Jeremy Corbyn vs Angela Eagle

This is a good summary...what does a potential split look-like, the long game, fuck a 2020 etc. Has a link to that Owen Jones piece of questions to JC and supporters - big laughs all round.

"Fuck a 2020" is short-termism purporting to be the opposite. I have my issues with that Owen Jones piece and he is often insufferable but he is right that there does need to be a proper strategy and vision for the next election and it's sheer complacency to pretend that it doesn't matter, or that you can't expect Corbyn and McDonnell to get their shit together after a year in charge and probably several decades of thinking about what they would do if they were ever to miraculously be put in charge of the Labour Party.

It's easy to say "well Labour wouldn't win under anyone in 2020" - firstly I'm not sure that true, but then again a victory by the Labour right probably wouldn't get us anywhere worth going anyway. But if you don't have a proper electoral strategy that takes into account the various demographic issues that they would prefer to pretend just aren't there, then you run a massive risk of being in an event bigger hole after 2020, one that turns your ten-year "social movement" plan into a 20-year one, or longer. If you're given a once-in-a-generation opportunity, you don't squander it by assuming that you have longer than you really have, and you certainly don't go "ner ner ner not listening" when someone tries to point that out.

The main response to that Owen Jones piece I've seen from a member of Corbyn's circle has been Diane Abbott approvingly linking to a piece that basically went "well it shows he's with Owen Smith really". It's understandable that a paranoid bunker mentality has built up but that sort of "you're either with us or against us" approached being turned on people who want you to do well is total bullshit.

Of the many criticisms that are thrown at Corbyn, there are two that stick most with me - one is that he's happier preaching to the converted than trying to win over other people. I suspect the hundreds of people turning up to support him feeds his vanity to an extent and fools people into thinking that the rest of the country can be dragged along in that irresistible slipstream. It probably can't, which is why having a proper electoral strategy is essential.

The other is that he's only interested in hearing what he wants to hear. We know what happens when parties only listen to yes-men. And we seem to be hearing from a parade of formerly supportive non-party experts who have been consulted, then ignored only for McDonnell to just make policy up on the hoof apparently without consulting anyone. Committing to "balancing the books", for example, despite that being manifestly at odds with any kind of workable anti-austerity approach.

The recapture of Labour from the right after the next election is a probability unless Corbyn's team get their shit together or radically change the leadership electoral rules (which may be outside their control anyway). It might already be too late. That Blairism 2.0 Labour Party may fail on its own terms, or it may narrowly win the following election against a by-then-detested Conservative Party, at which point either socialism will be off the agenda for a generation or the younger support will find its own, different outlet and full Pasokification will begin.

Great post

Fuck. That's like getting the Blair endorsement.

lol

the truth is somewhere in the middle still i think. so many of my old lefty chums that i talked to at the Corbyn rally seem both more optimistic and more paranoid than i am, but their paranoia is grounded somewhere at least in the vicinity of reality - there really are a lot of enemies in high places of any kind of move away from neolib economics and they really are prepared to do whatever it takes to undermine any movement that disagrees with them. so people dig in, whether its helpful or not.

Corbyn seems a good public speaker to me and damn straight he should be using that to preach beyond the choir. but he's operating in the narrowest of spaces to broadcast any message he has thru hostile media space.

but sure i think the left in its broadest sense needs to come to terms with the fact that they have to use the corrupt and broken mechanisms that currently exist if they want to put themselves in a position to repair anything. it's just that even put like that, it reeks of Mandelson to a lot of people, and they might shoot themselves in the foot rather than accept it.

Ultimately the neoliberal consensus, if it ever really existed, is broken and isn't going to magically put itself back together even if the Labour Party decides it should. And that's without taking the destructive impact of Brexit into account.

But it'll probably lurch on like a zombie until there's something to replace it is that isn't just visionless anti-austerity or pie-in-the-sky Paul Mason technobabble. And it could yet emerge from the right rather than the left, which is the big danger.

Corbyn in the early days sounded considerably more visionary than he does now, but a lot of his more interesting ideas seem to have been discarded. I don't really understand what happened there.

it's real simple: how do you persuade millions of people (or 200,000 vacant idiots depending on your stance on the electoral system) that the welfare state they've been told for 30 years is an evil and destructive thing is actually a very good thing we should bring back? and then how do you create millions of jobs with liveable pay and terms that make the world better rather than run it to the brink of annihilation?

should be able to get a start on sorting that before 2020, i honestly sort of agree.

Corbyn was still talking on Saturday about a national investment bank to begin to address the second part of that equation btw

That's true but it's an abstraction to a lot of voters, it may have a beneficial effect on them but it's several steps removed from their actual lives. It needs to be something that people immediately and emotionally understand, and something that the Tories won't just steal. And something that the public believes they can deliver. The last bit is the tricky bit in the current climate.

Corbyn and co could so worse than to try barnstorming populism at this stage. Actually pledging to do things for people, rather than stopping the removal of things that a lot of voters won't really miss until they're gone.

but you know how promises to spend get presented. not that i disagree.

he also talked about building council houses - maybe start pulling some figures together and presenting it as policy, sure

That relies on the assumption that May or Hammond will use the same tactics as their predecessors. And the bigger assumption that they will be able to sustain a broad enough coalition of voters in favour austerity for another four years.

I wont rescind my endorsement short of an obama instruction

One of the problems Corbyn has is that a very broad section of the media won't even report on his policies. It suits their agenda more/and probably gets more clicks just to run something like listen to this fucker on Trident/IRA/Royalty type shite. His "No Communities Left Behind" National Investment Bank stuff could be very popular out here in the provinces, and I'm sure he isn't willfully trying NOT to get his message out here.

http://redstartblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/a-response-to-owen-jones.html?_sm_au_=iVVLJ6fSTRnrDGF7&m=1

Good answers, but I don't really see the importance of Owen Jones, nor that of having his support. If anything having his support has a low to medium Eddie Izzard irritant factor attached to it imo. But at least that blogger has kept it reasoned and polite and obviously has a bit more of a clue than OJ!

I just had a skim to the Owen piece at the time. Diane's response wasn't dignified but really you look at how it begins with Owen showing his CV of work over the years for Labour, trying to demonstrate he isn't a Blairite stooge and the main takeaway is that a JC leadership was the worst thing that could've happened to Owen Jones. Like did you really just want a debate and then go to Yvette or Burnham?! Fuck me. There seem to be valid questions but the tone of "JC and supporters must answer this questions" needs a laugh track. Whatever the answers to the problem of a JC leadership, they don't lead to Owen Smith.

Mason and Gilbert are actually mapping out a potential strategy.

"It's easy to say "well Labour wouldn't win under anyone in 2020" - firstly I'm not sure that true, but then again a victory by the Labour right probably wouldn't get us anywhere worth going anyway"

Well if Ed had won we wouldn't have Brexit - but as depressing all of that is going to be its not like, as you say, neolibs won't stop being a broken basket-case of a project and that the continuous threats to the EU will go away (which may actually destroy the EU and make the whole debate we've had redundant). That's why we need this re-orientation from neo-libs as a beginning. Ultimately, the debate/war Labour is undergoing looks ugly and its risking destruction - but this is where I'd rather be.

There needs to be something like long-term thinking, which is why I like Gilbert's "lets not put all our eggs in one basket" to the 2020 question. Ultimately Labour left its constiuency and the argument is now about how do we get them back. Its a hard, long road (and in Scotland its 10x that effort), but again you won't get answers from Owen Smith - there are no possibilities with him. With JC - despite all the issues - there might be.

a lot of his more interesting ideas seem to have been discarded. I don't really understand what happened there.

Richard Murphy was the source of some of these interesting ideas IIRC - is it that Corbyn's not talking them up because now Murphy's "off the team"?

Murphy and Blanchflower have been scathing about the lack of movement around strategy/policy that began by hiring them in the first place and now has ground to a halt (since they stopped working with Corbyn/been sacked). Those would be fruitful lines of attack from Owen Smith but from what I am seeing there isn't much on that score.

A lot of policy - Ed M MkII - we all know how that went.

Fundamentally I think the relationship soured with McDonnell's bizarre in-out manoeuvre over Osborne's now scrapped fiscal charter. I can't actually remember if McDonnell's still committed to it but it was a prime case of political positioning trumping economic reasoning.

iirc McDonnell did a U-turn pretty quickly? He got 'better' or what have you.

From Murphy's account it seemed to just...stop...but idk its all lets be a policy churning machine to this. The fundamental issue is the make-up of the party. A sickness requiring major surgery.

just sat down with a few recent articles I'd been meaning to have a read of thought I'd start with owen jones and it's kind of what I'd been expecting. the biggest surprises are his inclusion of "tow the line" and "honing in on" - is this a cry for help?

Much better stuff coming from Corbyn today. When is the debate on?

7pm

http://www.owen2016.com/environment

Is that supposed to be live? Still got the Latin placeholder text in.

I think that was On a Raqqa tip's point in posting it

is that...susan sarandon? just went back to check and it seems to be gone :*(

Aw. They have deleted it. Yes, lots of his policies on the website were just placeholder text.

https://s31.postimg.org/i7a71pbfv/owen_2016_environmental_policy.jpg

I thought it was another example of the multi-lingual Smith, already seen him talking Double-Dutch and fluent bullshit.

Not really seen sites just before they go live so could be that they would do something like that as they test it just before adding real content.
It has the real stuff up now.

Yeah so may have been more accurate and truthful before he swapped to English?

Meanwhile Jeremy's pn the BBC news right now outlining the 10 Main points of his campaign. Live right now.

I'm hoping that these hustings around the country are going to go for Corbyn, first one in Cardiff has Smith getting a lot of applause.
Are the rest of them going to get the same televising? Or are at least some of them?

Not sure about Smith's strength in Wales but am aware taht he comes from there.
But God, do hope he isn't going to come out of the election strong.

I just watched a youtube of the opening debate and had to stop because I find Smith one of the most agonising and depressing fuckers in current party politics. I really hope Eddie Izzard becomes a major stan. His gambit about the Tories destroying the wonderful SureStart legacy would probably elicit a Muttley reaction from NV.

did i say i was talking to a fellow ex-SureStart vet last week and she confirmed all my prejudices? over-bureaucratic, patronising, disempowering, some of the staff acting like they were missionaries to people previously beyond civilization etc.

i'm sure that they did some good stuff depending on the individuals involved, i feel like i did some good stuff, they made some key services more accessible to people for a while, but this woman's description of a Nu Labour ruse to distract a bunch of lefties and keep us out of the way had a painful ring. it still felt like it was part of the "everybody can be middle class" policy that was Blair/Brown's central, stupid, dishonest idea.

How has Labour changed the consensus?

There is some really desperate stuff from former New Labour stans on this thread but Sure Start as the centrepiece of a shimmering legacy has never run true. Possibly that's because it's called 'Sure Start' m when people start talking about free TV licenses for pensioners it's game over. Only the Pinefox's point about gay rights really holds true.

it was a very Nu Labour-y project, i don't know how much new money was put in and what there was was intended to taper off pretty quickly. it was largely a realignment of existing services. there was no national strategy, each individual SureStart was supposed to be responsive to local need which in practice left you with a set of quangos where a small core of the faithful were free to organize them as they saw fit

I am surprised I never had any dealings with them at all, was having lots of undiagnosed ASC kid schooling issues at the time - but we just muddled through it.

was mainly aimed at pre-schoolers, i used to do play sessions for kids with developmental delay who were generally to young to have been properly diagnosed

and you've hit on one of the problems there calz, it doesn't mean a lot if they then go to schools that are under-resourced, under-trained and under too much stupid result-related pressure to deal adequately with neurodiverse pupils

We had to remove him from reception, so the problems did start very early. But tbh I can't say I'm bothered we had no interaction with SS, but I could imagine some people would have needed their help more than we did at the time and just as easily slipped through the net.

Luckily my partner was determined enough to home educate him rather than deal with any more of the shit schools we dealt with at the time.

New members will be allowed to vote, the five who complained have won their test case in court.

understatement: lol

Corbyn victory practically certain now, surely?

will new members who also coughed up £25 when it looked like that was the only way they could vote be eligible for a refund?

I was wondering what the outcome of this case was. Haven't heard anything on BBC news so was wondering if it was being reported.
Wonder if there will be any further thought on the tens of thousands rejected during the supporter sign up. Or even if teh status of those who've payed £25 will be changed.

Otherwise wonder what will be done about that £25 that's been charged.

It did look like applying for membership had been switched off while the sign up was going on so still not sure if supporter automatically = member or if they want you to be on a standing fee for that.

Anyway, fantastic.

Lol, they tried so hard to rig this and all in vain.

Mr McNicol explains (paragraphs 37 of his First Statement) that he originally
proposed a fee of £12 to discourage “paper applications”, and to reflect the additional
costs of hiring staff to vet the registered supporter applicants. He says there were two
reasons for raising it to £25 (paragraph 41):

i) For the further discouragement of ‘paper members’.

ii) The minimum standard Party membership fee for an unwaged member is
around £26 per annum (in fact, it seems, £23.52: see paragraph 17 above), that
being the fee for unwaged members. It was logical to bring the fee for
registered supporters into rough alignment with that minimum Party
membership fee.

If members who had joined and paid the fee were not allowed to vote, that logic is
perhaps not obvious; but, again, the rationale for this is not relevant to the claim as
put.

lol judicial understatement