Theresa May calls General Election on 8th June.

[AlterEgo]

So you think he's unelectable, but you do admire some of his policies, while at the same time decrying the policies the tories are using to further their own agenda to the cost of 90% of the country.
Surely those policies themselves are enough to persuade you to vote for him, why would you vote to threaten your livelihood, standard of living and community? it makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever

It's one thing to have a policy. It's quite another to be a statesman and leader, capable of implementing them.

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

Surely those policies themselves are enough to persuade you to vote for him, why would you vote to threaten your livelihood, standard of living and community? it makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever

Absolutely true, but so many people are going to do just that!

 

[Bromley boy]

Why do they (tory party, right wing press, BBC) dedicate so much time to attacking him then if he's no threat to them and they aren't scared?

I reckon most of the attacks on Corbyn up to now have come from his own camp. The Tories have largely left him alone other than PMQs etc., and of course local campaigns where, tellingly, Tory candidates refer to Corbyn far more than the Labour candidates.

That will all change now, of course.

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

I reckon most of the attacks on Corbyn up to now have come from his own camp.
.

Indeed, shameful...and they are likely to reap the reward now for doing just that! There is a part of me that thinks that they deserve what they will get, but it is going to affect all of us.

 

[Bromley boy]

Indeed, shameful...and they are likely to reap the reward now for doing just that! There is a part of me that thinks that they deserve what they will get, but it is going to affect all of us.

The thing is, Corbyn specialised in attacking his own party when he was on the back benches so it's a bit rich for him to insist that his MPs toe the line now.

Some of these attacks are understandable given that, unlike the people who paid a couple of quid to take a punt on Corbyn, a lot of Labour MPs are longstanding career politicians who have dedicated their entire working lives to the Labour cause and must be truly gutted to see their public support ripped away, as well as any chance of power in the foreseeable future.

The posts earlier from DarloRich perfectly demonstrate the way a lot of longstanding Labour supporters and MPs must be feeling.

 

[WelshBluebird]

unlike the people who paid a couple of quid to take a punt on Corbyn

I actually agree with the rest of your post, but I do take issue with this. Corbyn would have won regardless of the "supporters" who didn't join as full members. Even the second time around. This narrative that keeps getting trotted out about him only winning because of them is just simply not the case. The party needs to accept that the party membership voted for him to be leader, not once now but twice. Tbh any MP who is upset about the current situation but who nominated Corbyn in the leadership race doesn't have a leg to stand on.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Indeed, shameful...and they are likely to reap the reward now for doing just that! There is a part of me that thinks that they deserve what they will get, but it is going to affect all of us.

Do you think Jeremy Corbyn should stay on as leader if Labour loses the election?

 

[WelshBluebird]

Regarding the tax thing, I'm not sure how much sympathy I can have. If you earn £70k then that puts you in the top roughly 6% of earners in the country. I'd say that gives you an obligation to help those who aren't anywhere near as fortunate. Hell I earn less than half that but think we do need to increase tax a few percent, as long as that actually goes where it is needed to go (which I wouldn't trust a Tory government, who is specifically starving schools and the NHS of funding, to do).

 

[Bromley boy]

I actually agree with the rest of your post, but I do take issue with this. Corbyn would have won regardless of the "supporters" who didn't join as full members. Even the second time around. This narrative that keeps getting trotted out about him only winning because of them is just simply not the case. The party needs to accept that the party membership voted for him to be leader, not once now but twice. Tbh any MP who is upset about the current situation but who nominated Corbyn in the leadership race doesn't have a leg to stand on.

I must admit I had, wrongly as it turns out, assumed that was the case.

From a quick dig around on google, 84% of the £3 voters backed Corbyn together with 49.6% of the existing members* which, together with Miliband's reforms to the party's constitution which removed the unions and MPs, was enough to get him over the line. I wonder how many of the longer standing members who voted for Corbyn now regret their choice?!

Agreed re. the MPs who nominated him thinking he wouldn't win, they only have themselves to blame!

*figures from a July 2016 article in the Independent.

 

[northwichcat]

Agreed re. the MPs who nominated him thinking he wouldn't win, they only have themselves to blame!

I think MPs nominating Corbyn this time and Abbott last time was in response to criticism when Brown stood unchallenged. McDonnell wanted to challenge Brown but didn't get enough nominations.

 

[Bromley boy]

Regarding the tax thing, I'm not sure how much sympathy I can have. If you earn £70k then that puts you in the top roughly 6% of earners in the country. I'd say that gives you an obligation to help those who aren't anywhere near as fortunate. Hell I earn less than half that but think we do need to increase tax a few percent, as long as that actually goes where it is needed to go (which I wouldn't trust a Tory government, who is specifically starving schools and the NHS of funding, to do).

That's a valid opinion, of course.

Quite a hard sell to people who, although earning £70k, can't afford a house and are raising their family in a poky 2 bed flat, and then also asking them to elect you PM!!!

 

[northwichcat]

Surely you are just looking at that policy in isolation! In all my years working in the NHS I only met a handful of people earning 70k, I certainly wasn't and I was the head of my profession! The south-east is broken because of the ridiculous house prices that have spiralled out of control. Whilst there may be many people in the SE earning that amount, there are many more who aren't!

The biggest problem with the announcement is McDonnell simply said it would be fairer and didn't say what he would do with the extra revenue. If it resulted in a huge investment in the NHS then older voters and Doctors may be in favour of it even if they will pay more income tax as a result.

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

Do you think Jeremy Corbyn should stay on as leader if Labour loses the election?

You'll have to ask me on June 9th! I really don't want to get into that right now, but I will say that I would support anyone who generally has similar beliefs and principles (to me) and has a track record of standing up for them.

 

[WelshBluebird]

That's a valid opinion, of course.

Quite a hard sell to people who, although earning £70k, can't afford a house and are raising their family in a poky 2 bed flat, and then also asking them to elect you PM!!!

I don't disagree with it being hard pill to swallow, but surely that is a result of the messed up housing market (which we can put the blame on that with New Labour and the Tories)?

So if Labour could combine the taxation policy with policies that aim to fix the housing mess we are in (things like mass home building, fairer rights for tenants, reforms in the mortgage market - its a joke that paying hundreds a month in rent for years on end is not counted as being able to prove you can afford a cheaper mortgage, etc) then yes the extra tax would be hard to swallow as a purely money going out pov, but that family could end up better off overall because of the other policies.

Really, in my view, it is that kind of joined up thinking that is missing from the Labour leadership at the moment.
But it is also something missing from the Tories (cutting council funding then wondering why social care, which is largely council funded, is struggling, and not seeing the knock on that would have on the NHS) and from the general public (being in favour of tax cuts but then complaining when services they rely on such as the NHS, schools, local councils etc are struggling for money).

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

The thing is, Corbyn specialised in attacking his own party when he was on the back benches so it's a bit rich for him to insist that his MPs toe the line now.
.

Indeed he did, and on many occasions he has been proved correct. He stood for what he believed in. What I think is forgotten, is that it made not a jot of difference to Blair what Corbyn, Skinner, McDonnell, Marshall-Andrews etc thought or did. Were you aware of screaming headlines in the papers at the time? Was Corbyn invited into TV and Radio studios (as Labour 'rebels' have been in the last two years)? Were there long in-depth articles in the 'serious' newspapers about him?. No, of course not! The media have taken every single opportunity to give publicity to the anti-Corbyn faction in the PLP that was certainly denied to the left during the Blair years.
It was only Dennis Skinner who was a bit of a household name because he could come up with memorable quotes from the H0C.

 

[HSTEd]

The only way to solve that issue is to build two million houses a year for the forseable future.
The only way to get the land for that without turning them into rabbit hutches is land reclamation (as the NIMBYs will gut any attempt to expand cities).
New City in the Thames Estuary and so on.

Or just picking a random Scottish island that is essentially uninhabited and turning it into some sort of new Hong Kong.

 

[northwichcat]

Indeed he did, and on many occasions he has been proved correct. He stood for what he believed in. What I think is forgotten, is that it made not a jot of difference to Blair what Corbyn, Skinner, McDonnell, Marshall-Andrews etc thought or did. Were you aware of screaming headlines in the papers at the time? Was Corbyn invited into TV and Radio studios (as Labour 'rebels' have been in the last two years)? Were there long in-depth articles in the 'serious' newspapers about him?. No, of course not! The media have taken every single opportunity to give publicity to the anti-Corbyn faction in the PLP that was certainly denied to the left during the Blair years.
It was only Dennis Skinner who was a bit of a household name because he could come up with memorable quotes from the H0C.

Don't forget Abbott was on the TV every week when Blair was PM and Livingstone and Galloway weren't low profile rebels.

The media had little choice at one point. BBC Breakfast had Lucy Powell as guest to respond to a new Conservative education policy after she had stood down as Shadow Education Secretary. Given Corbyn didn't have a Shadow Education Secretary at the time were they supposed to ask a relatively unknown person like Cat Smith or Angela Raynor to come in instead because Corbyn might put her in his cabinet? Cameron joked about Rosena Allin-Khan being next to join the shadow cabinet when she was elected as an MP in July 2016 and in October 2016 Corbyn put her in his shadow cabinet!

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

Don't forget Abbott was on the TV every week when Blair was PM and Livingstone and Galloway weren't low profile rebels.

OK, but Livingstone was Mayor of London for eight years so had every right to have a high media profile, and Abbott was contracted by the BBC to be a pundit on This Week (not sure of the dates)- hardly prime time viewing! I recall Galloway as an occasional guest on Newsnight, but he was expelled from the party at some point...2002? That's a bit different to the profile of the current crop of 'rebels'!

 

[southern442]

It's one thing to have a policy. It's quite another to be a statesman and leader, capable of implementing them.

Your definition of a good leader is something that people have been missing recently. I completely agree with you that a good leader is one who can implement their policies well.

People say that Corbyn is not a leader, yet he seems to be an honest man who will stick to his word and implement the policies that his party proposes. Apparently Theresa May is a 'strong leader' despite the fact that she and several members of her cabinet have a track record of doing U-turns on policies. We know that anything May proposes as policy in the run-up to the election is actually touch and go as to whether she sticks to it or not. We need to at least give Corbyn a chance to propose policies that the whole Shadow Cabinet can get behind before we accuse him of anything.

 

[Bromley boy]

Indeed he did, and on many occasions he has been proved correct. He stood for what he believed in. What I think is forgotten, is that it made not a jot of difference to Blair what Corbyn, Skinner, McDonnell, Marshall-Andrews etc thought or did. Were you aware of screaming headlines in the papers at the time? Was Corbyn invited into TV and Radio studios (as Labour 'rebels' have been in the last two years)? Were there long in-depth articles in the 'serious' newspapers about him?. No, of course not! The media have taken every single opportunity to give publicity to the anti-Corbyn faction in the PLP that was certainly denied to the left during the Blair years.
It was only Dennis Skinner who was a bit of a household name because he could come up with memorable quotes from the H0C.

He wasn't given a lot of air time, that's true, although other rebels of a similar ilk were pretty high profile.

Corbyn has certainly been consistent in his views, I'll give him that, and he seems to be a principled man. Great qualities in a back bench rebel (and I'm sure he's a nice bloke!) but less beneficial in a party leader who needs to galvanise MPs, PLP members and the public behind him and persuade people of his message.

The fact remains he is inarticulate, a poor party leader, and his views, although honestly held, are a long, long way to left of his own party and the electorate as a whole.

I can't help but wonder if secretly he will be relieved at an election defeat which gives him the opportunity to stand down gracefully.

 

[northwichcat]

OK, but Livingstone was Mayor of London for eight years so had every right to have a high media profile, and Abbott was contracted by the BBC to be a pundit on This Week (not sure of the dates)- hardly prime time viewing! I recall Galloway as an occasional guest on Newsnight, but he was expelled from the party at some point...2002? That's a bit different to the profile of the current crop of 'rebels'!

Ken Livingstone was kicked out of Labour before he became mayor of London. Frank Dobson stood against him in the first election as the Labour candidate and finished third.

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

Ken Livingstone was kicked out of Labour before he became mayor of London. Frank Dobson stood against him in the first election as the Labour candidate and finished third.

Yes, I know, sorry not to make myself clear, I was pointing out that he had a right to a high media profile through his post and not as a 'rebel'.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

OK, but Livingstone was Mayor of London for eight years so had every right to have a high media profile, and Abbott was contracted by the BBC to be a pundit on This Week (not sure of the dates)- hardly prime time viewing! I recall Galloway as an occasional guest on Newsnight, but he was expelled from the party at some point...2002? That's a bit different to the profile of the current crop of 'rebels'!

That sounds a bit like special pleading to me. As far as I've understood this bit of the conversation, you suggested that critics of Corbyn have (unfairly) been given airtime recently in a way that critics of Blair (such as Corbyn) weren't given 10-15 years ago. Then someone posted counter examples to show Blair-critics were in fact often given airtime (albeit maybe not as often as Labour 'moderates' have been over the last two years). And your response appears to be to provide excuses for ignoring those counter-examples - that seems to me not far off looking for excuses to ignore evidence!

Might I suggest that one reason Corbyn critics have received a lot of airtime is that there are so many of them - arguably the majority of Labour MPs. One or two MPs disagreeing with their leader = minor(ish) news depending on the circumstances. 100 MPs disagreeing with their leader = very significant news.

Personally, I don't doubt that much of the media is biased against Labour, and will find excuses to report inaccurately, and not to give people in Labour a fair hearing. But that doesn't mean that every time someone is interviewed who disagrees with Corbyn, it must be because of media bias. Even an impartial media is going to have to give airtime to all different opinions at some point! And it does slightly worry me that many Corbyn supporters (I'm talking generally here, not particularly aimed at you) do seem to interpret it that way every time a story unfavourable to Corbyn appears.

 

[bramling]

I don't disagree with it being hard pill to swallow, but surely that is a result of the messed up housing market (which we can put the blame on that with New Labour and the Tories)?

So if Labour could combine the taxation policy with policies that aim to fix the housing mess we are in (things like mass home building, fairer rights for tenants, reforms in the mortgage market - its a joke that paying hundreds a month in rent for years on end is not counted as being able to prove you can afford a cheaper mortgage, etc) then yes the extra tax would be hard to swallow as a purely money going out pov, but that family could end up better off overall because of the other policies.

Really, in my view, it is that kind of joined up thinking that is missing from the Labour leadership at the moment.
But it is also something missing from the Tories (cutting council funding then wondering why social care, which is largely council funded, is struggling, and not seeing the knock on that would have on the NHS) and from the general public (being in favour of tax cuts but then complaining when services they rely on such as the NHS, schools, local councils etc are struggling for money).

I think you will find many blame the EU's freedom of movement for the housing market being messed up - especially in the London area which is where the problem radiates from.

 

[bramling]

Why do they (tory party, right wing press, BBC) dedicate so much time to attacking him then if he's no threat to them and they aren't scared?

I'm not sure they do. The Conservatives would love JC to remain in post for as long as possible, even then there's no obvious replacement lined up.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I think you will find many blame the EU's freedom of movement for the housing market being messed up - especially in the London area which is where the problem radiates from.

Indeed many do. But overwhelmingly, the evidence does not support that viewpoint. (Caveat: It's certainly plausible that freedom of movement rules may have had some impact on house prices, but it's not remotely the main cause of them).

 

[bramling]

The trouble with this kind of policy is people can see straight through it. It's just old fashioned tax and spend socialism.

Quite a lot of people (particularly in the south east) may well be earning around £70k. They will not be living like millionaires and, if the sole breadwinner in a family household was earning this salary, they may even be in the "just about managing" camp. If Labour want to win votes from people like this they are going the wrong way about it.

There is nothing new or revolutionary about any of Corbyn's ideas, they're just recycled dogma from the 1970s.

Spot on analysis.

Who is going to vote for themselves or family members to be penalised? Add in some media hype about tax going on benefits or health care for foreigners or whatever, and it's a complete turn off.

As you say, one 70k salary does not provide a gold-plated standard of living, especially in the south east. This squeezes the people in the middle, and guess which group is likely to contain lots of floating voters?! People may sympathise more if the level was well into six figures.

 

[northwichcat]

Lib Dem MP John Pugh is to retire from politics. Conservative veteran Ken Clarke is to stand for election despite saying he would retire at the next election.

 

[EM2]

Spot on analysis.

Who is going to vote for themselves or family members to be penalised?

Me. And my household income isn't even remotely close to 70k.

 

[ainsworth74]

Conservative veteran Ken Clarke is to stand for election despite saying he would retire at the next election.

Well to be fair he probably expected the next one to be in 2020 when he said that!