Comments by "J Drake1994" (@JDrakeify) on "Owen Jones meets Lisa Nandy | 'We've got to heal these divisions'" video.

  1. She seems like a smart MP who speaks her mind. I hope she runs at some point in the future, its about time we had a female leader.
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  2. If Nandy was 'pathologically opposed' to the idea of Corbyn being leader, why would she cut short her maternity leave to take a job in his shadow cabinet? And why has she clearly aligned herself with left wing ideas throughout her time in Parliament? There is a reason Owen tried to get her to run before Corbyn jumped in. Whether you like what she has to say or not, I think it is difficult to argue she isnt being honest.
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  3. But this election is not about moving toward the centre, its about whether Labour wants to unite in order to win power and implement its principles, or stay divided under an incompetent leader who cant run a fully staffed frontbench. Smith has actually pledged more investment in the economy than McDonnell has, thus far the only major policy difference is on Trident. He has the backing of the likes of Nandy, who has a thoroughly left wing track record.
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  4. durruti1936 Then if Smith is a Blairite,why has virtually everything he has done in Parliament indicated he is from the 'soft left'. If really were so right wing, he would have nominated David Miliband in 2010, rather than his brother, when David was the favourite. He wouldnt have nominated Andy Burnham, he wouldnt have kept company with the likes of Nandy. Yes, he associated with a company with some free market views toward the NHS, but that doesnt mean he shares those views. It runs contrary to everything he has advocated when given an opportunity to express his own view as an MP. Even if he did, its not as if he would privatize the whole NHS when he became PM, even the PLP arent so right wing to let that happen, especially those who are backing him.
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  5. Why dont you ask genuine Blairites what they think of Owen? They couldnt even get behind Ed Miliband wholeheartedly, and Owen is definitely to the left of him. He has had more than a few critiques of Blairites like Tristram Hunt and Liz Kendall in these videos. He has shared platforms with Corbyn, Clive Lewis, Yanis Varoufakis, Caroline Lucas, etc. So it seems utterly ridiculous to call him a Blairite, unless you define that term as being 'anyone who isnt a full throated Corbynista'.
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  6. Did Smith ever say Corbyn was extreme? I believe he has said Corbyn has been too timid, and said he has every bit as radical as him.
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  7. BigAlFiGala But that doesnt tell you anything about the right wing grassroots, given that May and Thatcher were chosen by Tory MPs. But Beckett and Harman were both chosen under a system where ordinary left wingers had considerable input. So maybe you could make a case to say that Tory MPs are less sexist than Labour ones, but the evidence among ordinary members from both would suggest that the reverse is true if anything. Plus, the only major national party to have chose a female leader through a vote from the party membership is the most left wing, the Green Party. In the two leadership elections they have had, they have chosen two women.
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  8. Did you not hear the video? Owen actually tried to get her to run for the Labour leadership last year (he didnt ask Corbyn) in spite of the fact she had just given birth. So clearly she must have a few left wing credentials. Someone is not automatically a Blairite because they disagree with you.
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  9. But its not as if Labour members have no input at all. They get to choose there local candidate when there is a vacancy, and they can actually deselect there MP already, if the motion is backed by a majority of Labour affiliated organisations in the area. Not only that, but they get to choose there leader, deputy leader, the NEC, and there conference representatives. A key part of democracy is that an MP represents all of there constituents, not just there local party. If we are going to have deselections, then fine, but they should be given a say through an open primary, since the vast majority of the people MPs represents are not members of a CLP.
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  10. Mícheál Hughes But are the membership really all that engaged with the issues that affect there constituents either? I dont believe so. Ordinary voters do not spend so much time thinking about trident, for instance, and if they do, most of them are for it. The same may be true of things like the Syria airstrikes, which Labour members were against. Deselection would often have a lot to do with those things, and yet a CLP would not reflect the views of constituents on that. If we want MPs to be more accountable to those that they represent, it would be better to beef up direct democracy by making it easier for constituents to recall there MP, and by bringing in open primaries to maximize voter participation. If MPs ran as independents, that would then split the Labour vote, often allowing the Tories or UKIP in instead. That would be nothing short of a disaster for anyone who wants left wing principles implemented in government.
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  11. there are plenty in the Labour Party (including Smith imo) who champion similar values to Corbyn, albeit with greater competence. Or if your done with Labour, just vote for the Greens. The left wing revival that has taken place over the past years should not be a personality cult around a frankly inept leader.
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  12. I believe Nandy has actually been advocating for that. I hope she gets Smith to back that, Corbyn has had little to nothing to say about that.
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  13. The main beneficiary in the short term at least, would be the Tories and UKIP, as the left wing vote split. The right would be in power for a generation. I agree that in the long term the left needs to split in two, but not before PR is introduced, that is the only way both sides will benefit. Until them, we are stuck with one another.
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  14. Neil Kennerley PR is very possible in the foreseeable future if Labour adopts it as policy. And there are signs that that will eventually happen. It is one of the few things that unite the likes of John McDonnell and Chukka Ummuna. It is likely that most of the Labour members are in favour of PR, so adopting would be an obvious way for the rest of the party to woo the left wing membership. Given that all the major national parties aside from the Tories would now be in favour of PR, all it would take would be for them to lose there majority for it to become a reality. To make that easier, the left ought to unite (Labour, Lib Dems, and Greens) in a Progressive Alliance with PR, anti austerity, and a few other key principles as the foundation of such a pact. Labour has to appeal to those who voted Tory, but at the same time, there are large sections of the country that would not vote Labour in even the biggest landslide, but might vote Lib Dem. It makes no sense to run a candidate with no chance of winning in those places and allow the Tories to win.
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  15. Kathy Bramley Yeah, I can tell this is going to be confusing for the next few months.
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  16. Corbyn had a quarter of a million votes in the last leadership election, he needs considerably more than that to win a GE. Support from the members doesnt mean support from the public.
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  17. Simon JL Koreshoff The number of campaigners you have doesnt necessarily make all that much of a difference. They didnt prevent Labour from losing seats at the local council elections. If the number of activists played a major role in electoral success, then Labour and the Greens would have done far better in 2015. Besides, new members doesnt necessarily equate to new campaigners on the ground. It has been well documented that many of those who joined Labour in the wake of Corbyn's victory have barely ever attended CLP meetings, so there is no guarantee they will show up come election time. I imagine Nandy was thinking that there was an opportunity to enact left wing, anti austerity principles through a Labour government, but Corbyn has proven he is not the man for the job. Incidentally, has her CLP actually passed a motion of confidence in Corbyn, or anything like that?
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  18. Just like Labour did last time the right jumped ship in the early 1980s. The SDP is frequently touted by the hard left as the reason Michael Foot lost, and yet many are actively willing the same thing to happen again. Like it or not, the various factions of Labour are stuck with one another till we get PR.
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  19. durruti1936 You do realize how Labour Party internal democracy works right? Mandatory deselection is not part of the rules right now. If it were, there would be no deselection votes until several years from now when new candidates were being chosen for the next election. New measures are voted on at party conference every year. It is probably to late for deselection to be on the table this year anyway. Even if it was, what is to stop deselection from being endorsed by conference in the next two years before 2020? The ban on CLP meetings is only in place till the end of the leadership election. It would make no sense for the NEC (which is pro Corbyn enough to let him on the ballot) to prevent CLPs from meeting to prevent deselection.
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  20. durruti1936 The NEC and the PLP are not the same thing. In fact, from what I have heard the limitations came about due to the unions, not because of MPs. And also, there were plenty of confidence motions passed for and against Corbyn before the decision, and the NEC seemed to feel no pressing need to shut meetings down then. http://labourlist.org/2016/07/which-constituencies-have-had-confidence-votes-in-jeremy-corbyns-leadership/ Even now, they can still meet to endorse candidates in the election, which is more or less the same thing anyway in these circumstances.
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  21. Forgetting that Labour's membership has elected two women, whilst the Tory membership have elected none.
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  22. BigAlFiGala But most the public would not regard themselves as being attached to any party, certainly not to the extent that they would be members. All Thatcher's (three) election victories prove is that the general public is open to electing a woman, not the Tory party membership, who were never offered a choice between a woman and a man in a leadership contest.
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  23. BigAlFiGala Mainly because on each occasion a woman ran, they were out of step with the opinions of the membership. Cooper and Kendall were the two most right wing candidates in a party that had shifted to the left. But as I pointed out, the Tory membership havent elected any women at all, so the right as a whole have no reason to feel like they achieved anything.
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  24. BigAlFiGala But the right wing grassroots had nothing to do with either of them. None of the women to be elected to major offices by there party membership have come from the Conservative Party. If you are using this to make a point about lefties as a whole being more sexist, it doesnt work, as the right wing grassroots didnt do anything to make either Thatcher or May Prime Minister.
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  25. BigAlFiGala But as I said, the number of female leaders the Tories have had is no reflection on the right as a whole because the grassroots had no say. Fine, they werent sexist enough not to vote for there own party whilst it was led by a woman, but that doesnt tell you that they would have elected her party leader given the chance, does it? Besides, what you are talking about is not the left as a whole, but the Labour Party, which is not representative of all lefties everywhere. The Greens, Plaid, and the SNP have also got female leaders, the first two through democratic election by the membership. Similarly, many left wing parties have elected female leaders across the world. Hilary Clinton is the first female Presidential nomine for the Democrats.
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  26. Are we talking about the same Lisa Nandy here? The one who Owen tried to get to run for leader last year? The one who has championed things like getting rid of tuition fees? She has more in common with those who support Corbyn than the right of the party. A Blairite is not just someone who doesnt worship at the altar of Corbyn.
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  27. by 'the centre' she did not mean centrists in the sense of the entire political spectrum, she meant the largest group within the PLP who were open to giving Corbyn a go, as opposed to some who were never able to reconcile themselves to his leadership.
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  28. Simon JL Koreshoff​ Not too badly in council elections? He was the first opposition leader since the 1980s to lose seats, against a government that was in turmoil. The results were better than predicted, but that shouldn't obscure that it is still a huge failure by any stretch of the imagination. Labour are now behind in the polls by double digits, and Corbyns personal ratings are getting on to being the worst for any opposition leader in history, less than a year since he took office. It is more than reasonable to assume that Labour could do better than the course for electoral oblivion he has helped to set the party on.
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  29. I know and I dont think it matters. If people vote for UKIP, that is what they should get. You cant reject democracy just because you dont like the result
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  30. Lets play hard left bingo!
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  31. he did say at the beginning of the video he hoped to interview people on Corbyn's side, including the man himself
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  32. Helen N when did he say that?
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