Jeremy Corbyn's Labour

[Bearded Shrimper]

Labour won by elections in Sheffield and Oldham this year with 62% of the vote in each - and increase of 6% and 7% so pre leadership election it seems you are right to think the North is more secure for Labour than Scotland.

they were safe sodding seats!
look at the historical precedent, the vote increases were less than under Miliband in comparable seats. add in the fact that oppositions almost always do well in by-elections, especially in safe seats, and it's hardly a sign we're on course to even keep all the seats we have

 

[Bearded Shrimper]

Had to review Corbyn's energy and environment manifesto this morning and... it's an absolute mess.

Intends to take solar PV capacity up to 25GW by 2030, claiming it will generate at a cost of £45/MWh. The Committee on Climate Change's best estimate for cost of generation for solar PV in the 2030s is £64/MWh, and Corbyn has also neglected to include costs associated with intermittency, which at that capacity will be ~£10-20/MWh.

He wants 47GW of offshore wind, despite the amount of leasable land off the UK coast only capable of facilitating something like 29GW.

He wants DNOs to be responsible for decarbonising the power supply they operate by 10% each year, but that's not even their responsibility. While DNOs operate and maintain local grid infrastructure they have absolutely no say over what generation is built and connected to the grid, aside from managing connection queues. It just wouldn't work, not even loosely.

It's a well meaning proposal and clearly designed to refute Smith's suggestions that Corbyn couldn't be trusted with the climate, but this manifesto just comes across as a desperate attempt to grab the lead. It's littered with really quite bizarre claims that would never even come close to standing up under proper economic scrutiny.

this is something that strikes me a lot about Corbyn - he has no grasp of policy detail in any area i've seen him address. his whole approach is based on 'wouldn't it be nice if'
he indulges in total fantasy which is the sign of a fringe protest movement rather than a serious party of government

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

this is something that strikes me a lot about Corbyn - he has no grasp of policy detail in any area i've seen him address. his whole approach is based on 'wouldn't it be nice if'
he indulges in total fantasy which is the sign of a fringe protest movement rather than a serious party of government

Wouldn't it be nice if socialism worked?

 

[Bearded Shrimper]

Wouldn't it be nice if socialism worked?

i'm not taking any lessons in what works in politics from a bloke with a picture of Air **** Trump One as his signature and a green frog with mad hair that's only slightly less scary than the (may the gods help us all) next President of the US

 

[Bearded Shrimper]

Air Cuunt One works better without the stars

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Just seen JC give a pretty good account of himself on QT against Owen Smith.

He'll win this unecessary leadership election easily.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Stretching credulity...like the idea of Labour winning a general election with Jeremy Corbyn as their leader?

While that might rather stretch your own credulity,it's an idea which I (and probably millions of others) find entirely plausible.

Please try and see past the obvious media hype and bias against JC.

 

[callan]

Just seen JC give a pretty good account of himself on QT against Owen Smith.

He'll win this unecessary leadership election easily.

Owen smith was an absolute car crash, except on one point which is Corbyn will never win a general election.

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

they were safe sodding seats!
look at the historical precedent, the vote increases were less than under Miliband in comparable seats. add in the fact that oppositions almost always do well in by-elections, especially in safe seats, and it's hardly a sign we're on course to even keep all the seats we have

The previous post was disputing Labour's performance in the North of England hence pointing out those two by-elections.


Sorry but I can't by into winning by-elections under an 'unelectable' leader with an increased vote to 62% is bad news. If Labour can win 'safe' seats so convincingly then that brings a question to the doom and gloom. The point that I was disputing was that the safe seats in northern England are under threat in the way safe seats in Scotland were - if they are then the Labour vote would have to drop to unprecedented levels from the current 'low' of 62%


But if you want to move away from the safe seats of the north - Labour with unelectable Corbyn as their leader won the Mayoralty in Bristol and won the Mayoralty off the Conservatives in London. The vacated seat in Tooting was won with a 9% increased Labour voted under Corbyn than it did under Miliband a year earlier.


I'm not saying that Labour will win in 2020 - for me the actions of the PLP and NEC will have to change drastically for the last few months of sabotage to become a distant memory. And the press attacks are +++ on the usual ***** that gets thrown at Labour. But a majority of the half a million+ members want Corbyn so he is staying and as much as it doesn't fit a lot of people's agenda and as much as it doesn't tie in with the 1,000 people whose opinions get asked every few weeks - Labour are winning by-elections and that is the only concrete evidence we have. Everything else is just opinion.

 

[Gremlin]

Labour are winning by-elections

And losing them, in the case of Mosborough a few hours ago.

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

And losing them, in the case of Mosborough a few hours ago.

That's not a by-election it was a seat on the council, Lib Dem vote went up by 31%, UKIP down 10%, Labour down 9%, Conservatives down 8% - do you know the background to this? Would seem to be something very specific to that one ward in a part of Sheffield that I've never heard of.

Most people aren't interested in that level of voting unless it's their local area. If you are interested in council seats though, as well as the Lib Dem win that you have mentioned - tonight Labour held a ward each in Mansfield and Barrow and UKIP held a ward in Maidstone. Most of these are just a few hundred voters though so don't give much of an indication on a wider scale.

 

[Massimo Giovanni]

There is no doubt (for me) that JC "won" QT over OS. Smith sounded very poor on many issues- especially Brexit; and his challenges to JC lacked conviction. Smith allowed JC to pedal away with answers that had little substance and were formulaic responses. Neither have any gravitas and both, in an intelligent Labour Party, are unworthy to be Leader.

 

[rigsby]

There is no doubt (for me) that JC "won" QT over OS. Smith sounded very poor on many issues- especially Brexit; and his challenges to JC lacked conviction. Smith allowed JC to pedal away with answers that had little substance and were formulaic responses. Neither have any gravitas and both, in an intelligent Labour Party, are unworthy to be Leader.

Sounds like his supporters on here.

Who is leader material in the Labour party?

 

[MK Shrimper]

There is no doubt (for me) that JC "won" QT over OS. Smith sounded very poor on many issues- especially Brexit; and his challenges to JC lacked conviction. Smith allowed JC to pedal away with answers that had little substance and were formulaic responses. Neither have any gravitas and both, in an intelligent Labour Party, are unworthy to be Leader.

Can you clarify that statement? Or by "intellegent" do you mean right-leaning? I think that, by overwhelmingly winning the leadership contest, JC is very worthy to be leader.

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

And losing them, in the case of Mosborough a few hours ago.

A bit more info has come out on this - the Labour candidate is pro-Smith and anti-Corbyn and doesn't live in Mosborough, the Lib Dem candidate does live in the ward. The who lives where element may explain the fall in vote for UKIP and Tories too - I don't have info on that but if I do I'll let you know.

 

[Uncle Leo]

While that might rather stretch your own credulity,it's an idea which I (and probably millions of others) find entirely plausible.

Please try and see past the obvious media hype and bias against JC.

The Great British electorate are a curious bunch - I certainly didn't see the EU referendum vote going the way it did - but I still do not believe that Labour, under Jeremy Corbyn, will win enough seats to gain a majority in parliament, no matter how many rallies he holds or #jezwecan hashtags I see on Twitter.

 

[Massimo Giovanni]

Can you clarify that statement? Or by "intellegent" do you mean right-leaning?

Neither would sit at a World or Europe or Commenwealth conference and "cut" an influencial or powerful, to be respected figure. I can not imagine either standing up to Merkal, Trump, Putin, Magabe or even Herr Hollande (intentionally Germanic).
By intelligent Labour party I mean a Party with a feasable manifesto that gives policies that are realistic and affordable rather than soft red, pink, wish list of "nice" ideas. An example of that was the mess JC got into with trying to argue against unskilled migration siting the minimum wage as being to blame! AND then moving on to a few minutes later stating a need to raise the minium wage to the living wage AND no-one seemed to recognise the two ideas oppose each other!

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

The Great British electorate are a curious bunch - I certainly didn't see the EU referendum vote going the way it did - but I still do not believe that Labour, under Jeremy Corbyn, will win enough seats to gain a majority in parliament, no matter how many rallies he holds or #jezwecan hashtags I see on Twitter.

For many years we have been told that politicians are disconnected from the public yet when someone engages with the public that is mocked. Large numbers of people are enthused by these gatherings and larger numbers of people have felt engaged enough to give the current Labour Party a doubling in membership. Remember Cameron at the last election taking off his tie, rolling up his sleeves and getting on a soapbox - that was because he knew he had to appeal to people at that level of engagement. Corbyn does that but with thousands of members of the public in attendance rather than some shipped in party workers. Corbyn holds rallies in Labour areas and Tory areas and generates a massive sense of goodwill and new voters. To belittle this is your choice but if you belittle what someone is doing extremely well then when you want to attack them for things they do less well you have less impact as you just seem anti everything that person does.

The recognised channels of communication are largely closed to him ie the press, so his supporters use social media instead. This is something that has a recognised impact. Owen Smith for example felt the need to keep up with this and his people created thousands of fake accounts sending out automated messages from ip addresses thousands of miles from the UK. The #wearehismedia thing is Corbyn supporters recognising that traditional media sees him as the enemy and rather than rolling over and accepting it they are combating it and doing what they can to create an alternative.

Whatever Corbyn's faults are he is engaging with hundreds of thousands of people through rallies, social media and party membership - many people have moaned for years about lack of political engagement and now someone is doing something about that some are still moaning.

 

[Napster]

Whatever Corbyn's faults are he is engaging with hundreds of thousands of people through rallies, social media and party membership -

and taking up valuable floor space on trains.

come on, I've not seen a rally down here in leafy Kent. He's preaching to the converted.

 

[callan]

Sounds like his supporters on here.

Who is leader material in the Labour party?

http://www.greatbritishpolitics.co.uk/magazine/304-which-labour-leader-are-you.html


I got Clement Atlee....