The labour Leader thread...

George Hincapie said:
Why are you confused? The people who elected him Leader don't represent the Nation. It was only people voting within the Party; what did he get? 200K votes?

Popular support = the Country as a whole, not the membership of one Party.

/facepalm
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It's the same kind of thought process that cost them the last election. Not knowing what their core values were. Not having a vision for the country. How can you vote for a party that will just flip flop all over the place, based on how they judge the mood of the nation to be on that day.

All they had last election was a vague idea that they needed to be "popular" with as many people as possible. A party that stood for nothing but at the same time was desperate to appeal to everyone. And mostly just agreed with the Torys on matters of any significance, like austerity.

Plus Ed was a disaster. LOL at the stone tablet :D Wonder where that is now.
 
FoxEye said:
It's the same kind of thought process that cost them the last election. Not knowing what their core values were. Not having a vision for the country. How can you vote for a party that will just flip flop all over the place, based on how they judge the mood of the nation to be on that day.

All they had last election was a vague idea that they needed to be "popular" with as many people as possible. A party that stood for nothing but at the same time was desperate to appeal to everyone. And mostly just agreed with the Torys on matters of any significance, like austerity.

Plus Ed was a disaster. LOL at the stone tablet :D Wonder where that is now.
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Indeed this. Politics is about principles, values and vision. It's about showing people how you can make their lives better. It isn't about focus groups and measuring the heartbeat of the country. It isn't about trying to appeal to everyone. In this modern age, things change so quickly that it's impossible to keep up.

If you supply a vision, if you stick by your principles and values, the electorate can then decide whether they want that vision or those values. If they do, you'll win the election. If they don't, you won't. It's really quite simple.

At this year's election both Labour and the Lib Dems (more so the Lib Dems, actually) tried to appeal to everyone. Look what happened. It doesn't work. The Lib Dems fared much better in 2010 when they fought a campaign on the strength of their values, not on their ability to appeal to all voters.
 
muon said:
I'm sure anyone that has studied any politics/economics will have seen this before

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_voter_theorem
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This all seems very similar to theories behind rational markets - i.e. nice on paper but in reality people simply don't behave in that fashion.

There is far more to politics than a simple issue of where they plonk themselves on left/right axis.
 
Aye the LibDems strategy was awful too. "Whoever you vote for, we'll stop them from doing what they want to do."

Well thanks, I guess?
 
The difference is that Labour want to be leading the government. Not trying to pick up concentrated votes from a core voter base.

Labour don't want to be UKIP or the Green Party having a set of unwavering principles which turns most of the electorate off you.

Mr Jack said:
This all seems very similar to theories behind rational markets - i.e. nice on paper but in reality people simply don't behave in that fashion.

There is far more to politics than a simple issue of where they plonk themselves on left/right axis.
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As much as there are caveats, swinging way to the left of the median voter will require a lot of those caveats to all go for you to win a popular vote.

For Corbyn to win there has to be a massive peak to the left which may not even exist. You can introduce multiple dimensions, but the economy is undoubtedly the main one of consequence over the last decade.

Similarly as much as there are caveats to efficient market hypotheses, it requires something special for it to be very wrong.
 
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Likeable chap but totally unelectable. Placeholder leader who will be gone in a few years once the Labour Party have cleared the decks and a new generation come through. Conservatives laughing socks off right now.
 
jsmoke said:
Labour were in power for 13 years.

In other words you have no clue what you stand for.

Why would they underestimate it, he's a humanistic seducer, JC loves only JC.
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Yes but they were middle right whilst in power. JC is far left. Blair was middle enough to get traction after years of a dwindling Tory government.

JC hasn't sold out to popularist votes. EM sold out and look how that worked out for labour, especially in Scotland.
 
Jeremy Corbyn is the Steve Brookstein of British politics: He's just won the phone vote but the British public are not going to buy his records :D
 
Scrutinize said:
Yes but they were middle right whilst in power. JC is far left. Blair was middle enough to get traction after years of a dwindling Tory government.

JC hasn't sold out to popularist votes. EM sold out and look how that worked out for labour, especially in Scotland.
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People who think Jeremy Corbyn is far left really need to look again at how far the left goes. He's a left winger, sure, but far/extreme/looney? Hardly. For a lefty/socialist/social democrat he's very mainstream. He's a much a communist as Nigel Farage is a Nazi.

The political mainstream has become so narrow in recent years as politicians and parties chase voters. I guess it's understandable why people would consider anyone outside of this narrow channel 'extreme', but it really isn't true. We're just not used to views beyond the bland New Labour/Centrist Tory norm.
 
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