After Corbyn

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Who will be the next Labour leader?

Angela Rayner
5
6%
John McDonnell
2
2%
Keir Starmer
44
52%
Rebecca Long-Bailey
8
9%
Emily Thornberry
0
No votes
Clive Lewis
1
1%
Yvette Cooper
17
20%
Laura Pidcock
1
1%
Clive Lewis
0
No votes
Tony Blair
7
8%
 
Total votes: 85

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El Pollo Diablo
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After Corbyn

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Mon Dec 09, 2019 11:58 am

Let's imagine a world in which, after the terrible election, Corbyn has enough self-awareness to resign as Labour leader and, preferably, throw himself in the sea.

I know, I know, it's not easy to imagine, but just go with me here.

Who will be the next leader? Who should it be? Who would be alright?

Because of the flim-flam here, I've let people vote for two.
If truth is many-sided, mendacity is many-tongued

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Re: After Corbyn

Post by Gfamily » Mon Dec 09, 2019 12:20 pm

No Jess Phillips?
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El Pollo Diablo
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Mon Dec 09, 2019 12:26 pm

i like her a lot, but she's very far from becoming labour leader. I doubt she'd go for it, either.
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by monkey » Mon Dec 09, 2019 1:53 pm

Trying to split the Clive Lewis vote with Clive Lewis?

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Re: After Corbyn

Post by FredM » Mon Dec 09, 2019 2:39 pm

monkey wrote:
Mon Dec 09, 2019 1:53 pm
Trying to split the Clive Lewis vote with Clive Lewis?
My wife recently asked Clive (he’s our MP and we met him at social event) if he would be challenging for the Labour leadership should JC fall on his sword. He gave a very diplomatic reply but didn’t say no.

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Re: After Corbyn

Post by GeenDienst » Mon Dec 09, 2019 4:40 pm

Right now, Comrade wise, we're at about 1987. The lefties think they are still one-more-heave away, but my view is that Labour are several leaders from winning.

In fact it's wore than 1987. Back then Labour was still a coalition despite the defection of the SDP. You had your Bennite left, which never actually got control, your Trubunite left,* your soft left and your centre (Dennis Healey, the underappreciated John Golding and others). Now what do we have? Momentum have cemented the Bennite Left in complete control and everybody else is in hiding. Most of today's Labour MPs believe that Corbyn was never fit t be PM (see Rawnsley's stuff in the Observer). How is a new leader going to deal with the poison from that legacy? Hw to break Momentum's absolute control? Where is a new leader with new ideas going to come from, and how will they survive the current party machinery?

Well, maybe Momentum can succeed in clearing out the centre and centre left MPs through trigger ballots (not going too well so far), and then you can forget Labour for a generation. Also, much depends on what Corbyn does immediately. if he tries to stay, in place many more membership cards will be ripped uo (membership has bee falling like a stone since the great Glastonbury days). This could preserve a majority for his leadership in a circling the drain kind of way, for a while.It is really important that a formaggio grosso challenges him, someone like Starmer or Thornberry, not some hopeless nobody like Owen Smith, t break that impasse.

If he goes, I expect Momentum will engineer the election of Long Bailey, as she is a wholly owned subsidiary or Unite and McCluskey and is the clear no change candidate. She could unite what is left of the party, in theory, but probably won't have the autonomy to do that, unless it's OK with Len. Also, she is desperately ddduuuullllll and just more of the same politically. If somebody else wins, then it's just more civil war. Eventually, the Comrades will just have to get tired of losing just like last time an start to look beyond the Bennite left for a leader who can inspire the voters.

Let's be clear, there is no talent in the current shadow cabinet. I expect you are going to geta lot of watching and waiting for the right time, for credible candidates to come forward to lead. if you have ambitions to be PM this is probably not the time. My guess is that Labour re probably two or three leaders from government. The next Labour PM is probably doing her GCSEs.


*Michael Foot was the Tribunite compromise candidate, and despite the fiasco of 1983 did an incredible job of holding what was left of them together. one N Kinnock was another notable Tribunite, along with Jeff Rooker nd others, mostly solid Union types.
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by Opti » Mon Dec 09, 2019 4:53 pm

There was not too much wrong with Kinnock, except he was Welsh and a ginger. I spent many nights, days, weeks and months in the pub with him, Glenys, Norman Willis and a husband and wife MP pair (who I was really, really disappointed with in the end).
His values were f.cking sound. If only he hadn't been Welsh and ginger.
Time for a big fat one.

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Re: After Corbyn

Post by GeenDienst » Mon Dec 09, 2019 5:06 pm

Re opti, I remember watching my telly, days fom the election, Kinnock ahead in the polls, then he gets out of a f.cking helicopter in Sheffield, punches the air and Aaawwwww rrriiiigghhhhttttt".

I sat there, and knew for certain, deep down that he was f.cked. So did the electorate. Gurgle it, if you can bear it.

Kinnock's greatest hour was his 1985 speech at Bournemouth, where he stuck the size 12 right into Militant. That was the exact moment Labour became credible again, even though it took a while to win.

I can't do youtube links because all my browsers seem to havve blocked it, but its easy enough to fnd.
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by DrTf » Mon Dec 09, 2019 5:14 pm

Opti wrote:
Mon Dec 09, 2019 4:53 pm
There was not too much wrong with Kinnock, except he was Welsh and a ginger. I spent many nights, days, weeks and months in the pub with him, Glenys, Norman Willis and a husband and wife MP pair (who I was really, really disappointed with in the end).
His values were f.cking sound. If only he hadn't been Welsh and ginger.
I grew up in the far North of Blighty. I was always slightly puzzled at Kinnock's unpopularity, and as for the welsh, we are all Celts together kind of thing - each stuck in our peripheral bit of our fair isles.

I moved to that London not long after Kinnock lost in 92. I was shocked. Genuinely shocked and horrified at the level of outright hostility to the Welsh. I was soon fairly clear in my own mind why 92 went the way it did. People need to take a looooong hard look at the casual dismissal of regional identities in this country. I could tell you my own experience, what I got in London, and it's pretty ugly. Check your bias, people.

Anyway, much as I like making comparisons with the 80s, and while I am fairly sure that Corbyn's ideas haven't really moved much from that time, I don't think we can make good comparisons beyond that. Some of the people may not have shifted, but the times and context and expectations definiteily have. I'd really like Starmer to take over, not for his politics necessarily, but for his pointedly forensic legal expertise, and general barrister-like gravitas, something we really need some more of in the HoC, frankly, because it's become such a shitshow.
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by murmur » Mon Dec 09, 2019 5:30 pm

DrTf wrote:
Mon Dec 09, 2019 5:14 pm
Opti wrote:
Mon Dec 09, 2019 4:53 pm
There was not too much wrong with Kinnock, except he was Welsh and a ginger. I spent many nights, days, weeks and months in the pub with him, Glenys, Norman Willis and a husband and wife MP pair (who I was really, really disappointed with in the end).
His values were f.cking sound. If only he hadn't been Welsh and ginger.
I grew up in the far North of Blighty. I was always slightly puzzled at Kinnock's unpopularity, and as for the welsh, we are all Celts together kind of thing - each stuck in our peripheral bit of our fair isles.

I moved to that London not long after Kinnock lost in 92. I was shocked. Genuinely shocked and horrified at the level of outright hostility to the Welsh. I was soon fairly clear in my own mind why 92 went the way it did. People need to take a looooong hard look at the casual dismissal of regional identities in this country. I could tell you my own experience, what I got in London, and it's pretty ugly. Check your bias, people.

Anyway, much as I like making comparisons with the 80s, and while I am fairly sure that Corbyn's ideas haven't really moved much from that time, I don't think we can make good comparisons beyond that. Some of the people may not have shifted, but the times and context and expectations definiteily have. I'd really like Starmer to take over, not for his politics necessarily, but for his pointedly forensic legal expertise, and general barrister-like gravitas, something we really need some more of in the HoC, frankly, because it's become such a shitshow.
Dunno what teh meejah was like up in your old bit of Scottish Land, but in the bits of Northern Englishland I was living in the hostility towards Kinnock was similar to that towards Corbyn these days, only with a lot less justification, and that helped create a certain view of him.
It's so much more attractive inside the moral kiosk

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Re: After Corbyn

Post by Opti » Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:00 pm

GeenDienst wrote:
Mon Dec 09, 2019 5:06 pm
Re opti, I remember watching my telly, days fom the election, Kinnock ahead in the polls, then he gets out of a f.cking helicopter in Sheffield, punches the air and Aaawwwww rrriiiigghhhhttttt".

I sat there, and knew for certain, deep down that he was f.cked. So did the electorate. Gurgle it, if you can bear it.

Kinnock's greatest hour was his 1985 speech at Bournemouth, where he stuck the size 12 right into Militant. That was the exact moment Labour became credible again, even though it took a while to win.

I can't do youtube links because all my browsers seem to havve blocked it, but its easy enough to fnd.
That was a baaaad mistake. You can accept Uncle Opti's view of Neil Kinnock, or reject it. I found him to be a sound bloke, and a friend. Things he said to me back then have stayed with me ... and he was right.
Time for a big fat one.

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Re: After Corbyn

Post by GeenDienst » Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:05 pm

Avoidance of doubt, I have a lot of time for Kinnock, he laid the groundwork forfuture govt. But he would have beaten Major but for that...

And that Bournemouth speech could be the best political speech ever, bar none.

Trouble is, Miltant were a local issue. Momentum are in charge.
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by Martin Y » Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:20 pm

Kinnock (who was a near neighbour in the early '90s) struck me as a leader who had the potential to make Labour electable by doing more than preach to the choir except he seemed to be stuck with having to drag the choir along reluctantly and I think that tarnished him. It's rather hard to remember now but there was definitely a different buzz about John Smith and a feeling that now it can work.

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Re: After Corbyn

Post by Opti » Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:30 pm

Martin Y wrote:
Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:20 pm
Kinnock (who was a near neighbour in the early '90s) struck me as a leader who had the potential to make Labour electable by doing more than preach to the choir except he seemed to be stuck with having to drag the choir along reluctantly and I think that tarnished him. It's rather hard to remember now but there was definitely a different buzz about John Smith and a feeling that now it can work.
Ah, so you lived in Ealing? I reckon we must have been close neighbours too.
Time for a big fat one.

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Re: After Corbyn

Post by GeenDienst » Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:30 pm

Ry Mr Y, definitely.
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by Martin Y » Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:52 pm

Opti wrote:
Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:30 pm
Martin Y wrote:
Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:20 pm
Kinnock (who was a near neighbour in the early '90s) struck me as a leader who had the potential to make Labour electable by doing more than preach to the choir except he seemed to be stuck with having to drag the choir along reluctantly and I think that tarnished him. It's rather hard to remember now but there was definitely a different buzz about John Smith and a feeling that now it can work.
Ah, so you lived in Ealing? I reckon we must have been close neighbours too.
On St Mary's road opposite the YMCA. Our landlord lived a couple of doors away from the Kinnocks.

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Re: After Corbyn

Post by Gfamily » Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:57 pm

My SIL did some architecting for Glenys Kinnock.
My avatar was a scientific result that was later found to be 'mistaken' - I rarely claim to be 100% correct
ETA 5/8/20: I've been advised that the result was correct, it was the initial interpretation that needed to be withdrawn
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by Opti » Mon Dec 09, 2019 7:16 pm

Martin Y wrote:
Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:52 pm
Opti wrote:
Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:30 pm
Martin Y wrote:
Mon Dec 09, 2019 6:20 pm
Kinnock (who was a near neighbour in the early '90s) struck me as a leader who had the potential to make Labour electable by doing more than preach to the choir except he seemed to be stuck with having to drag the choir along reluctantly and I think that tarnished him. It's rather hard to remember now but there was definitely a different buzz about John Smith and a feeling that now it can work.
Ah, so you lived in Ealing? I reckon we must have been close neighbours too.
On St Mary's road opposite the YMCA. Our landlord lived a couple of doors away from the Kinnocks.
Cairn Avenue. No 1. As I remember, it was the only detached house in the street. Sold it when we thought prices couldn't get any higher.
How wrong we were.
Time for a big fat one.

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Martin Y
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by Martin Y » Tue Dec 10, 2019 9:14 am

Well, people trust Tories to run the country because they're born to rule toffs. They may also be c.nts and the weak will be crushed but the Tories probably won't crash the bus, folk reckon. Now your Labour aren't born to rule and if you let Citizen Smith take the wheel who knows what might happen? So to be electable a Labour leader has to look like a bank manager. Like Smith. Or a junior bank manager at least like Blair. Not sure why the magic wore off with Brown but he just didn't charm anyone for some reason.

Anyway, the Labour guy has to look extra-competent and super businesslike just to get a look in. Just wanting to be fair and do nice things isn't enough to be trusted with the whole thing. The Tories haven't even had to run a desperate Demon Eyes poster campaign for Corbyn; he's already a sufficient liability.

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Re: After Corbyn

Post by Gentleman Jim » Tue Dec 10, 2019 11:52 am

Amazing what opinions the media can elicit
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Tue Dec 10, 2019 12:16 pm

Well, whoever comes next, it's certainly not going to be Jonathan Ashworth.
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Tue Dec 10, 2019 1:05 pm

I've split the fascinating Corbyn discussion into its own thread. Have at thee.

I should probably split the kinnock discussion too, but let's be honest, it'd go straight into quarantine.
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by GeenDienst » Tue Dec 10, 2019 1:14 pm

Another of your problems here is that Corbyn should have, and could have fixed it 2 years ago. Any half-decent leader would have done this long before we heard about very senior party figures allegedly intervening in antisemitism cases to get their mates off.

Instead, we've had shocking attempts to traduce and silence the whistlebowers.

Thornberry seems to have understood this isn't a good plan. Don't tell me Labour can't do better than this.

And I thought we all quite liked Kinnock,
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by lpm » Tue Dec 10, 2019 1:41 pm

I really don't think he will resign, even after losing a second general election. Why would he? He doesn't see Labour's purpose as being to win, his goal for Labour is to win with purity. And he has achieved purity, so considers himself half successful.
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Re: After Corbyn

Post by lpm » Tue Dec 10, 2019 1:43 pm

So I suggest this thread be quarantined until after he's lost the 2024 General Election (assuming democracy survives that long under the Johnson-Farage-Russia alliance).
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