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Post by Crunchy Col on Dec 16, 2019 11:25:17 GMT
Who will it be?
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Dec 16, 2019 16:31:47 GMT
Centrist scum
It needs to be someone away from all that Corbyn nonsense. Phillips?
I dunno, it's a pretty rum, unappealing bunch is it not?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2019 16:57:11 GMT
It looks like it's going to be between Long-Bailey and Nandy. I'd go for Nandy.
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Post by DarknessFish on Dec 16, 2019 17:03:06 GMT
I'd love it if whoever won ran their election campaign with the tagline of "some other tosser". Three word slogans are what it's all about.
I voted Lisa Nandy (here, as well as on Thursday), as she's far removed enough from Corbyn and is someone from the type of grim up north constituencies that Labour need to win back. I don't think she'll come across as polished/posh enough for your metropolitan elite though. So Yvette Cooper will probably get it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2019 7:10:54 GMT
I don't think [Nandy]'ll come across as polished/posh enough for your metropolitan elite though. Do you really think it's about being posh or polished? Really? Wasn't it Corbyn's reluctance to address clear Brexit policy quickly and address the antisemitism question in an acceptable* and timely manner (not to mention some of the more expensive socialist matters like free degrees) that did for any chance of getting the Tories and their policies out. *Acceptable for the voters, that is, not the rabid Tory-backing press for which nothing about him was apparently acceptable. Personally, I thought he was a liability and I thought it was irresponsible of the Party given what I thought was at stake (Brexit, NHS) but it had nothing to do with not being posh or polished.
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Post by DarknessFish on Dec 17, 2019 7:51:38 GMT
Nothing to do with Corbyn, I was entirely talking about Nandy.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2019 8:16:56 GMT
Nothing to do with Corbyn, I was entirely talking about Nandy. I realise. But I was saying that being polished or posh aren't reasons in themselves not to support someone. And I pointed out Corbyn is neither of those things and they were irrelevant (in my view) to why those people didn't support him.
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Post by DarknessFish on Dec 17, 2019 8:49:57 GMT
Being posh and polished aren't reasons in themselves to support seomeone. But there hasn't been a prime minister who hasn't been posh and polished. I realise Toby will jump in with something about Thatcher being brought up living on the streets selling coal from shoe-boxes on the side of the road, but even she had lessons to try and sound less normal. It's just what's expected, even in this day and age, you can't get away wi' flat narthern vowls.
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Post by Crunchy Col on Dec 17, 2019 9:51:19 GMT
I'd be happy to see Nandy become leader but she seems a bit low-key to deliver the big speeches, to inspire people.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2019 18:47:56 GMT
It's a bit like Arteta being Arsenal manager, both show the right credentials but we won't know how good they are until they start actually doing the job.
I know what DF means about someone who is strongly northern being less likely to appeal to Middle England, but I think that ship's already sailed unless you have some Tory lite Blair clone as leader and I really don't want that. I think Labour needs to concentrate on solidifying its support in the cities while reclaiming its support in the Midlands, North and Wales. I think there's a desire now for politicians who are real and authentic, and Nandy may satisfy that. After a couple of years of an upper class and out of touch Johnson, Nandy's honest straight talking may be very popular with the electorate.
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Post by tory on Dec 18, 2019 19:04:37 GMT
The problem Labour faces is that it doesn't seem to have anyone who can really bridge the yawning gulf between the moderates and the mentalists. People like Thornberry are tainted by the fact that everyone knows that she despises the white working class vote. She cannot stand up there and realistically say that she is for them because she is lying.
That's the issue Labour really faces - that the derision people have for the Tories is contextualised by the fact that people sort of expect it of them. They know that the Tories deep down don't really connect with the working class - that their vote is a sort of exchange that doesn't have any real meaningfulness to it. The Bolsovers and Workingtons have lent the Tories their vote for the time being but if they don't deliver, they'll probably retract it. They know the Tories are not "one of them". But for someone who says "I'm one of you" when it's really clear that they aren't, then it's a much more significant issue. It is why perhaps Blair's star inevitably faded, but at the same time, I just don't see anyone of any real quality who could take on Boris, who has a formidable presence given that he has won a very significant victory. In a way we are in 97 territory when the Tories wheeled out a very young, almost teenage Hague, who clearly was not up to the task.
Labour is also torn by the fact that everyone is saying "it should be a woman". That's an extra narrative that could potentially be a problem because Labour needs someone really quite exceptional right now to steady the ship, realign itself quickly, stand up to Boris in the Commons, hold him and the Tories to account over the dispatch box and knit the party back together. It needs to dissolve those idiots in Momentum, who I feel could very well have achieved their goal of destroying the party.
I don't know if Keir Starmer is the answer, but the evidence suggests that Labour have only won elections with leaders who acknowledged that Britain is not particularly socialist. Even in 1945 Attlee recognised that he couldn't go in the direction that Bevin wanted - full throttle socialism. Labour needs to find a consensus with the Tories in the post-Brexit world to have a chance of power again. Wilson and Blair knew this and I think Starmer probably does too.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2019 19:07:47 GMT
There's no point Labour just imitating the Tories, that was Blair's failed experiment.
And because of that wanker we now have an NHS in crisis and a failing educational system.
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Post by tory on Dec 18, 2019 19:16:20 GMT
That wanker also won 3 elections, something no Labour leader since Wilson has done.
It remains the absolutely fundamental problem at the heart of the Labour project. Getting elected.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2019 19:22:06 GMT
That wanker also won 3 elections, something no Labour leader since Wilson has done. It remains the absolutely fundamental problem at the heart of the Labour project. Getting elected. Who cares if you're just electing a market obsessed Thatcherite. I'd rather have the Tories. At least they're not pretending to be something they're not. The success of Blair was entirely presentational, it had very little to do with policy.
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Post by tory on Dec 18, 2019 19:37:36 GMT
Well I think this is the heart of the issue isn't it. Labour voters are more ideological I think than Tory voters over what they perceive to be a "correct" Labour government. Tory voters are ultimately pragmatic at heart - they realise that there is never going to be a "correct" or a "proper" government that ticks all their boxes. Life isn't like that.
That's why the New Labour project I guess was going to inevitably fail, because it wasn't "proper" Labour as others have envisioned. It encapsulates the asymmetry in British politics - where Conservatism is a disposition (as Michael Oakeshott says), Labour is something much more heart on the line, much more soulful in some ways, but caught up too in a sort of fatal romanticism of black and white, of victims and villains, where the city on the hill can be reached.
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