Jeremy Corbyn vs Angela Eagle

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

Stephen Bush ‏@stephenkb 7m7 minutes ago
Real impact of court ruling will be to further delay hard thinking by Corbynsceptics on next steps as will retreat to "Greens wot lost it".

Stephen Bush ‏@stephenkb 7m7 minutes ago
Labour's most widespread tradition really is that it loves a good myth in defeat.

seems otm

I'm still not sure if affiliated supporter = member or to what degree.
Are they going to keep those who've payed the £25 fee at that status or suggest that those who are waged top up and become full members.

any link pls?

full judgement is here: https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/evangelou-v-mcnicol-20160808.pdf

twitter barristers now debating what this means in practice

Greg Callus @Greg_Callus
My reading of the Labour Party judgment is Declaration & risk of having to repay £25 damages x 120k members is enough for NEC to reconsider

Greg Callus ‏@Greg_Callus
But Judge has given leave to apply for relief: does this mean if NEC sticks to 'freeze date' & pays damages, apply for specific performance?

Greg Callus ‏@Greg_Callus
Seems to me that who votes in Leadership election still - for now - a matter for NEC. Claimant's have won £25 damages each & a Declaration.

Greg Callus ‏@Greg_Callus
Notwithstanding Cs' victory on construction of the Rules, I imagine a judge might be somewhat slower to *Order* NEC to include newer voters

ty

at last the law getting tough with these scam artists

So this is the judge's verdict not something that the NEC has directly agreed to so far?
I think that was part of what the problem was going to be. Wouldn't it be difficult to enforce really unless the NEC agree to it?

But then again if they don't they will look pretty bad, not that they don't already.

So according to what I was hearing last week, the vote for the new membership of the NEC ended last Friday, when will the results come out? & when will the new NEC lineup take over?

I am not sure but I'm guessing the Momentum candidate Rhea Wolfson will have got a lot of votes, and hopefully Eddie Izzard got none.

no coverage as yet on criteria for who will be permitted to vote when ed balls appears on strictly

BBC News story has labour likely to appeal decision
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37009871?post_id=10206018898646269_10208652688969381#_=_

so do wonder where thsi si likely to wind up.

It would be interesting if they appealed, given that Smith has apparently said he's ok with the outcome - not that he could have said much different. I suppose the primary reason would be financial - the risk of having to pay hundreds of thousands of Pounds in compensation to people who were told to cough up twice.

Smith calling for the leadership contest timetable to be extended. not sure what the justification for that would be, aside from that he's on course to lose badly as things stand and they want more time to weaken Corbyn.

what are they going to try next? Fuck me!

McDonnell is right in saying that using their expanded coffers to finance an appeal doesn't look very good at all.

maybe Smith has realised that his best chance of winning is if he can get the leadership election extended for 15 years and Corbyn dies of old age before voting closes