Next Labour Leader

LondonJohn said:
Ah that gosh-darned Labour Party Rule Book! I'd forgotten about Labour's idiosyncratic party rules. Oh well. I'd agree that, especially given the time frames in play, it's very unlikely to happen.
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The Tory leadership election requires MPs to nominate themselves. This rules out members of The Lords unless they move very quickly indeed; implausibly quickly.

So no, it isn't the Labour party that's idiosyncratic.
 
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GlennB said:
The Tory leadership election requires MPs to nominate themselves. This rules out members of The Lords unless they move very quickly indeed; implausibly quickly.

So no, it isn't the Labour party that's idiosyncratic.
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I was under the impression that the only requirement for someone to declare candidacy was the support of a certain number of MPs, and not necessarily that the candidate was an MP themselves.

As I said before, I absolutely agree that all the main parties in the present day would stand for nothing less than their leader being an MP. And if indeed in a Conservative election contest a member of the Lords were allowed to stand (with the support of a certain required number of MPs), then that candidate would certainly at the very least have to declare that he/she would immediately renounce their peerage if elected, and seek a (safe Conservative) seat in the Commons via a resignation and by-election.
 
LondonJohn said:
I was under the impression that the only requirement for someone to declare candidacy was the support of a certain number of MPs, and not necessarily that the candidate was an MP themselves.
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"The election takes place in two stages. In the first stage (shortlisting), Conservative MPs put their own names forward. In the 2019 leadership election candidates will need the support of eight MPs (proposer, seconder and six others) to stand. In the 2016 leadership election, candidates only needed the nominations of two other MPs."

LondonJohn said:
As I said before, I absolutely agree that all the main parties in the present day would stand for nothing less than their leader being an MP. And if indeed in a Conservative election contest a member of the Lords were allowed to stand (with the support of a certain required number of MPs), then that candidate would certainly at the very least have to declare that he/she would immediately renounce their peerage if elected, and seek a (safe Conservative) seat in the Commons via a resignation and by-election.
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Last happened in 1963 (Alec Douglas-Home) but couldn't happen now. The shortlisting phase would be delayed, for a start, by the holding of the bye-election, and other candidates would be screaming blue murder. It's certainly not something that a candidate in the Lords could stage manage themselves.
 
Like I already said somewhere - Emily Thornberry for the gig. She typifies everything wrong with politicians generally and Labour in particular - a gobby, self-serving careerist (a "North London Champagne Socialist", literally). Was a lawyer and barrister (like so many others of recent times), a "human rights" barrister to be precise, which is to law what 'gender studies' professors are to higher education.
 
IsThisTheLife said:
Like I already said somewhere - Emily Thornberry for the gig. She typifies everything wrong with politicians generally and Labour in particular - a gobby, self-serving careerist (a "North London Champagne Socialist", literally). Was a lawyer and barrister (like so many others of recent times), a "human rights" barrister to be precise, which is to law what 'gender studies' professors are to higher education.
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Run along now.
 
Here's Corbyn's new year's eve message:

2019 has been quite the year for our country and for our labour movement.

And now we are not just entering a new year but a new decade. And the period ahead could not be more important.

It will be crucial if we are to stop irreversible damage being caused by the climate crisis and the particular effects that has on people in the global south.

If we are to stop the pain plaguing our country: food banks, poverty and people struggling to get by. If we are to protect our precious NHS.

It won’t be easy. But we have built a movement. We are the resistance to Boris Johnson. We will be campaigning every day. We will be on the frontline, both in parliament and on the streets.

Protecting our public services. Protecting healthcare free at the point of use. Protecting our communities, in all their brilliant diversity. And standing up for internationalism, global solidarity and cooperation, and working with movements and parties seeking social justice and change all over the world.

And make no mistake, our movement is very strong. We are half a million people and growing. We are in every region and nation of our country.

We’re not backed by the press barons, by the billionaires or by the millionaires who work for the billionaires. We’re backed by you. We are by the many, for the many.

2020 and the years ahead will be tough. No one is saying otherwise. But we’re up for the fight. To protect what we hold dear. And to build to win and to transform.

The fight continues. There is no other choice.

So if you’re with us already, I can’t wait to meet the challenges ahead together. But if you’re not, join us. Join Labour today. Together we can bring about real change for our country, for the many and not just the few.
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I'm sure that this goes down well with the true believers who only care about activism and protesting against something rather than actually being able to win a general election and run the government.
 
Arcade22 said:
Here's Corbyn's new year's eve message:



I'm sure that this goes down well with the true believers who only care about activism and protesting against something rather than actually being able to win a general election and run the government.
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#postvalues
 
Arcade22 said:
I'm sure that this goes down well with the true believers who only care about activism and protesting against something rather than actually being able to win a general election and run the government.
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I've said it before, in this thread and others, my experience of Labour Party membership for the better part of 25 years starting in the early 80s was there were, and likely still are, a sizeable number of members for whom electoral failure is a clear indication that the policies are right on the money.

Now that the policies are right, all Labour need to do is to fundamentally change basic human nature over the course of a few decades and the Labour-led workers' utopia will finally come into being. :rolleyes:
 
they need to choose someone the media can't attach lazy labels to, red ed hurt miliband while corbyn encouraged kremlin, comrade and commie and got dry humped twice.
kremlin/komrade/kommie keir hardie starmer is probably a non starter, rebecca wrong bailey would catch on, communist clive lewis is a likely headline, im guessing it would be red jess phillips.
just leaves lisa nandy, red lisa sounds like a really bad eighties arnie film, communist and politburo doesn't really fit, nandos maybe?
need to leave slim pickens for the rags.
 
A poll of Labour party members makes Keir Starmer the hot favourite. Good.
 
Giz said:
https://www.change.org/p/jeremy-corbyn-mp-campaign-to-keep-jeremy-corbyn-as-leader

(Petition to keep Corbyn as leader)
(Wonder how many conservatives are signing?)
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What part of " the guy led Labor to one of it's worst defeats ever against a very unpopoular Tory leader" don't these nimrods get?

And is does not really matter, in the end, why COrbyn is so unpopular, fact remains he IS unpopular, and needs to replaced for not other reason then that. Politics is a cold business.
I have no doubt the Tory press smeared Corbyn, but from all I have read the guy made it easy for them to do so with his blunders.

It's like keeping the captian of the ship in control after he has ran the ship into an iceberg....
 
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Wudang said:
A couple of times I've heard Labour people say "but we won the argument". Which is like pissing yourself wearing dark trousers. You might get a warm feeling but not many people notice.
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THIS.THIS.THIS.

Problem with hard core ideologues and blind partisans is they just cannot admit that one reason they lost is because their side made a lot of mistakes.
I still love the whole "We should keep Corbyn as leader because the Tory Press said a lot of nasty things about him" argument. Damaged goods are damaged goods no matter how they got demaged and you get rid of them.
And from the comments on the keep Corbyn petition page you have a personality cult thing going.
 
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Wudang said:
Was it Healey who talked about people "who perfer the ideological purity of opposition to the hard decisions of power"?

I've been in a few Labour discussions where all the loudest Corynistas apparently thought that Labour centrists (i.e. anyone not of their stamp) was the first enemy to be removed. Good call guys, alienate the people you have most common ground with.
 I think another Corbynista would be a bad idea as they seem totally tone deaf. And the first layoff should have been Seamus.
There's been a spike in Labour party membership as a lot of people for various reasons want a say in selecting the next leader.
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You have this same thing going on in the US with the more exreme wing of the Democratic Party;they really seem to want to purge anybody not Progressive enough for them from the party.
"We Don't Need No Stinking Centrist/Moderates" seems to be their battle cry.
 
Andrew Adonis thinks the cause of so many bad leaders, is the way they are elected:
And I think I have worked it out: it was the fateful decision taken by both Labour (in 1983) and the Tories (in 1997) to move from parliamentary democracy to activist democracy in choosing their leaders.

This turned out to be a fundamental constitutional change, and a bad one. The rise of weak leadership is the mirror image of the decline of parliament.

The critical turning points were 2001 for the Tories and 2010 for Labour, when for the first time party activists overruled their own MPs and imposed leaders who were not the choice of parliamentarians.

If MPs alone had chosen Tory leaders since Major, the succession would probably have gone to Ken Clarke, who might well have won the 2005 election. Duncan Smith, Howard and May would be political footnotes, while Johnson would be a joke on Have I Got News For You.
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https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/activists-choosing-leaders-in-uk-politics-1-6166229

This makes sense, as the likes of Corbyn attract cult status among the members, but not much else.

Maybe its time to redesign the system.
 
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dudalb said:
THIS.THIS.THIS.

Problem with hard core ideologues and blind partisans is they just cannot admit that one reason they lost is because their side made a lot of mistakes.
I still love the whole "We should keep Corbyn as leader because the Tory Press said a lot of nasty things about him" argument. Damaged goods are damaged goods no matter how they got damaged and you get rid of them.
And from the comments on the keep Corbyn petition page you have a personality cult thing going.
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They seem to romanticise losing, which I cannot get on board with. I saw this when I saw Mark Thomas (UK political comedian), and saw it in some of my ideologically inclined friends etc.
 
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