Danny

Growing signs that Hillary Clinton is in trouble. New poll for the Democrats' New Hampshire primary: Hillary Clinton 43% Bernie Sanders 35% Apparently, she is in a worse position than she was at this point in 2007 against Obama. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/ju...-democrats-poll

So doesn't that just go to show how Labour prattling on about cuts is not only the morally wrong thing to do, it doesn't do anything to solve the perception that Labour is incompetent at handling money, if people simultaneously thought they would cut too much and spend too much at the same time?

But this is what I don't understand about this "no baggage" argument. Kendall was an adviser to Patrica Hewitt at a time when there was one of those IT projects to register doctors which infamously fell apart and wasted loads of money - and carcrash IT projects are in the public mind one of the totemic examples of Labour's incompetent financial management (along with PFI projects and "selling the gold"). I can't see how she would be more immune from those types of attacks any more than the other two. And that GQRR polling showed that Labour's economic competence problems have nothing at all to do with how much Labour talks about cuts, since the polling showed a plurality (admittedly a rather narrow one) thought Labour would cut spending too quickly: http://www.gqrr.com/uk-post-election-2

Why?

But again, I don't understand what the thought process is that Kendall would do better than Burnham in some of these working-class southern and Midlands towns? I thought you agreed that those places were not in any way repelled by Labour's supposedly "left-wing" policies on taxes and businesses. Imo, the only place Kendall would do better than Andy in a general election is London, I could just see some of the Guardianistas sneering at Burnham and defecting to the Greens - but Labour have margin for error there anyway.

I love it. Apparently being closer to Jeremy Corbyn than to the frontrunner is a triumph for someone whose whole shtick is "I'm the one who will win elections" :lol: Being a respectable second would be decent and a platform to build on if her platform was about inspiring policies which captured Labour members' hearts (with any popularity being a bonus), but it's not, her pitch is entirely based around her supposed electability. Polls like this which show her so far off the pace are the equivalent of the damage that would be done to Burnham's campaign if he was suddenly exposed as having grown up in a southern metropolitan-bubble household. Also, on the point about Burnham being strongest in Labour heartlands - by the same logic, Liz Kendall is apparently most popular with young people (who presumably will largely be either non-voters or Labour voters already), while Andy does extremely well with old people (the ones who actually vote and who Labour got spanked with this time).

It's only name-calling if you think being called a Tory is in itself an insult :P Nothing wrong with being a tory in general, but there is something wrong about it if you're running for the leadership of what's supposed to be the main opposition party. In any case, now that the 'electability'/'one the Tories fear' argument has been blown out of the water, no doubt the Blairites will fall back onto the feeble "no baggage" argument now (despite the fact she was a special adviser frequently during the Blair government and so the Tories would have just as much ammunition to throw at her as at Burnham or Cooper).

So are Jezza's, by that logic :lol:

Sadiq Khan, really? The gap between how well-known Tessa Jowell and Sadiq Khan are, is surely MUCH bigger than the gap between how well-known Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall were at the start of the leadership contest. (Though I think the polls do reflect that Tessa would have a better chance than Sadiq, simply because she reminds people of the Olympics.)

Latest poll of the public (presumably with don't know's excluded since the figures are so high?): 36% Andy Burnham 25% Liz Kendall 20% Yvette Cooper 18% Jeremy Corbyn http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/polit...s-10340208.html Kendall does seem to be picking up steam, although it's still hardly much of a sign that she's the "electable" candidate who Tory voters would be flocking to if she's still closer to Corbyn than she is to Burnham even after weeks of fawning media coverage. I was starting to think Yvette Cooper would be more of a vote-winner than Andy, but this poll has given me second thoughts.

So opinion polls are the gospel truth when they show lefties doing badly, but pointless tests of name recognition when they show Blairites doing badly? :P

I would probably vote for Zac Goldsmith over Tessa Jowell if I was in London, tbh. If Tory policies are going to be delivered by a Labour candidate anyway, it would be better to have the real deal who atleast seems capable of occasionally thinking outside the box.

This has always been such a strange argument. 'Massively cut back spending on public services, so that there's more money to spend on public services' ??? It's like saying if I sell all my furniture then I'll have the money to buy the equipment to build new furniture from scratch. Even most Tories want good public services in an ideal world - it's a matter of priorities, and Tories believe that having immaculate public finances is more important than a more equal society with good public services (for there's always going to be a conflict between the two, since getting those public services inevitably cost lots of money). Kendall has made it pretty clear she agrees with them.

Eh? She very much is, as shown by the fact that audience were singularly unimpressed by her and the rest of the candidates. She doesn't seem to have any convictions that drive her at all. You can only get away with an indistinct policy stance if you have the kind of magnetic political skills that Blair had. Without those skills to distract people, they're going to notice how what you're saying is just "vapour and noise". Do you really think Kendall has those Blair-like skills?

Did you watch the Newsnight chat with some of the swing voters in the audience after the Nuneaton hustings? (They seemed to deliberately pick out people OTHER than the diehard lefties who had largely been asking the questions in the hustings itself.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05zr...snight-17062015 (from 8:15) One woman did mention in passing that Labour needed to show they were careful with money, and another said immigration was the big thing for him. But the main feeling from them was that there was no "vision" from any of the candidates, that they had no convictions or passion, that it was all just "vapor and noise". I really can't understand how moving even more onto the supposed "centre ground" (and thus away even further away from any distinctive stances) is going to remedy that problem.

According to the New Statesman, Labour MPs now consider Yvette Cooper to be the frontrunner.

Watching last night's debate, my feeling was Hazza Harman would be better than all of them.

Might not be now, but considering there's a huge underlying suspicion that Labour isn't patriotic enough and that they're too weak-willed to stand firm when anyone other than the British/English starts making demands of them, that won't necessarily always be the case. If Labour allow themselves to be painted as EU enthusiasts then expect posters in 2020 with "Don't let Juncker grab your cash". The most recent example of Labour winning was based on them improving poor people's lives with significant amounts of public spending.

Eh? I don't have a desire for one -- not least, because I think one of Labour's basic jobs is to protect people on benefits rather than giving into the public's spiteful scrounger-bashing. I'm just making the point that if as the Blairites claim that the way to win is to "compromise with the electorate", then it's odd that they don't practice what they preach. They claim that it's necessary to endlessly compromise on the economy because it's supposedly what the public want (even though the evidence is mixed for that), yet they have their own blindly ideological views on immigration, Europe and public-service marketisation despite them being opposed by the public.

It's a shame she doesn't apply that principle to welfare then, with her backing the benefits cap and pumping about all that rhetoric about "hard work" and soforth :P

That may be, but it doesn't change the fact that Kendall has the polar-opposite views to swing voters on virtually all those issues (not only is she far to the right on the economy/public services, she's apprently liberal on immigration and the EU). What happened to "compromise with the electorate"?

Pesky facts are contradicting the Blairites' analysis of the election defeat again: http://leftfootforward.org/2015/06/why-eve...xchange-report/

Even Nick Palmer (former MP who hardly ever rebelled against the Blair government) is saying on Politicalbetting he might give Corbyn his first preference. But I'm thinking of giving him my first preference at the moment if he's on the ballot (and I'm not your typical hard left member) - he's clearly not a likely winner of floating voters, but I'd like to send a message to the candidates that I want a clear theme from them, not just lots of platitudes.

Ha - brilliant. I honestly think there's an outside chance Corbyn could come top on first preferences (though he'd pick up very few lower preferences so wouldn't win overall). The scale of disillusionment with how right-wing the main contenders are seems to be off the charts.

But both of these assertions are flatly contradicted by the only piece of polling asking about why people voted the way they did in the election: people said by overwhelming margins that they thought Labour should end "postcode lotteries" with public services and instead ensure uniformly equal standards, that they were too soft on big businesses, and that they wouldn't increase taxes on the rich enough. And before the "are you really trusting polls?" excuse comes out, it doesn't really make much sense that these respondents would've been brutally honest about the fact they'd voted Conservative and their opinions on Ed Miliband or on Labour "overspending" or immigration, but then would suddenly go "shy" when asked about Labour's policies on businesses/taxes/services. http://www.gqrr.com/uk-post-election-2