Jeremy Corbyn vs Angela Eagle

Khan seems generally well liked but waiting until it is fairly clear Smith is almost certainly going to lose is interesting. Idk if that is with one eye on what happens next, following on from the Mason article.

i think "we tried with these people and they still chose Marxism" is definitely going to be part of the split narrative, hence the need for respectful silence/treating Owen Smith as in some way serious and honest.

thing is that Smith is so transparently unserious and dishonest that there's no way of supporting him that doesn't make you look like a right wing chancer. which appears to be Khan's steez anyway.

Barely anyone, Khan included, has tried to make a case for Smith. There is nothing there to make a case for. His endorsement was a case against Corbyn.

I like Khan, he has a decent moral centre - which is relatively rare in the party - even if I don't agree with a lot of his soft leftism. He would be no more electable in the eyes of the press than Corbyn though.

soft left soft lads more like

sadiq khan's whole demeanour to me screams flim flam

He just seems like another career politician to me, but still a fair bit more preferable to the likes of Zac Goldsmith - but that isn't saying much. But I still don't see how winning a mayoral election has made him influential enough to change Labour members, who specifically joined to oppose the likes of him.

I noticed Burnham hasn't jumped on the bandwagon yet, I'm guessing that might have a negative effect on his own mayoral campaign - otherwise he would.

If he was a career politician he probably wouldn't have spent the bulk of his working life rendering himself a walking press hate target by defending accused criminals, terrorists, etc in human rights cases against the government and the police. The papers went into racist meltdown when he was running for control of the cycle hire system, they'd be apoplectic if he became leader.

He triangulates better than most in the party but can definitely come across as too slick.

I was just wondering if Khan was setting any mileposts in his election and looked to see what ethnic mayors of London there had been. Looks like there was a black mayor in 1913 which seems pretty amazing. John Richard Archer.

Looks like Archer was just Battersea but he was an early Labour activist.

I don't really remember hearing about coloured Mayors of London as a city previous to Khan . But could be I'm forgetting people. I don't think it's really been something I've payed teh greatest attention to. & tends to turn up as info when it's people well known for other activity. But I guess that's likely anyway.

Khan seemed to be somebody that I wanted to like. Not really come across things other than the fall out with Corbyn but nt sure what else there is he's been known for. backing the Garden Bridge is about the only other thing I've seen him appear in context of.

his "backing" was lukewarm at best and now he has quite deliberately kicked it into the long grass.

he has been known for quite a few things. there was a recent election in which he spelled out quite a few policies.

Khan won an election in the face of a near blanket hostile press that was actively racist and worse than anything Corbyn has had to deal with. Obviously the London electorate is different to the rest of the UK but it voted Boris in twice and can't be relied upon by Labour.

The very fact that he was elected shines an unflattering light on Corbyn, because he anticipated that hostility and had a team and a strategy that were capable of countering it. Everything that Corbyn - who let's face it is still basically winging it - has failed to do.

But didn't some of the racially divisive tactics + the complete sliminess of his opponent make it easier for him? The Goldsmith campaign was transparently vile and doomed to failure in London imo. I think they ended up pissing off/alienating far more voters than they could afford to.

Yeah he was fortunate in his opponent but he was also able to turn the vileness of that Goldsmith campaign to his advantage.

the "coloured" and "ethnic" mayors of London

https://twitter.com/maxrothbarth/status/767447830483070976

Being half african myself I'm wondering what term to use to convey non-white.
I don't remember there being many who have been mayor of the city. Looks like there have been a few holding the role for boroughs dating back to 1913.
I wondered if Khan had actually been the 1st for the entire city. Seems to be the first muslim anyway.

Seeing as the position was only created in 2000 I will go out on a limb and say Khan is definitely the first non-white mayor of London.

https://scontent-ams3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/13698115_10153832950582671_8395285417787843642_o.jpg

Right, thought the role was older, must have been conflating with LORD Mayor of London which is non elected.

Kezia Dugdale says Labour's situation is 'ugly'

Ms Dugdale told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme that her decision to speak out "demonstrates how serious a situation the Labour Party is in".

She said: "I think that the Labour Party is in a very difficult position just now.

"I think it is ugly, I think it is a real turn off to people across the country to see a party ripping itself apart and it's my job to do what I can to get the party back on the front foot, to get its act together.

another deluded narcissist

Has Smith reacted to this hammer-blow to his claims of electability?

Quite amusing. Daily Mail take on Owen Smith's chances that somebody posted to another list.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3751067/DAN-HODGES-Spineless-incoherent-incompetent-Owen-Smith-s-house-cards-collapsing.html

It sounds like he has probably been copying Mason's homework and putting a DM spin on it.

Hodges is firmly in favour of the right of the party going to war with Corbyn, with no half measures offered as compromise. How this would work any better than Smith fudging a leftish position idk.

or rather, when he brutally elbowed Angela Eagle aside

yeah, that happened. With kindness, more..

is the idea that hodges "is labour" and that a "right wing" labour would better reflect his views than...the tories? I mean beyond all regular accusations of labour people being "red tories" isn't hodges so far gone that it's not like anyone would bother branding as such? although john mcternan seems fairly identical in his let's call it rhetoric and still bothers to insist he "is labour"

I think Hodges has flounced out of the party at least twice over the last few years - hated Miliband for being too left wing as well.

Did not realise he is Glenda Jackson's son!

See, I had no idea that Ed was left-wing until halfway through the last general election. up to then, it was that he looked weird eating things, and that he had a brother.

There is a feeling that firstly by selecting Ed over David, and now Jeremy over everyone else, that it's the tail wagging the dog. That is, if you count "tail" as the bit of the dog between the ears and the hind-quarters, and the "dog" as that waggy thing at the back.

i don't know if Dan Hodges has any genuine political beliefs - as opposed to cronies, a playground gang, whatever most career politicians think politics is - but if he does have any beliefs they are not even social democratic, never mind socialist. but who cares? he's thick as two short planks.

sheltered privileged posh kid telling working class people what the Labour Party's for, still so many of them around.

like you'd know

;)

At least he openly admits to being a Blairite, the slippery, covert Blairites that exist in greater numbers are the real menace imo

my dog in this race is still Green expansionism fwiw, does that make me a monster

Only if you eat the spinach / get very angry

At least he openly admits to being a Blairite, the slippery, covert Blairites that exist in greater numbers are the real menace imo

i don't know that there are so many Blairites as that those there are are still in positions of endless media access and are given coverage disproportionate to their numbers.

i do think there are a majority of left-liberal/soft-left types within the party, especially active within the party, and they get worn down by the relentless and seemingly obvious logic of "Labour must win power to do good"

i think that's a lie. 13 years of Blair/Brown government widened inequality, entrenched Neolib economics, moved along the privatisation of the NHS and the education system, increased government by crony and quango and most importantly of all made the Labour Party and the whole political system less democratic and marginalized all voices for leftist economic or political ideas.

that's why people are clinging to Corbyn now, because unless the party and specifically the "moderates" can offer some sense that those mistakes won't be repeated, that power will not be used in the furtherance of an agenda that doesn't give one fuck about the interests of working class people, or equality of life chances, or democratisation of our economy - unless they can offer something to say "yeah we get it we perhaps shouldn't accept the whole Thatcherite transformation of the UK as a great achievement" then nobody with an ounce of self-respect on the left will trust them.

and they've offered nothing. and that's the case we should be making to people who think of Corbyn as a cult, because it isn't, it feels much more like a last stand.

good post

So ballots have been sent today? When do online voters get theirs?

"i do think there are a majority of left-liberal/soft-left types within the party, especially active within the party, and they get worn down by the relentless and seemingly obvious logic of "Labour must win power to do good" "

I was listening to that nauseating N Irish chief whip guy on R4, debating with a Corbyn supporting MP last night. If only he was getting worn down, the fucker sounded like he was running on triple industrial strength duracell batteries and could have gone all night. I forgot the name of the female Corbyn supporting MP, but she sounded a bit more sad and jaded by it all.

the real fuckers - the media figures, the MPs so deep in corporate sponsorship and doublethink that they think it's how life is supposed to work - obv, they've got some lungs on them. they're often fighting for very well-paid livelihoods after all.

also she pointed out that she switched her allegiance in the mayoral election from Diane Abbott to Khan for the sake of the party and now regrets doing so.

Hodges has no real politics really, he was only really ever in the Labour Party through accident of birth and has nothing to say beyond repeating 'win elections!' again and again and again. Like I get that some degree of compromise is usually required for anyone to achieve power, but Hodges is just some dude who's realised that right-wing publications will continue to throw many at any 'insider' prepared to slag the Labour Party off on a weekly basis. That's all he is.

I like to imagine Glenda, pen hovering over her leadership ballot for .7587 seconds before ticking the Corbyn box.

The thing I noticed in the meeting I went to were that the smith voters tended to say things like 'this ideological squabbling is a distraction - we have to win an election'. I know that's not an original observation, but I was surprised to see it incarnated.

"Owen has the strongest Labour values - he led and won our fight against the Tory cuts to tax credits and disability allowances. The polls show he is the most likely Labour candidate to win the next election."

This is from my Khan email, to get a fuller picture it should also include "He was also one of the 184 Labour MPs who failed many of their constituents by absconding on The Welfare Reform Bill"

Not totally sure if me asking my union branch to switch my subs to the Labour affiliated fund last week was too little too late out here

― Dadjokke (Sgt. Biscuits), Tuesday, 12 July 2016 21:48 (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

For anyone keeping score, no dice, you had to be fully affiliated before 15 Jan even if you were a union member before that

The day after they told me that I got a lovely e-mail from Harriet Harman telling me to vote for Owen Smith

I lose track of which bits of the Labour party/movement know who I am and whether or not I've said they can spam me so it's hard to know whether to kick off

So ballots have been sent today? When do online voters get theirs?

just received mine by email

It was interesting, BBC News was saying that a lot of the non-counted affiliated supporter applications came from people whop were already registered to vote in the election. Not sure what that means in terms of feedback and confirmation etc.

Also said that one applicant had tried to join 170 odd times which had me wondering if they were aware they had managed or not