Comments by "J Drake1994" (@JDrakeify) on "Owen Jones meets Owen Smith | 'Labour would not win a snap general election under Corbyn'" video.

And where precisely has copied the Tory manifesto in any of his ideas. That critique might have made sense for Liz Kendall, but it cant be said for Owen Smith.
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You have hit the nail on the head. The left really needs to stop with all the tribalism and respect those who dont agree with us precisely but ultimately want the Tories out of government. Implementing our principles must be our ultimate goal, and power is really the only meaningful way to do that. If we cannot unite our own party, then how are we ever going to do it in the country as a whole?
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https://medium.com/@OwenJones84/questions-all-jeremy-corbyn-supporters-need-to-answer-b3e82ace7ed3 Evidently you havent seen this.
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All the massive turnouts at those rallies(in strongly Labour cities btw) suggest is that he has enthusiastic supporters, it tells you next to nothing about his performance in a GE, which according to the polling, would be dire. Elections, especially ones run under FPTP, reward broad support, not depth. Corbyn has the latter, but definitely not the former, and that is what counts.
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mars Cubed No they werent. Labour have not registered a lead since late April, which was one of only three in literally dozens since he became leader. They were even with the Tories in one poll after the referendum, but another one at the same time showed they were trailing by 4. And that is before we factor in that most of these polls showed a plurality of respondents voted Labour in 2015 as well, suggesting Labour are actually doing worse than the polls suggest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election Have you actually examined Smith's policies? They are more Corbyn than Blair. He has talked extensively about building more houses, and even pledged to rewrite clause four so that reducing income inequality is at the centre of the Labour Party aims.
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He is talking about a plan that specifies how much would be spent, which McDonnell didnt specify till afterward. A National Investment Bank doesnt tell you anything about the scale of its spending.
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suefew I cant find it anywhere, which in itself is a pretty damning failure of communication.
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They dont want change under Corbyn, though as the recent polling would clearly suggest. Smith isnt perfect, but he is more likely to put up a fight at a General Election, or at least prevent Labour from splitting and allowing the Tories to be in power for a generation. I do believe that it is justified to rebel in certain instances, the welfare bill among them, but someone has to follow the party line if an effective opposition is to exist which has any chance of defeating the government on key votes. Had Labour MPs defied the whip as many times as Corbyn did before becoming leader, I doubt his supporters would be taking the same line.
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Labour are behind by double digits in the latest polling, and they still overstate left wing support, so it is probably even worse. You cant reasonably say that Labour would stand any chance of winning a snap election. Even Jones himself admitted that: https://medium.com/@OwenJones84/questions-all-jeremy-corbyn-supporters-need-to-answer-b3e82ace7ed3#.oyoflrj6v
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Dent The party is being spoilt by two sides. One that has little regard for anything other than power, as opposed to the change that can be created with it, and another that has little to no regard for it. People wont vote for a party that prefers a long struggle trying to kick out most of its MPs to presenting itself as a potential government, if there is a split, both parties will suffer, the Tories will win a landslide they could only dream of currently, and UKIP will be let in former Labour seats across the north. What is more, it is a no win situation. Even if the left wing Labour Party emerges the stronger against the breakaway party and UKIP, it will take decades to recover from a loss of that magnitude. Not only does that mean more people suffer from Tory rule because of Labour's own vanity. it also means that the left will be blamed for such a bad loss and will be discredited for generations, and the party would drift back to the right to the point where it is incapable of making any fundamental change, as it did under Blair. This has all happened before in the 1980s. Even if Labour adopted a policy of deselection and tried to become a purely Corbynite party, it would inevitably drift back to the right, as the title of main opposition would mean that Labour would still mean it would remain the most valuable vehicle for power for centrists. Lets not forget, Blair and Brown were elected in 1983. Other lefties,David Blunkett, Margaret Beckett, Harriet Harman, became disillusioned with the parties inability to win power and instead drifted to the right in the hope they would finally win power. The same will happen again. If Labour splits, it will spend 15-20 years in the wilderness, and at the end of it the left will have nothing to show for it. It is madness to actively will a split.
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***** But it is simply not enough to blame the media, an absolve Corbyn himself of all blame. They have covered policies in the past, like the one on preventing companies paying dividends to its board members, or renationalizing the railways, or the fiscal responsibility rule. Many of Corbyn's mistakes had nothing to do with the media. He undeniably did not sing the national anthem within a few days of the start of the leadership, he didnt even turn up on Andrew Marr the morning after, when he had a clear opportunity to speak to the nation that had to be taken. Its like Owen Jones frequently said in his blog posts, political leaders must define themselves when they are first introduced to the public, or there enemies will define them, and Corbyn gave them that opportunity. There is also the lack of communication between him and his shadow ministers that spurred even those MPs who were sympathetic to his cause initially (Lisa Nandy cut her maternity leave short to take a job in the shadow cabinet). Even members of the economic advisory council (recruited precisely because they were anti austerity) have backed Smith. The media was never going to be on Corbyn's side, or any other lefty for that matter. But it can still be successful without it. Take a look at the success of Podemos, or even Sadiq Khan in London. The media didnt back them, and yet they were still highly successful. Of course the media is biased against Corbyn, but my worry is that the left will let this become an excuse for failure, and do no real soul searching when we lose.
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Mark U not in a formal coalition, more likely confidence and supply, but if they refused to work with Labour altogether, they would face a backlash from many of there voters for failing to oust a Tory government.
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***** Voting records are almost meaningless in a parliamentary system, since most of the votes are whipped and MPs follow the party line. To be fair to Smith, he did sit in the shadow cabinet for most of that time and had a say in those decisions,even if he didnt come out on top in all of them, so it is a fair trade.
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***** The SNP won because they were able to stitch together a broad coalition of voters, including those whose politics are similar to Corbyn's, but also those who were more nationalistically minded. Winning 50% of the vote in a multi party system doesnt happen unless a party has broad appeal. That is why they took seats all over Scotland, from inner cities to rural constituencies. Even at its most successful, Labour has never been able to reach into the English equivalents of the latter, it would be laughable even in 1945 or 1997. The fact that their opposition was weak and they could avoid the blame for there own failings in government by blaming westminster helped too. But the SNP's success is in a large part a testament to what can be achieved if a party is united (they are extremely well disciplined) and builds up an image of strength and competence in advocating for true social democratic principles. In that sense, Corbyn is there opposite, and that is why his polling numbers are actually at there worst in Scotland. Those people who already have a left wing party to support don't have as much invested in him doing well, and so are better able to see him for what he is, incompetent. That said, I dont think Smith would be able to achieve a huge turnaround in Scotland anytime soon. It will be a hard slog to achieve a similarly image of party strength and unity that the SNP have in the unlikely event he won. The Scotland situation is not salvageable for Labour while independence remains the preference of those voters that Labour need to win there. The best that can be hoped for for the time being is to find a middle ground on that question (probably a federal UK) and stabilize the situation so that Labour becomes a third force up there, allowing them to claw back a few seats as it focuses its vote on places that would be Labour's target seats under the new realignment that is going on up there.
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22grena Then why the hell did so many of them nominate Ed Miliband in 2010, the candidate who won precisely because he was offering a break with Blairism in the form of his brother? Why would the likes of Lisa Nandy,Louise Haigh and Jo Stevens consistently advocate for left wing and anti austerity causes throughout there time as MPs and then endorse Smith? Surely if they were all careerist Blairites they all would have nominated David Miliband or Liz Kendall, and then refused to serve under Corbyn in the first place? Even several members of the economic advisory council, recruited by McDonnell precisely because they were anti austerity, have endorsed Smith, because it is a question of competency for many of them. Owen Jones is himself another example of those with unimpeachably left wing credentials who initially backed Corbyn, and has found himself increasingly alienated by his leadership. Corbyn promised a kinder politics, and instead what we seem to be getting of late from many of his supporters is conspiracy theories, where no one who disagrees with him can possibly have honestly held views, rather it must all be part of some nonsensical careerist plan.
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Not significantly policy wise, especially by comparison to the three other candidates last year. But he is more likely to perform better in an election when standing on a relatively left wing platform, and being in the best placed to implement your principles is the number 1 goal for me. The left could have the best ideas in the world, and it would not matter one bit if Corbyn lead Labour into electoral oblivion.
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And splitting the Labour Party? That would wreck the left for a generation to Conservative government, and might well let in UKIP MPs across the north. Surely you cant have so little regard for left wing change that you want that to happen?
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***** he is coming up to being the least popular leader of the opposition in history less than a year into his leadership, and his party are down in the polls by double digits. Some people love him, but that clearly most dislike him. There was plenty he could have done,namely to not alienate even those who were sympathetic to him, or to do some of the stuff that would clearly serve no purpose other than to give ammunition to those who had it in for him. Like I said, media hostility can and has been overcome by others in the past.It is not naive to realize that Corbyn is nowhere near to emulating them, which is necessary if he ever hopes to win power. Support isn't growing for him among the wider electorate, as any kind of polling would show.
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***** His being in power a short amount of time should surely count for him, not against, when it comes to the polls. Leaders of the opposition generally start well, receiving a poll bounce upon there election (Corbyn was first in modern history who didnt), and go downhill from there. Michael Foot and Ed Miliband (the press wasnt kind to either btw) held double digit leads early in there leadership, before going down to emphatic defeats. Corbyn hasnt even done that. He will get less popular, not more, as time goes on. If this is as good as it gets, I dont want to imagine what it would look like in four years time. Take a look at the polls through each parliamentary terms, and you will see what I mean. If the public formed there views purely off of whatever the media said, far more people would have voted Tory than the 37% that did in 2015, when they had the backing of most of the press. For the likes of Murdoch, there is often an element of political opportunism in who they endorse, when it is clear the side he has backing is on for a big loss, he will switch sides to keep up the illusion of influence. That is part of the reason they jumped ship from the Tories to Labour in 1997, and back to the Tories in 2010. It is also why the Scottish Sun backed the SNP last year, in spite of there platform being some way off there owner's own views. Besides, if you believe that the backing of the media is such a decisive advantage in elections, then precisely what is the point of even trying to be in government in the first place if we cannot win without there backing?
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Morgan Harper Shock victories do happen, but I cannot say I have ever heard of a party coming back from a position like Labour's to win power at the next election. All the anti establishment insurgencies we have seen across the world which have achieved any kind of success were actually able to boost there parties popularity, Corbyn has done the opposite. If Corbyn were leading in the polls that would be one thing, but he is regularly behind by double digits, even 2015 Labour voters see May as a better PM. This all matters because people dont really change there minds about a public figure after a first impression, that is human nature. Polls are regularly wrong in this country, but it is because they overstate left wing support. Indeed, many polls still find that a plurality of respondents voted Labour in 2015, suggesting they still are off. So it is likely that Labour's support is even lower than polling suggests. They are not some sort of rorscach test that allows you to say 'screw the evidence, i'll believe what I want to', as much as you might want them to be. I wouldnt be suprised if many of our political beliefs are the same, I voted for Corbyn last time, I agree with many of his policies, but the man is clearly incompetent when it comes to implementing them. The main aim of participation in politics should be to get the things that you believe would be best for people done. That involves both a drive to get into power and principle. Like the Blairites, Corbyn has one, but not the other. He needs to be replaced with someone who can actually take his ideasd forward into government, or at the very least prevent the party collapsing. It is interesting you brought up Attlee, because he became Labour leader by succeeding an unelectable pacifist on the left of the party, and led Labour to its greatest achievements. Part of the reason I want Corbyn gone is I believe the same could be done again, if Labour plays its cards right.
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***** The earliest things are the most important, the first few days as leader of the opposition are key in allowing people to form a favourable first impression, and refusing to sing the national anthem, or appear on TV and present some kind of message to the nation showed a blatant disregard for political reality. But I can also come up with countless other incidents. The inept handling of the anti antisemitism crisis by initially failing to suspend Naz Shah then changing that position a few days later. And then, more recently, Corbyn went and appointed the head of the party antisemitism inquiry as a Labour peer. Had the Tories done the same, the left would quite rightly be up in arms, as it is a move that smacks, rightly or wrongly, of the cronyism that Corbyn should be challenging.
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***** I agree that Shah deserved a fair hearing, but that wasnt the issue. When there is an ongoing investigation into the actions of an MP, it is common practice to suspend the whip from them until it has concluded. The SNP have done that for a couple of there MPs in the past year. I actually think that it was the correct decision to allow her back into the party, but by not initially suspending her, the leadership showed a lack of respect for the gravity of the accusations. Another round of Corbyn's failures then. His days of indecision over whether to impose the whip on the airstrikes vote, the lack of communication between him and his shadow ministers, as shown by the testimony of the likes of Thangam Debbonaire, his failure to criticize the government over IDS' resignation when the man had just pretty much vindicated all he had been saying about austerity. And I still am not scraping the barrel. Whatever Corbyn does he will be attacked by the right wing media, but that is not to say all those attacks will be effective. The criticisms that have stuck the most have been the ones when he himself has been at least partially at fault. Stuff like the bowing thing at the cenotaph is barely talked about now, and many of the attacks are so absurd the only things they have attracted are ridicule. The less ammunition he gives them, the less success the media are going to have. But he has given them no shortage of it, most of the time on issues which arent even of great importance to what he is trying to achieve policy wise. If Corbyn is pissing off Murdoch, it likely means he is right, but not that he will achieve anything by being so. If he were a smarter leader, he would avoid giving so many opportunities for negative press to them, so that they just resort to some of the more ridiculous smears which have far less bearing on their opinion of him.
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***** Corbyn's personal ratings were already at record lows before the coup began. If Labour go into an election with him as leader, it is difficult to see it ending in any other way than oblivion. He would have to go at some point. Given that we now know there probably wont be an election next year, the timing of this leadership contest may not be ideal, but it has long been clear that the Corbyn project is doomed to failure. and since the choice has to be made now, I can't honestly say I support a man who will in all probability lead Labour to its worst defeat of the post war era. Since much of the PLP seems to be willing to make some concessions to the party membership on key issues (most importantly austerity) I would say unity between membership and MPs whilst maintaining policies worth fighting for is doable now if Corbyn is ditched, then we can actually drive for power, instead of navel gazing, and hurling insults at our own side, which is infuriating. You cite Boris Johnson, but he is a law unto himself, controversial statements bounce off of him (or rather they used to) because of his personality, which is pretty unique among politicians. If any politician, even one the papers liked, Blair, Cameron, etc, said similar stuff, there career would be over. That said, Corbyn has it harder than most politicians, but that is not to say it cant be overcome, just as Sadiq Khan did in London. I am sorry to say that the 'give it a year' approach isnt going to work, people do not by and large give politicians a second chance at a first impression. The honest truth is that whilst some of his policies, particularly on the economy, might resonate with the working class, his incompetence, his pacifist inclined foreign policy, and his positions on things like immigration, which is the defining image of him in the minds of most, means that voting for Corbyn is anathema to them. I voted for Corbyn on the basis that he would shake up the political debate, even if he wasnt a successful leader, he would take us in the right direction. That has proved to be the case, but now that it is clear that he is a failure Labour should look to replace him with someone who retains his best bits, particularly on economic policy, but doesnt have the same weaknesses that I have outlined. Owen Smith is far from perfect, but he is a better alternative to Corbyn running the party into the ground.
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***** Ed Miliband didnt enjoy much support from the press, and yet Labour was leading in the polls for most of his leadership. If those organisations that commissioned polling could influence the result significantly, they would have done so with him. As it was, the polls overstate his support. If the polls are wrong, it is not in a good way for Labour. I think you give the press too much credit. They didnt create the persona of 'Boris' that made him so popular, they merely latched onto it. They dont have the power to make someone popular on there own, otherwise they would have done so for plenty of Tory politicians. They dont have the power to make someone unpopular either, otherwise Ken Livingstone would have never defied the odds and become London Mayor as an independent. Politicians have a large degree of agency over there own popularity, regardless of the media's view of them, and Corbyn has failed to do well in that vital area. His incompetency in my view is proven, due to much of the evidence which I have already presented, and that is certainly the view of most voters these days. Those failings have largely contributed to the pressures he faces, as it was him who alienated a shadow cabinet that was willing to work for him in the first place after he won. I am fine with Cooper begging people not to vote for Corbyn, if she was being honest and upfront about her views then I can respect that, as I could her decision to go to the backbenches. Of course, there were a relatively small minority who looked to undermine him from day one, but it must be recognized that he carried on for the best part of a year without there support. It was the loss of confidence of his frontbench that was initially sympathetic to him that landed us in this position now. I am not under any illusions about why many are backing Smith, of course there are some who are left wing but like me, want a competent leader to bring those values into government, but some on the right (who largely backed Eagle to begin with) are only supporting him because he is the best alternative they can hope for to Corbyn. It is unlikely they would try to undermine Smith if he were leader, given that the only realistic alternatives to him would be someone with more or less the same views, or a Corbynista. The last time the Blairites put up a candidate, they took 5% of the leadership vote.
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MrP86 I thought that long before I had even heard of Owen Smith.
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tocatchasnark 1 No, I can't trust the polls, and that is precisely what worries me even more. Whenever they have been wrong, 1992, 2015, Brexit, they have tended to overstate left wing support. Most polls still find a plurality of respondents voted Labour last year, indicating they still aren't accurate. The polls could be wrong, but there is almost no precedent for Labour to outperform them, much as it might be comforting to believe that. And I want all that stuff too, that is why I voted for Corbyn this time around. I voted for the ideas, not the man, and all the indications are that Labour is headed for oblivion under his leadership. When we have a more electable alternative able to unify the party who is pledging much the same stuff, it is silly to stick with Corbyn. Unfortunately, the movement that sprung up last summer around his leadership has become too much of a personality cult more interested in fighting battles within Labour than being an outward reaching movement capable of affecting positive change, which is what we really need.
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Roshan Payapulli It is at least partly Corbyn's fault that the party is against him. There were plenty of people who were willing to work with him and support his leadership after he won. It was those people who made up his frontbench, which he still is some way off of filling properly. Yes, there were some who were always hostile to him. But when he has managed to alienate the likes of Lisa Nandy, Louise Haigh, and Jo Stevens, left wing MPs who have advocated against austerity in the past, along with much of his economic advisory council (who McDonnell recruited precisely because they were against austerity), and Neale Coleman, his former policy director, alll of whom now support Smith, then clearly his competency as a leader leaves much to be desired. Besides, it as not as if Labour were doing well before this turmoil. They were barely ever ahead of the Tories in polls that still demonstrably overstate there support, even at points when there divisions were mitigated by similar ones within the Tory party, and various government failures. Corbyn was the only leader of the opposition not to experience a bounce in the polls after becoming leader (even Foot and Miliband got one) and he was polling firmly in the negatives before the referendum. The bottom line is that when a party splits, the only winners are its enemies. The split in the Labour vote will result in both parties losing seats, benefiting UKIP, and most of all, the Tories. Even if Labour remains the second biggest party in the long run, it would take decades to come back from such a loss, in which time the party would move back to the right, as it did with Blair. This whole idea that a split will allow the left to have its own party to itself is not likely to be true in practice, because we have been here before, we had a left wing party with a left wing leader that practiced deselection and which the right wing split from in the 1980s, but that didnt stop New Labour. If anything, the failure to make any progress drew the party and the country further to the right, which brought New Labour into being. There is no reason to believe it will be any different this time.
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That isnt mutually exclusive with running against them in elections beforehand.
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***** Actually take a look at Owen Smith's economic policies. They are far closer to Corbyn than Blair. The notion that a policy platform that includes a fully publicly owned NHS, renationalizing the railways, a wealth tax on the 1%, and restoring collective bargaining could be described as 'neoliberal' is just ridiculous, and would be regarded as such by leftists in particular if that person didnt happen to be running against Jeremy Corbyn.
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kingmatt2563 the Conservatives are only left wing perhaps in the sense that many of there politicians are socially liberal, like David Cameron was, but even that isn't totally true. Thatcher moved them sharply to the right on the economy and every leader (to early to tell for May) since has built on her neo liberal legacy, though perhaps more slowly. Majors government was more moderate than Thatchers was, but it still pursued free market policies, by doing things like privatising the railways and opting out of the social chapter. His time in power was by no means the dawn of socialism, convenient as it might be to believe that. What evidence precisely do you have to say that we are so over regulated? The economic freedom of the world survey found that Britain was the tenth least regulated country in the world. This Tory government has been dropping corporation and capital gains tax to levels that are among the lowest in the western world, and don't even come close to the likes of France and Germany. And a recent IMF report found that this trickle down economics method had failed to produce the economic benefits promised. The fact is that the UK is one of the most pro free market countries in Europe. That was part of the reason the right was hostile to the EU in the first place. The Cameron government repeatedly prevented EU measures that they felt placed too much stress on the financial sector from passing.
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kingmatt2563 The initial fiscal stimulus in response to the crash (which incidentally arose due to lack of regulation of the financial sector backed by both major parties) was widely thought to be successful in staving off a depression. Gordon Brown was widely praised for the swift action he took in response to the crisis. The welfare budget was one of the primary targets for Tory cuts. IDS resigned in part because the government were demanding more when there were simply none to give. Sure, Cameron retained the welfare system, but he scaled it back. It is not a capitalist institution as such, but practically every country in the world has a mixed economy of some kind where the state owns some things and not others, no matter how capitalist it is. A similar thing could be said for socialism. Governments of that persuasion in the past have retained the private sector, but they just scaled its role back. Neither democratic socialism or free market capitalism are binary systems. I dont know what you would call giving monopolies to private rail companies, but it is certainly isnt anything socialists have advocated for. The argument that rail contracts result in natural monopolies is part of the reason many support renationalization. As for taxes, it depends who 'we' is. Maybe the average person pays more in taxes now, but that is hardly surprising given that taxes on the rich have plummeted in the decades after the war. For several decades in a row, the top rate of tax stood at above 90%. It is now half that. Corporation tax reached above 50% during the 1970s, now it is below 20%, and on course to go even further downward. That the average person should be taxed less is an idea that many on the left do not have too much trouble with. The bigger divide on tax is on how progressive it should be, and those inclined to free market capitalism favour a trickle down theory which entails cutting taxes on the rich. And due to the obvious gaps in the budget, taxes have to be raised from somewhere else, namely, ordinary people. It is interesting you brought up the point about EU regulations on pillows, because when that claim was fact checked, they found that they had just taken any regulation with the word 'pillow' in, even if it referred to something unrelated, eg 'pillow ball joints' from DIY. Your take on history is odd to say the least. Why did the Labour movement spring up in the first place? Because it was built by the very people who had experienced the worst of free market capitalism first hand. The first Labour government, in the 1920s, was filled with people from working class backgrounds who had been child labourers because of lack of regulation. These were the very people capitalism was supposed to be helping. Victorian working conditions are famed for being terrible nowadays. The depression was what caused the shift away from free market capitalism and towards Keynesian economic ideas, with the New Deal in the US and the Labour government of 1945-51 and the post war consensus it built over here.Why do you not go and take a look at those third world countries now that do not have a welfare state, and see how well they seem to be doing?
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For one thing, the Blairites didnt actually back him for leader to begin with, they backed Eagle. Smith's most high profile initial backers were the likes of Heidi Alexander and Lisa Nandy, who are on the soft left of the party. Secondly, even if the Blairites did want to oust a second leader in one electoral cycle, and were willing to suffer the turmoil (which is very unelectable), then they would actually need to think they had a decent chance of getting someone more moderate in the ensuing leadership election. That is why they plotted against Brown or Miliband , neither of which they carried through, significantly. But they would clearly not stand a chance of winning when the party membership has clearly shifted to the left. The last time a Blairite candidate stood they only received 5% of the vote. Even if they successfully ousted Smith, one of his backers, or someone who supported Corbyn, would just step in to fill the void, and easily win. Have you ever wondered why there was never a coup against Michael Foot? Certainly, even with the defections to the SDP, the right of the party had the numbers to get rid of him, but they knew that if he went the likely successor would be Tony Benn, given how left wing the membership was then. That situation is more analogous to a potential Smith leadership than Brown or Milibands was.
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M grimble The right of the party, back in the early 80s, made up most of the PLP. Only about 30 of around 250 MPs left to join the SDP. They were plenty of MPs on the right of the party, like Roy Hattersley and John Smith, who remained. They still outnumbered the Bennites comfortably, who had no trouble finding the MPs to challenge Healey for the Deputy leadership, who himself was of the right as well. I find it absurd how some lay the blame for 1983 solely at the door of the SDP, but now actively will another split. It is contradictory nonesense. The Blairites can say what they like, if it had any effect then we wouldn't be sitting here with Corbyn likely to win a second leadership election against a rival whose policies are also strongly left wing. There attempts to move Labour back to the centre after Miliband utterly destroyed them after the last election.
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M grimble That assumes that SDP voters were former Labour supporters who would have preferred Michael Foot to Margaret Thatcher. But that wasnt really the case, they drew fairly equally from those who had voted Tory in 1979 and those who opted for Labour. In fact, at first, most of there support was from the Conservatives, hence why there gains at by elections came mainly from them, even in relatively safe Tory seats, like Crosby. It is also not necessarily the case that those who did vote Labour in 1979 wouldnt have voted Tory in 1983. Voters can change there mind depending on the leader. Most Labour voters in 2015 now think May would make a better PM than Corbyn, those who voted for Callaghan might have thought the same thing about Thatcher over Foot.
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Steve Greenway if they wanted there own careers to progress, then surely they would want to work with Corbyn in order to appease the membership and move up in the party? Im not a Blairite, but it doesn't really make sense to say they are purely careerists. They are simply people who are understandably determined to see a Labour government, but have become so consumed by that goal that they forget that that is required to change society, and view it more as an ends in and of itself. They are misguided, but most of that time that stems from fundamentally good intention.
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22grena forgetting that most of those regarded as Blairites refused to even serve. Corbyns cabinet was mainly of the soft left.
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He has said he would rewrite Clause Four to focus on inequality. He wouldnt reinstate the old one, but not even Corbyn has done that. And if you watch the video, he does say he would renationalize the railways.
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barry hearth clause four definitely still exists, it just has just been changed a bit. Truth be told, it is not all that right wing, seeing as it is the first time the party has been referred to as 'Democratic Socialist'. Owen might not have mentioned clause four(at least in his most recent interview) but Corbyn was asked about it extensively in the last leadership campaign, and he made clear his position was that it should be kept as it was. I am not all that enthusiastic about changing it anyway, it is just a gesture at the end of the day. But to want it changed but deride Smiths proposals as meaningless sounds a bit contradictory to me.
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All past data suggests leaders of the opposition dont 'warm up' they peak roughly when they enter office, it is just a case of managing the decline until the next GE so they can win. Ed Miliband got a poll bounce when he became leader, even Michael Foot's Labour Party led the Tories for a while in the polls in the first year of his leadership, and yet Corbyn has failed to establish any kind of consistent leads over the Tories (even though the polls still overstate left wing support). In fact, Labour are now sixteen points behind, and Corbyn is getting on to be the least popular leader of the opposition in history, in spite of the fact he has only been leader for less than a year. He is not going to improve significantly, it would go against every precedent in political history.
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Edwin Jose Its good that the Labour membership has doubled in and of itself, but it shouldnt be used to prove broad appeal, as many Corbyn supporters use it to prove, because there is a difference between having deep support among those on your side of the political spectrum, and having broad support among the public, which is what is needed to win an election. There is no way it can be seriously argued that Labour are on course to get into power. Even Corbyn said they werent yet doing enough after the local election results. He was the only new major party leader in modern history not to get a poll bounce after elected leader. He is already a strong competitor for the least popular opposition leader in history, and he isnt even a year into the job. Labour now regularly trails the Tories by double digits in the polls. And oppostion leaders tend to go downwards in the polls over time. Labour were comfortably leading this time five years ago, and went onto lose. And all of this is when the polls still overstate left wing support, as the Brexit vote showed, so the situation is likely even worse than the polls suggest now.
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Edwin Jose The 'bounce' I was referring to is what all new party leaders get upon election, that was all sometime before Brexit. The Blairites cant be held responsible for every failure Corbyn has made. They didnt make him not bother to talk to Andrew Marr the day after he got elected, not sing the national anthem within a few days of becoming leader, or not attack Cameron after IDS' resignation because he didnt think it was his job as leader of the opposition. The list goes on and on. The latest one is nominating the person who headed up a major anti semitism inquiry in the party for a peerage, when the Tories are being attacked for cronyism. You cant excuse all of Corbyn's failings by shouting 'Blairites' or 'the media' as he has made plenty of unforced errors.
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***** He didnt need to do personal, the man had just handed in a resignation letter that questioned the entire foundation of austerity, probably the single biggest issue for Corbyn. He didnt need to insult IDS, quite the opposite, he could have praised him, and used the platform to question the basis of austerity. And yet, if you watch the Vice News documentary, he literally says it is not his job to do that. I want Corbyn's policies to be put into practice more than anything, but if he cannot seize the obvious opportunity presented to him to win support for his flagship policy, then you clearly have to question if he has the competence to bring those ideas to fruition.
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