Labour, can they sink any lower?

axisus

So 14 of the front bench who resigned over Corbyn would consider going back if he wins the leadership contest. Seriously, these people have no backbone at all. If you resign on principle then at least have the balls to stand by your decision. I voted for Labour for many years, but I really am done with them. Total shambolic disarray.

octatonic

It doesn't matter.
They lost so many seats to the SNP that they are unelectable for at least a generation.

I'll never vote Tory but to be honest we've done great under a Tory government so I'm not worried for myself.
If I was a unemployed/disabled/on a low income I'd be extremely worried.

Philly_Q

There's also this suggestion that the shadow cabinet could be selected partly by the leader, partly by MPs and partly by the party members.  Which not only sounds ridiculously convoluted, it's also likely to emphasise divisions more than ever.

TTony

axisus said:

If you resign on principle

Don't be silly.

They're politicians.

They didn't resign on principle, they resigned out of self-interest.  They realised that with Corbyn as leader, most of them would be jobless come the next election.  So resign, get a new leader, maybe keep the job.

I'm aware that I'm generalising, and it's just the 98% of politicians that get the rest a bad name.

Chalky

But there is careful thought going into the next lot of Labour MPs...

http://news.sky.com/story/momentum-kids-jeremy-corbyns-backers-launch-childrens-wing-10584487

ICBM

octatonic said:

It doesn't matter.
They lost so many seats to the SNP that they are unelectable for at least a generation.

It makes no difference. This is a huge popular myth - there have only been a couple of times where the Scottish Labour MPs have made any difference to who forms the government - and even one of those was 2010, which would have simply avoided the Tories needing a coalition with the Lib Dems (ie no change really). Labour gets in when Labour wins in England. But I can't see that happening for a long time either.

It's no surprise that the New Labour has-beens have no principles though. Why do they think Corbyn is now leader, and will win this time too?

TTony said:

They didn't resign on principle, they resigned out of self-interest.  They realised that with Corbyn as leader, most of them would be jobless come the next election.  So resign, get a new leader, maybe keep the job.

I'm aware that I'm generalising, and it's just the 98% of politicians that get the rest a bad name.

Gassage

As much as I think Corbyn is principled and admirable, I don't think he's a leader.

He's the Stuart Lancaster of Politics.

#eddiejonesforPM

Snap

TTony said:

axisus said:

If you resign on principle

Don't be silly.

They're politicians.

They didn't resign on principle, they resigned out of self-interest.  They realised that with Corbyn as leader, most of them would be jobless come the next election.  So resign, get a new leader, maybe keep the job.

I'm aware that I'm generalising, and it's just the 98% of politicians that get the rest a bad name.

lol, quite.

Corbyn (aka Napolean, Animal Farm) is doing a pretty good job at ruining the LP. He's buildling himself a nice little club there.

TheBlueWolf

I suppose their 'principles' changed once they were offered a golden hello 

TBH Labour aren't capable of running a piss up in a pub, never mind being worth paying attention to.

Philly_Q

I know the world isn't about to end, but I do worry about the state of politics.  In the UK we've got Brexit coming up and only one party which seems likely to be electable for the foreseeable future, in Germany (and maybe France?) the far right are on the rise and in the USA they could quite conceivably end up with Donald Trump as president.  It's not good.

octatonic

Philly_Q said:

I know the world isn't about to end, but I do worry about the state of politics.  In the UK we've got Brexit coming up and only one party which seems likely to be electable for the foreseeable future, in Germany (and maybe France?) the far right are on the rise and in the USA they could quite conceivably end up with Donald Trump as president.  It's not good.

We kinda need two planets- one for the people on the left, so they can tear themselves apart with infighting and no-one ends up running anything and one for people on the right, that can be run as a prison camp.

MrBump

I personally hope it heralds the end of tribal politics.  I don't think that the left vs right argument holds water any more - it should be issue and policy based.

And this would be enabled by proportional representation, I think.

Sporky

octatonic said:

We kinda need two planets- one for the people on the left, so they can tear themselves apart with infighting and no-one ends up running anything and one for people on the right, that can be run as a prison camp.

Where's that leave us Ernies, who don't want to live on the moon?

TheBigDipper

MrBump said:

I personally hope it heralds the end of tribal politics.  I don't think that the left vs right argument holds water any more - it should be issue and policy based.

And this would be enabled by proportional representation, I think.

I couldn't agree more. Tribal politics causes people to support bad policies just because the tribe supports it. We're individuals, not sheep. 

Sadly, PR will never happen as long as the ruling party has a winnable position through first-past-the-post. The referendum on Alternative Vote was a cynical way of presenting a flawed PR system that no-one understood the the point of or wanted, so it was rejected - allowing opponents to claim the country had rejected PR. A bit like saying (insert team name here) are rubbish, so all football is rubbish. 

ICBM

MrBump said:

I personally hope it heralds the end of tribal politics.  I don't think that the left vs right argument holds water any more - it should be issue and policy based.

And this would be enabled by proportional representation, I think.

Those options are mutually exclusive - you can't have PR without parties. In fact 'full' PR would simply allocate all seats on the basis of party share nationally.

In order to have what are effectively all independent MPs who vote on each issue on its own merits alone, you need a constituency-based system.

That is why STV is the best system because it's the only one which can properly accommodate both requirements.

Heartfeltdawn

TTony said:

axisus said:

If you resign on principle

Don't be silly.

They're politicians.

They didn't resign on principle, they resigned out of self-interest.  They realised that with Corbyn as leader, most of them would be jobless come the next election.  So resign, get a new leader, maybe keep the job.

I'm aware that I'm generalising, and it's just the 98% of politicians that get the rest a bad name.

Some of the Corbyn supporters are attacking those resigners out of self-interest. That was patently clear at the Bristol rally last month when a local councillor, Hibaq Jama, absolutely tore the shit out of Thangam Debbonaire. That attack was all about self-interest under a lofty load of banners proclaiming the principles of Momentum. 

TheBigDipper

ICBM said:

MrBump said:

I personally hope it heralds the end of tribal politics.  I don't think that the left vs right argument holds water any more - it should be issue and policy based.

And this would be enabled by proportional representation, I think.

Those options are mutually exclusive - you can't have PR without parties. In fact 'full' PR would simply allocate all seats on the basis of party share nationally.

In order to have what are effectively all independent MPs who vote on each issue on its own merits alone, you need a constituency-based system.

That is why STV is the best system because it's the only one which can properly accommodate both requirements.

Interesting point. I wasn't thinking about an end to tribal politics also implying the end of political parties, just the end of people voting left/centre/right in the way you support a football team. I was hoping people might vote for a specific set of policies at election time and not just Labour/Liberal/etc. because they have always been Labour/Liberal.

ESBlonde

TTony

MrBump said:

I personally hope it heralds the end of tribal politics.  I don't think that the left vs right argument holds water any more

Completely agree.  

Our current Lab/Cons tribalism is based on the outdated us v them social divisions that probably came to an end - with a few notable exceptions - sometime in the 80s/90s.  That divide dates from the origins of UK politics as we'd recognise it, with the industrial revolution and the introduction of factory workers vs factory owners.  To be fair, the workers needed to unions and needed sensible representation of their interests.  

Be interesting to debate what signalled/caused the end of that nice & simple us v them arrangement (perhaps when unions stopped representing the reasonable interests of their workers, perhaps when union power was dismantled with Thatcher, perhaps with the rise of globalisation and the remoteness of "them"), but that's another thesis.

Unfortunately, whilst I agree that tribal politics is pretty ineffective now, I can't see it being replaced with anything better until we (the electorate) stop thinking in those terms.  Chicken/egg?

The risk is that our dissatisfaction with the existing arrangement allows an alternative arrangement to become more appealing & popular.  It's the "vote for me, just because I'm not them" campaign banner.  That's what Trump has done in the US.  And - not drawing any parallels with their policies/values/etc - it's similar to what Hitler did in the 1930s.  For a while (and still not making any comparisons of policies/values/etc) it looked like Farage (or BJ) might do something similar here, but clearly not.

paulads

I dunno about Corbyn not being a leader...or why a political party would so desperately need one - or more to the point try to dump someone who they didn't think was one...despite actually being one

anyway...i think we're supposed to be run by cabinet government...and i think "leaders" like Blair and Thatcher might have been better advised to have operated under just such a system...rather than seeing their parties as their own personal toys

The other curiosity i find is the guesswork that Corbyn couldn't win a general election...bearing in mind that two out of our last three Prime Ministers didn't win one either...

And the fear that Corbyn would be a disaster...i can't personally remember a non-disastrous British Prime Minister.

holnrew

octatonic said:

If I was a unemployed/disabled/on a low income I'd be extremely worried.

I am...

I think Corbyn might be able to perform better in PMQs against May, which could gain some ground, but i think the damage has already been done.