.
Some interesting news coming out of Burnham’s camp. I’d already spoken of my admiration for the way Burnham conducted himself during these proceedings. We could potentially have had those hearings a lot earlier. Burnham wanted an inquiry when Labour were in power. Blair did not want to offend Rupert Murdoch.
Coupla bits of Corbyn news.
Would love Corbyn to get the nod. Conventional wisdom says he’ll never get elected as PM, but I don’t think the electorate has ever seen the like of him before in such a context. He may well connect with people that are sick of the usual breed of politician.
This welfare bill seems like a particularly well aimed piece of Tory legislation - splitting the party even when it is out of government. Superb speech by John McDonnell, one of the rebels, here.
Originally posted by @pap
Would love Corbyn to get the nod. Conventional wisdom says he’ll never get elected as PM, but I don’t think the electorate has ever seen the like of him before in such a context. He may well connect with people that are sick of the usual breed of politician.
Labour has seen the likes of Corbyn before and his name was Michael Foot. I covered some of the 1983 election, and he, like Corbyn, went down a storm at hustings and Labour members’ gatherings. He was a great orator - much better than Corbyn, who comes off as a slightly monosyllabic grumpy uncle. Foot also couldn’t be wound up by TV interviewers the way Corbyn notoriously was by Gurumurthy (having said that, I’ve been interviewed by KG and can confirm he’s a bit of a shallow irritant rather than a convincing interrogator); Foot was always able to hold is own with Robin Day, et al.
But as a potential political leader, Foot was a disaster in much the same way that Corbyn would be. Neither has/had a good track record for coalition-building within the party (a necessary talent); neither has/had any real sense of how to communicate well to those who aren’t out-and-out Labour supporters; and neither has/had the ability to sell, in popular terms, not just a manifesto but a philosophical alternative to neo-liberalism.
Sadly Bear I think you are right. It is all about public image nowdays (and not the John Lydon type). I think Corbyn will frighten middle England. They need someone young and with a freshly scrubbed image. Doesnt matter what they say so long as they yack on about anything of importance to the middle ground. Politics in the UK needs a good kick up the arse.
Wouldnt it be magnificent to have a PM called Tulip?
I anticipated this response, which is why I added my “such a context” qualifier onto the back of it. I don’t necessarily disagree with the comparison of leaders. Where we do differ is the surrounding context, which I think can send things in different ways.
I don’t envy Labour. They have to re-invent themselves and chase two entirely different sets of voters; those they lost in Scotland to the SNP and those they lost in England to Tories and UKIP. If they make the mistake of chasing Tory voters, they are lost forever. I’m almost of the opinion that it would be better for Corbyn to win the nomination and lose the election, as long as he gets to re-state what the Labour Party is about.
None of the present candidates is anything other than a placeholder. Recovering from the disaster of the last election will take root-and-branch change, of which none is capable. So whoever wins will stay long enough for Labour to limp back into a convincing second place (by the self-induced unpopularity of the Tories; nothing else) so that a genuine reformer can emerge and come in.
I suspect that’s a big part of why Chuka Umunna withdrew: it’ll be the next leadership contest that really counts.
I can see it as an argument, but its a bad one. If you back the two-state solution, recognising Palestinian statehood is the responsible and internally consistent thing to do, just as it is for two-staters to argue that they’re also Zionists (in the sense that they also recognise the rights of Israelis). I think both parts of this posiiton need to be clearly stated to mitigate the Zionist-zealot trap which she seems keen to avoid.
Marginalising Palestinians - once the jewel in the Arab crown - has been tried in so many depressing variants, both by Israel and by the international community (including especially other Arab states) that people can surely by now agree that there’s a better way forward. That way, as a first baby step, is recognition, even if Hamas controls part of that state. As unpopular as it is to say so, Hamas can be players at the negotiating table just as the IRA/Sinn Fein was.
The alternative, currently being fought out in Gaza, is unthinkable - not least for Gazans who’ll have to endure yet more trauma on a daily basis.
