Hereward Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 I prefer to think of it as being a friend to the Labour Party. They'd be a lot happier maintaining ideological purity without having to compromise owing to collisions with reality, the decision-making process and the unfortunate opinions of the electorate (see Green Party and pre- and post-Clegg Liberal Democrats.) :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horza Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 I can't remark enough how odd this sounds coming from a party that won 37% of the primary vote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 I can't remark enough how odd this sounds coming from a party that won 37% of the primary vote. While the Conservatives did only win 37%, another 13% voted UKIP, and 1% voted Unionist. An election based on PR would have produced a similar right wing majority, albeit, one with about 80 UKIP MPs, and 250 Conservatives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horza Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 While the Conservatives did only win 37%, another 13% voted UKIP, and 1% voted Unionist. An election based on PR would have produced a similar right wing majority, albeit, one with about 80 UKIP MPs, and 250 Conservatives. Which would be fair enough (assuming a full MMP system where everyone voted the same way as they would in a single member electorate FPTP system), such a parliamentary bloc would be representative of who more than 50% of Britons wanted. While I'm not surprised at beneficiaries of single member electorate FPTP systems wandering around proclaiming mandates and cosmic unity between reality, their party platform and the national will, it is a little staggering nonetheless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hereward Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 I'm not actually claiming cosmic unity between reality, our party platform and the national will. I'm claiming that Labour would be much happier as a pressure group that doesn't have to make tawdry decisions in real world political, economic and military situations, or engage with the parts of the electorate of which it disapproves in order to win power. And for that, Corbyn is most definitely their man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Tony Blair has been putting the boot in to Corbin this morning. It was actually quite a good Q&A (not that surprising really), but I think he's underestimated just how much a lot of people hate and distrust him. For every person who's convinced by him, another is going to do the exact opposite just because it's him saying it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anythingatall Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 It seems right to look at the statistics around hospital effectiveness in and out of the weekend and try to find solutions - clearly it's not a good thing to have 15% worse performance on a Sunday. Whether the answer is to force more doctors to work weekends though, I'm not sure. The impression I get is that it is the sum total of the hospital staff that contribute the most to this sort of statistic, and the doctors are just being treated as scapegoats because of the union dispute. ST That stat is questionable anyway. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05w8dnjfirst 5 mins of that has a proper look at it. Just to pick out one thing from it (if you don't feel like listening to it) individual hospitals have done their own studies into this and found when you adjust for severity of illness the weekend death zone disappears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anythingatall Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Tony Blair has been putting the boot in to Corbin this morning. It was actually quite a good Q&A (not that surprising really), but I think he's underestimated just how much a lot of people hate and distrust him. For every person who's convinced by him, another is going to do the exact opposite just because it's him saying it. I always get the impression he knows exactly how much people hate him and his obliviousness is played up to troll us all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maltaran Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 "Jeremy Corbyn will destroy the Labour Party in 45 minutes!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horza Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 I'm not actually claiming cosmic unity between reality, our party platform and the national will. I'm claiming that Labour would be much happier as a pressure group that doesn't have to make tawdry decisions in real world political, economic and military situations, or engage with the parts of the electorate of which it disapproves in order to win power. And for that, Corbyn is most definitely their man. Implying, then. I'm far too distant an observer to say anything about Corbyn, but everyone foretelling ruin should Labour voters choose him over the alternatives seems to share the assumption that the 2015 election vindicated the Conservatives as makers of tough decisions in the real world and engagers with the electorate, and the corrolary that Labour would have done better, and will only do so in future by accepting their premises (or 'reality' if you will). We can argue about tawdry matters like whose deficit reduction timetable wound up being used, how certain tough military decisions are playing out and what sort of electoral outreach was reflected across the union come election day if you'd like, but regardless, this assumption seems to be conventional wisdom and as counsel I wouldn't give it to my worst foe. It's a truism of the people who offer this sort of advice that on issues where the other side has the upper hand in public discourse the smart strategy is to narrow your differences with them and seek to steer the discussion to issues where you are trusted*. In practice the evidence suggests this is a terrible idea (not least because it keeps being suggested by people who don't want the party in question to win elections). The problem is that these sort of issues carry strong resonance, the other side know it, and the public don't have the attention span of a gnat and do actually remember the broad outline of your political history. The result of trying to narrow differences like this is that no one ever believes you. The other side is innately trusted on this stuff and everyone knows your base hates it; you come off like try-hards and dissemblers. Worse, when you have nothing substantial to say on a issue the other side will do its level best to make sure it stays in the news (being the incumbent helps here). Not only that, they'll make an analogy of the issue and apply it everywhere else, so rather than playing the Washington Generals their court and Harlem Globetrotters at home, you find the other side bouncing the ball off your head everywhere you go. Where your side looks flaky on this issue isn't a matter of policy but the incompatibility of the other side's premises with your own political philosophy (sometimes mistaken for 'core values'). When you use their premises you sound flaky, and people start to doubt you elsewhere because of it. Any remotely competent opponent will see this and seek to replicate it, relentlessly. Team Red is in general a glutton for punishment in this fashion, but by having acting and former leaders admonishing rank and file members and MPs against acting accordance with its political philosophy on the grounds that the other side has won the argument its UK branch is doing something amazingly stupid. * these issues differ for Team Red and Team Blue, and I think the field is tilted one way but this analysis applies to either side. Tony Blair has been putting the boot in to Corbin this morning. It was actually quite a good Q&A (not that surprising really), but I think he's underestimated just how much a lot of people hate and distrust him. For every person who's convinced by him, another is going to do the exact opposite just because it's him saying it. Refighting old battles. In the present climate telling your left wing to get lost is not going to pan out like it did in 1994. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeanF Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Implying, then. I'm far too distant an observer to say anything about Corbyn, but everyone foretelling ruin should Labour voters choose him over the alternatives seems to share the assumption that the 2015 election vindicated the Conservatives as makers of tough decisions in the real world and engagers with the electorate, and the corrolary that Labour would have done better, and will only do so in future by accepting their premises (or 'reality' if you will). We can argue about tawdry matters like whose deficit reduction timetable wound up being used, how certain tough military decisions are playing out and what sort of electoral outreach was reflected across the union come election day if you'd like, but regardless, this assumption seems to be conventional wisdom and as counsel I wouldn't give it to my worst foe. It's a truism of the people who offer this sort of advice that on issues where the other side has the upper hand in public discourse the smart strategy is to narrow your differences with them and seek to steer the discussion to issues where you are trusted*. In practice the evidence suggests this is a terrible idea (not least because it keeps being suggested by people who don't want the party in question to win elections). The problem is that these sort of issues carry strong resonance, the other side know it, and the public don't have the attention span of a gnat and do actually remember the broad outline of your political history. The result of trying to narrow differences like this is that no one ever believes you. The other side is innately trusted on this stuff and everyone knows your base hates it; you come off like try-hards and dissemblers. Worse, when you have nothing substantial to say on a issue the other side will do its level best to make sure it stays in the news (being the incumbent helps here). Not only that, they'll make an analogy of the issue and apply it everywhere else, so rather than playing the Washington Generals their court and Harlem Globetrotters at home, you find the other side bouncing the ball off your head everywhere you go. Where your side looks flaky on this issue isn't a matter of policy but the incompatibility of the other side's premises with your own political philosophy (sometimes mistaken for 'core values'). When you use their premises you sound flaky, and people start to doubt you elsewhere because of it. Any remotely competent opponent will see this and seek to replicate it, relentlessly. Team Red is in general a glutton for punishment in this fashion, but by having acting and former leaders admonishing rank and file members and MPs against acting accordance with its political philosophy on the grounds that the other side has won the argument its UK branch is doing something amazingly stupid. * these issues differ for Team Red and Team Blue, and I think the field is tilted one way but this analysis applies to either side. Refighting old battles. In the present climate telling your left wing to get lost is not going to pan out like it did in 1994. A successful political party has to appeal both to core voters, and centrist voters, particularly in marginal seats. The Conservatives just about did that in May. They did lose votes to UKIP, but in seats where it didn't matter, but held on to enough of their core vote, and gained centrist voters from Labour and the Lib Dems in marginal seats. Labour piled up votes in much of Greater London and core cities, but there wasn't much more they could win there. A 40,000 majority in East Ham wins them no more seats than a 10,000 majority would. But they went backwards in small cities and big towns, like Swindon, Plymouth, Milton Keynes where the marginal seats are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northernmonkey Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 It's been an interesting day for Jeremy Corbyn. He's had Blair, Tristram Hunt, Chuka Ummuna, Mary Creagh, Roy Hattersley, Margaret Beckett and no doubt plenty of others warning how much of a disaster it would be if he won the leadership. They're absolutely bricking it! Corbyn doing so well is a damning indictment of the other candidates. As a Labour member who agrees with Corbyn politically, I would have voted pragmatically if there was a decent centre ground candidate (Ummuna for example), but Burnham, Kendall and Cooper are so bland and uninspiring that I just can't do it. I'll vote Corbyn in the knowledge that he almost certainly wouldn't make it to 2020. He'd probably be ousted in the next couple of years, and hopefully replaced by someone more impressive than Andy Burnham. Or who knows, maybe he'd be an improbable success (I can always dream). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Arthur Hightower Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 "Jeremy Corbyn will destroy the Labour Party in 45 minutes!" Tony Blair DID destroy everything the Labour Party stood for in 45 seconds! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Arthur Hightower Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 It's been an interesting day for Jeremy Corbyn. He's had Blair, Tristram Hunt, Chuka Ummuna, Mary Creagh, Roy Hattersley, Margaret Beckett and no doubt plenty of others warning how much of a disaster it would be if he won the leadership. They're absolutely bricking it! Corbyn doing so well is a damning indictment of the other candidates. As a Labour member who agrees with Corbyn politically, I would have voted pragmatically if there was a decent centre ground candidate (Ummuna for example), but Burnham, Kendall and Cooper are so bland and uninspiring that I just can't do it. I'll vote Corbyn in the knowledge that he almost certainly wouldn't make it to 2020. He'd probably be ousted in the next couple of years, and hopefully replaced by someone more impressive than Andy Burnham. Or who knows, maybe he'd be an improbably success (I can always dream). Ummuna centre ground? His recent comments make it perfectly clear that in any sensical political system he would be with the conservatives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hereward Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 At this point, I have to assume Emily Thornberry is a Tory plant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northernmonkey Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Ummuna centre ground? His recent comments make it perfectly clear that in any sensical political system he would be with the conservatives. I agree, but we're talking about a country where George Osborne is seriously being said to have placed the Tories in the centre ground, despite pursuing the kind of policies Thatcher pioneered. I guess Blairite would be a more accurate term for Chuka. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horza Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 A successful political party has to appeal both to core voters, and centrist voters, particularly in marginal seats. Which part of my post said otherwise? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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