She may well do - she's certainly not following the 'how to get elected as a moderate leader' playbook at all, so far. I hope not though. I genuinely couldn't think of a worse symbol to send out as a result, short of Corbyn coming first too.

She may well do - she's certainly not following the 'how to get elected as a moderate leader' playbook at all, so far. I hope not though. I genuinely couldn't think of a worse symbol to send out as a result, short of Corbyn coming first too.

 

Yes, it's weird how tactically un-astute the whole campaign is. I can only assume they severely mis-read the mood of Labour members and thought victory would be in the bag for her so they could afford to say whatever they liked -- maybe they swallowed the Rentoul/Hodges echo chamber nonsense that the grassroots were "Blairite" based on David Miliband narrowly winning with the membership in 2010 (ignoring the fact that the main reason he won was because people thought David would be seen as a PM so were willing to swallow compromises on policy in return for someone who was perceived as a guaranteed winner, whereas Kendall just doesn't have that going for her).

Edited July 2, 201510 yr by Danny

Saw Cooper in Manchester today. Was impressed by how casual she makes speeches look, was very good one-on-one as well.

Telegraph reporting that Unite and the GMB are set to endorse Corbyn on Sunday. A senior union source wouldn't be leaking that to the Telegraph unless there was a serious threat of it happening and they wanted to try killing it off.

Unite have officially endorsed Jeremy Corbyn/George Osborne.

 

“Unite and GMB will both elect Corbyn,” a senior union source told The Telegraph. “He represents the kind of Labour values the unions want to support.”

 

“Are we backing someone who could not possibly win? Yes, we are. But there is a feeling we need to nail our colours to the mask.” (sic)

 

The source added: “He represents anti-austerity, investment in sustainable growth, supporting tackling poverty. That is the way to get the deficit down while improving living standards.”

 

Another source told The Telegraph: “In terms of outcome the dynamic seems to be in favour of Corbyn.

 

“If the Unite leadership put its members first, it would not back in a month of Sundays someone designed to keep Labour in opposition for a generation.”

 

I have no truck whatsoever with people genuinely supporting Corbyn because they like his politics and they think he can win a general election (though they're in serious need of some receipts), but that bolded quote really is fucking gross. Yep, ideological purity is more important than electability. That one hasn't done the rounds as a serious idea for a while. Can't say it did much good last time either.

I'm not sure how much this will damage Burnham - potentially a double whammy of losing some union funding and scaring off people who don't like Corbyn.

 

I think there is (or at least was) an opportunity for Labour to be anti-austerity and electable but I don't think Corbyn is it, unfortunately.

He opted out of getting union funding anyway, so that won't be an issue for him.

Unite have officially endorsed Jeremy Corbyn/George Osborne.

I have no truck whatsoever with people genuinely supporting Corbyn because they like his politics and they think he can win a general election (though they're in serious need of some receipts), but that bolded quote really is fucking gross. Yep, ideological purity is more important than electability. That one hasn't done the rounds as a serious idea for a while. Can't say it did much good last time either.

 

I interpreted it as them saying Corbyn couldn't possibly win the Labour election, but that they wanted to make their voice heard all the same.

 

In any case, have you revised your opinion of me being a loony-leftie when comparing to a lot of the Corbynistas who've been dominating Twitter in recent weeks? :angel:

I never thought you were a loony leftie (they never even attempt objectivity on New Labour), just that at times you could lapse into...fairly unconventional opinions. I don't bother debating with proper loony lefties of the George Aylett type - you may as well try debating a cult.

I never thought you were a loony leftie (they never even attempt objectivity on New Labour), just that at times you could lapse into...fairly unconventional opinions. I don't bother debating with proper loony lefties of the George Aylett type - you may as well try debating a cult.

I had to unfollow him today. I wouldn't normally mind it but he seems to recycle the same four tweets every day word for word.

I think anyone who straight-facedly brackets themselves as 'part of the 76%' and thinks it's an electoral strategy (let alone for a hard left prospectus) really needs to be locked in a dark room forever. Or at least forced to talk to a good half of those they're bracketing themselves in with.

I think anyone who straight-facedly brackets themselves as 'part of the 76%' and thinks it's an electoral strategy (let alone for a hard left prospectus) really needs to be locked in a dark room forever. Or at least forced to talk to a good half of those they're bracketing themselves in with.

Quite. Note how the Tories weren't doing something similar after 2005.

 

Saying that, the opposite view (that we should be going after 2015 Tories at the expense of others) frustrates me just as much.

Not so much at the expense of others, but votes taken off the Tories make it far easier to win than those taken off other parties (with the exception of the SNP in Scotland, but I don't think there's anything a national leader can really do about that specifically. Nicola Sturgeon is for better or worse seen as the Leader of the Opposition in Scotland, and until Labour look like they can win in England, they won't win in Scotland).

 

Plus, a lot of people seem to characterise 2015 Tories are all hugely enthusiastic right wingers. They aren't. Loads voted Tory with a peg on their nose because they were the least worst option and they didn't trust Labour - they aren't that far off being won back, they just need to be reassured a Labour government won't bugger everything up.

Not so much at the expense of others, but votes taken off the Tories make it far easier to win than those taken off other parties (with the exception of the SNP in Scotland, but I don't think there's anything a national leader can really do about that specifically. Nicola Sturgeon is for better or worse seen as the Leader of the Opposition in Scotland, and until Labour look like they can win in England, they won't win in Scotland).

 

Plus, a lot of people seem to characterise 2015 Tories are all hugely enthusiastic right wingers. They aren't. Loads voted Tory with a peg on their nose because they were the least worst option and they didn't trust Labour - they aren't that far off being won back, they just need to be reassured a Labour government won't bugger everything up.

Do you not think that a culture change could drag some UKIPers and non-voters back without having to make policy concessions?

 

I'm assuming for now that if Ed couldn't stop someone from voting Green, no leader will unless we rejected virtually all cuts. Maybe a few would be swayed by a female leader.

Do you not think that a culture change could drag some UKIPers and non-voters back without having to make policy concessions?

Nowhere near enough to get anywhere near winning. I also found it quite interesting that the first projection of voter churn at the election only had us losing one point to UKIP nationally (though obviously that would have been very concentrated in certain areas).

 

And on dragging non-voters 'back', given turnout's been going up consistently for about 14 years (and people have been dying in that time), I'm not sure there's much we could do to win in 2020 the people who haven't voted since voting Labour in 1997. I'm not even all too sure there'll be many of those people about. And I don't think I want to risk building an electoral strategy on getting out people who as a rule don't vote, particularly given there'll be no way of assessing how successful we are on that front until polling day itself.

Plus, a lot of people seem to characterise 2015 Tories are all hugely enthusiastic right wingers. They aren't. Loads voted Tory with a peg on their nose because they were the least worst option and they didn't trust Labour - they aren't that far off being won back, they just need to be reassured a Labour government won't bugger everything up.

 

I agree with that, and think the hard-lefties who say they don't want impure Tory voters to vote Labour are ridiculous - but it's the Progress wing who are making the mistake of thinking all Tory voters have signed up chapter-and-verse to Tory policies, by advocating Labour move almost wholesale over to the Tory position on most policies.

 

Merseyside is a great example of what can happen, even in very middle-class and white areas, if the local Labour party makes a forceful, coherent argument against right-wing nostrums. (Bill Esterson in particular is one of the more left-wing Labour MPs, and he got one of the biggest swings to Lab in the country, in a seat which had a 20% Tory majority in 1992.)

I agree with that, and think the hard-lefties who say they don't want impure Tory voters to vote Labour are ridiculous - but it's the Progress wing who are making the mistake of thinking all Tory voters have signed up chapter-and-verse to Tory policies, by advocating Labour move almost wholesale over to the Tory position on most policies.

 

Merseyside is a great example of what can happen, even in very middle-class and white areas, if the local Labour party makes a forceful, coherent argument against right-wing nostrums. (Bill Esterson in particular is one of the more left-wing Labour MPs, and he got one of the biggest swings to Lab in the country, in a seat which had a 20% Tory majority in 1992.)

Merseyside is a bit of a special case though because of the contempt for The Sun (and Murdoch in general).

 

Nowhere near enough to get anywhere near winning. I also found it quite interesting that the first projection of voter churn at the election only had us losing one point to UKIP nationally (though obviously that would have been very concentrated in certain areas).

 

And on dragging non-voters 'back', given turnout's been going up consistently for about 14 years (and people have been dying in that time), I'm not sure there's much we could do to win in 2020 the people who haven't voted since voting Labour in 1997. I'm not even all too sure there'll be many of those people about. And I don't think I want to risk building an electoral strategy on getting out people who as a rule don't vote, particularly given there'll be no way of assessing how successful we are on that front until polling day itself.

The dying statistic is surely misleading given that millions of people have also joined the register in that time.

 

I agree though that it'd be very dangerous to rely on non-voters, as it is to rely on any one group.

Merseyside is a bit of a special case though because of the contempt for The Sun (and Murdoch in general).

 

That's probably a bit of a factor, but people's views on the actual issues tend to be different round here. When I was canvassing in the Wirral a few years ago, LOADS of people were saying how upset they were about welfare cuts in particular (and how they wished Labour would oppose them more strongly) -- with how consistently the polls say that the nation as a whole is in favour of welfare cuts, I think now that Merseyside is the exception. Which leads me to believe it's been caused by the local politicians constantly from the 1980s onwards making the argument that poor people often can't be blamed for their predicament and that rich people have a responsibility to help much more than they do since they never would have got anywhere if "society" hadn't helped them get where they were -- arguments which have gradually gained ground as they were shared with friends, family, etc.

 

It's not even really about being more "left-wing" as such, it's just about having the courage of your convictions to make the fundamental arguments, and keep making them over and over again even if you get some resistance at first (something Miliband and Balls were dismal at).

 

I imagine there was a similar process in Scotland, until the big reversal over the last year.

Edited July 6, 201510 yr by Danny

The dying statistic is surely misleading given that millions of people have also joined the register in that time.

 

I agree though that it'd be very dangerous to rely on non-voters, as it is to rely on any one group.

They have - at the same time as turnout went down (with voting being generally a habit picked up early in life or never), and at the same time as an incumbent government was present for thirteen years. It's easy to forget given this year's result, but it's exceptionally rare for long-lasting governments to pick *up* support.

 

My point was that it's even more dangerous to rely on non-voters than it is to rely on switchers - at least with the switchers you can monitor how many you're winning over, as they're by and large honest on that front. Non-voters you'll have zero idea until it's too late, as well as precedence suggesting it's pretty rare they'll actually make good on their promise.

LABOUR leadership hopeful Liz Kendall has promised to punch the last surviving British coal miner hard in the face.

 

The punch, which will take place in front of the media at the site of Woolley Colliery in Barnsley later today, is Kendall’s attempt to outflank her rivals on the right.

 

Kendall said: “This miner, who lives in a terraced home on benefits and doesn’t even own a car, represents everything that Labour needs to leave behind.

 

“He worked down the mines for more than 40 years and never invested in the property market, never started his own business, no aspiration whatsoever.

 

“It will be my pleasure to deck him.”

 

Once Kendall has punched 62-year-old Roy Hobbs, she will confiscate the instruments of the Woolley Colliery Brass Band and melt them down to make a statue of Alistair Campbell.

 

Hobbs said: “She’s Labour, so I’m sure it’s for the best.”

 

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/pol...r-2015052298524