Jeremy Corbyn vs Angela Eagle

It's because he doesn't actually see any point in being there and is only in the studio because Seamus Milne has had to forcibly push him through the door.

yes i recognise that xpost

xpost - thats a pretty OTM take on where he falters.

i see it as him getting defensive. which makes him look less like a leader, and more like a bratty teenager. 'no i DIDNT do that!' he is just terrible on responding when cornered. its like he gets a bit panicked and ends up getting irritable/angry. its not like evan davis was grilling him, he was giving him quite a lot of space to breathe.

as for not having talking points, i get his updates on facebook, and they often seem to read quite similarly, so it seems he has a few. id say he has talking points, just no idea how to really elaborate on them, and get beyond the surface bullet points about being against austerity, etc.

(in a rough part of Wallasey, and opposite a pub)

Ok, it's the Liscard end, not the Egremont end, but I used to *dream* of living on Manor Road! [/ Four Yorkshiremen]

at least you had a view of something to dream of :p

Sarah Champion just asked for her front bench job back and appears to be getting it.
Wonder what to make of u-turning coup members.

JC doesn't have an interview style. Nor is he meant to have one.

re: Cuban solidarity he was defensive at first ("it was only 30 mins") but then I loved the bit where Evan did 'how is this relevant to someone in Barnsley?' and iirc he was able to say that it was and articulate a position of where ppl come from despite geographical distance - not so much on the back foot.

I'd say erratic more than anything. Most ppl just won't know where all this anti-imperialist malarkey is coming from - its been so pushed back. Just another universe to a lot of ppl and very hard to put across. JC isn't that person, but its what we have. "Only game in town" etc

I wonder if Sarah listened to that loathsome Smith profile on the wireless yesterday before deciding to unresign. I can't imagine any reasonable person listening to it and not thinking how far could I throw this fucker?

xyzzzz yes sometimes his answers are pretty great, and often don't sound defensive, but he's pretty much always playing on the field that's handed to him. which is a problem.

"Most ppl just won't know where all this anti-imperialist malarkey is coming from - its been so pushed back."

this isnt wrong but it would be nice if JC could find a way to put that point across. the opportunities for him to do it are there. i know anything like that is likely to make him an easy target for 'lol, the left' sort of comments, but id say people are more receptive, desperate even, for the agenda to be expanded right now.

er that is why he was voted as leader - JC/team came up with 'People's QE' and even though Brexit has largely been responsible the government are possibly taking this stuff seriously - it was derided as nonsense a year ago. This is an expansion of the agenda.

He puts enough of that stuff across. In the campaign launch he hinted at research being taken off pharma companies - again no concrete proposals but everytime he opens his mouth for long enough there is something to go on.

I just got a click on here to Ask the leadership candidates a question email from PLP. Wouldn't touch it with with the biggest ever barge pole tbh. Sharing the Labour family's values etc.

JUst watching Owen Smith oiling away on Newsnight tonight.
Now JC isn't Patriotic enough? Hadn't heard that before. Wouldn't have thought it was an issue . Is Owen angling for a new party when he doesn't get control of this one?

Not really been following what Owen Smith has been saying but ... I dunno ... for all Corbyn's faults, suggesting that he isn't patriotic enough seems a bit undignified.

It's the classic 'scoundrel defence'

owen smith comes across as a grasping little shit.

the guy some ppl think will 'save Labour'

Smith seems to be repeating talking points from this awful Tristram Hunt article, Corbyn is "metropolitan", squeamish about patriotism an so on:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/15/therell-always-be-an-england-tristram-hunt-labour-patriotism

seems an awkward fit with Smith's attempts to outflank Corbyn by being more pro-EU, talking about a second EU referendum etc. the idea that this was an area of vulnerability for Corbyn - where there is a gap between his position and that of many of his supporters - seems accurate to me, but Smith hasn't given any indication that he has the right stuff to be able to take advantage of this

hey, turns out it's the first refuge of a scoundrel

I don't really understand who he thinks that's going to play with.

A lot of the MPs who claim that the party doesn't understand non-metropolitan working class communities carry on supporting austerity. Or equivocating over it at the very least.

Is he trying to coax the Labour voters who left for UKIP back now that that party's goals are apparently achieved?

Or does he envision a future with a National Socialist Party?

Those voters aren't going to eligible and they certainly aren't going to pay £25 to support a guy who wants a second referendum.

Dude should just stick "any port in a storm, eh?" on all his campaign literature and leave it at that.

Is it me, or is his entire campaign just coming across like a bit of a botched robbery. Only instead of moving on when he realises that he can't get in to steal anything he's getting himself photographed holding the brick?

Ugh. It's edifying, watching Owen Smith try to suggest Corbyn is unpatriotic.

THe high Court case being taken by the multi-millionaire Labour donor Aseem Allam is starting today. The one about whether Corbyn needed 50 MPs' support to be on the ballot.
Allam was just talking on the BBC News channel. My tv signal screwed up while he was talking but the bit I did hear was going on about how the Left Wing leaning of the Labour Party should be a thing of the past because fo teh vast success they had heading right.

Norman Smith the Parliament correspondent was saying it might be a bit of an uphill battle for thechallengers since Judges don't like to get involved in Party political decisions. Not that this is a pointless case or anything.

Her also aid that the precedent being given of Neil Kinnock coming up with the 50+ signatures when his leadership was being challenged may well have been him simply ostentatiously showing what support he had. Looks like the Corbyn side are saying that the Labour Party rules don't actually say that the challengers themselves have to show that amount of supporters either.
Which might be a bit of a dodgy precedent to set. Though maybe the idea that anybody with no support challenging a standing leader is already a losing battle.

Allam really struggles with not getting his own way

but i return to my regular point that millionaire business people should not be welcome within a hundred miles of the Labour Party

CON 43% (+4)
LAB 27% (-2)

Typo in my last post it should be He also said not Her also aid

6 years into Tory austerity, a disastrous referendum and the resignation of the PM you'd be hoping the numbers there would be a little uh different

Given that McDonnell has said Corbyn will quit if he doesn't win an election (although I'm not sure I believe that) this is really a question of when and how Corbyn fails, not if, and what he actually expects to achieve in the meantime.

Incoming PMs usually enjoy a substantial polling bounce though. Even Gordon Brown was briefly very popular after assuming office.

Is that voting intention Matt? Yes, Ipsos MORI has this astonishingly line from 2007:

20-26 September 2007
CON: 31%
LAB: 44%
LD: 15%

I think it was October 07 when he announced that he wasn't going to call an election and his popularity collapsed and never recovered. And the economic cracks were only beginning to show back then. Given the challenges she faces, a similar collapse in May's ratings is far from impossible, although it doesn't follow that those votes would transfer to a Corbyn-led Labour.

Presumably no more so for a Labour with an alternative leader. Though that would be even more speculative anyway.

Of course, we can never know, but I believe a new PM gets a popularity boost, which would evap if they actually called an election based on "I'm popular right now"

I'm not sure how much credence to give polls after the last general election

Virtually none but a constant in recent polls has been a tendency to underestimate the right-wing vote.

Yeah I'm not making claims for a hidden left vote but there are a lot of potential voters outside the tribal categories now

Are people actually reacting against visible statistics by making protest votes that they don't think will alter perceived trends.

I was trying to remember the term for when a situation is altered by the fact that it's being observed.

QUANTUM VOTING

The uncertainty principle

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Sadiq Khan, the only Labour politician with any actual power, has declined to endorse Owen Smith.

back from two weeks away and is owen smith meant to make angela eagle look welcome in retrospect? he's really been building on that "progressive case for restricting freedom of movement" reputation as a nasty little shit that was my introduction to him two hours after brexit

Owen smith referencing having grown up during the miners strike for his bona fides (in email)

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Does that count as a Corbyn endorsement from Khan though? I vaguely recall him snubbing him after winning the mayoral election - or at least it was reported thus.

I think it qualifies as "not going anywhere near this clusterfuck".

Yes, I don't think Sadiq Khan is any supporter of Corbyn's.

He proposed Corbyn as a candidate for leader in the first instance

I don't think Khan has any truck with Corbyn as leader but he either feels closer to him politically or, more likely, is savvy enough to distance himself from the Blue Labour wing of this contest