The labour Leader thread...
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Soldato
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Apart from his wife being one of the candidates, you mean?
How well Corbyn can build party unity in the wake of a victory remains to be seen. While the wild howling of the Blairites may ring loud, I wouldn't be at all sure that the centre of the Labour party wouldn't be willing to work with Corbyn after he wins a big democratic victory in the party.
I wouldn't put much stock in these polls, anyway, we've just seen how wrong properly conducted polls based on good information can be, and this poll is - by necessity - an entirely less credible affair. They don't know the electorate, they don't know the electorate's demographics and they don't know how those demographics influence voting patterns.
A first round victory for Corbyn would be marvellous though.
If the Labour party grass roots members vote him in then its only right, The Party elite talk about democracy then try there best to subvert it, is shameful that they don't seem to be interested in real meaningful policy but just want to gain power.
I seem to remember Blair / Brown wining three elections by doing just that..
The fact of the matter is that no one wins and election by being left or right wing.. elections are won from the centre where there is the most popular support..
I can not see a Corbyn lead Labour EVER winning an election as they will have to position themselves far to left wing for most centre voters..
Labours problem is how to re-engage their traditional heart lands especially Scotland without alienating 'middle England' who they will need to win any election.
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Would that be the "Middle England" that voted for Blair in 1997 and got shafted at every turn for the next 13 years?
Well that's not strictly true, looking around Europe they have been swing voting in quite Left then Right Governments for quite a while now.
The thing is, the Scottish vote counts for a lot of seats, and let's see where 'middle Englands' voting intentions are after the 'hard working middle class family' have been squeezed as much as they are going to be over the next 5 years.
shafted so much that they won three consecutive elections? I am not saying that Blair was 'all that' but they must have done something right..
I would suggest 'middle englands' voting intentions stay exactly where they are today.. which would be with the most central party.. Labour based a whole election campaign on 'economic fairness' last time round on a more 'leftist' stance than the brown/blair years and it got them there worst election defeat in a long time..
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Remember the boundary changes post 1997? Made Blair impossible to remove with the Tories being crap and the LibDems attracting the Middle Englanders who voted for Blair in 1997 and quickly realised they'd elected a monster.
Boundary changes or not over three parliaments his % vote share dropped by 2% and then 5% respectively in 2001 / 2005.. given the size of the 1997 victory (and turnout %) I would suggest that Labours popularity remained pretty consistent until Brown took over.
Ninja Edit:
My point anyway isn't to argue reference Blair.. but to point out that you don't win elections in the UK from anywhere other than the centre (or slightly left or right of it).. I am sure that Corbyn's rhetoric is welcomed by most traditional Labour voters.. but it is not going to win them the election as to win the election they need to win the centre..
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The leadership prospects of the last leader is more likely the cause of the defeat
Void of charisma & unable to articulate the policies he attempted to promote.
And to the Centralist voters that Labour need to win over to win an election you think Corbyn looks any better? Lots of people voted Tory in the last election to avoid a more left wing Labour / SNP coalition.. so what makes you think that actually voting in a leader that sits in the further left space makes them electable..
This, if David Miliband had become leader in 2010 he would have become prime minister in 2015. I know a lot of people who voted tory, almost all of them did so because they didn't want Ed as PM, most of them even felt genuinely bad about it because they cost our Labour MP his job and the guy had served this constituency well for years
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This, if David Miliband had become leader in 2010 he would have become prime minister in 2015. I know a lot of people who voted tory, almost all of them did so because they didn't want Ed as PM, most of them even felt genuinely bad about it because they cost our Labour MP his job and the guy had served this constituency well for years
Not a chance. Tory voters have long memories and remember what a rubbish Foreign Secretary he was.
I would say David Milliband was more palatable than his brother... certainly I expect would have got a better election result although would have expected a more central set of policies..
I certainly couldn't vote for the combination of EM, Balls and more leftist policy.
This is either nonsense or a tautology depending on how you look at it.
Elections are won when you gather enough support to gain a majority. To do this you need to appeal to more than your core support, and that means you need to claim more "swing" voters than the other major party. The "centre ground" usually means little more than what these swing voters will vote for.
It is a mistake to believe that this is, in any way, a fixed point. In fact, the centre ground is determined by the arguments of the government and opposition. Winning means winning arguments not chasing the ever shifting phantom of "public opinion".
The tory voters alone couldn't have given Cameron a majority, it was the "please not Ed" vote that gave him that. If Labour had had an electable leader they would have had more seats, the Tories less, and the would have been a Labour lead coalition in power today.