Jeremy Corbyn vs Angela Eagle

Like where to begin with this as a way of conducting politics - oh wait *looks at polls, technocrats, endless management*

Corbyn is elected in 2015: at least no more embarrassment over welfare, some anti-imperialism, no more 'listening on immigration'. This re-orientation might be nice.

Corbyn is re-elected in 2016: prays for a re-run of full scale Maoism on these bastards.

Led by Corbyn and driven home by my beautiful thugs in Momentum, natch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yszh_KxeUWU

fucking hate the guy, but he is hilariously otm there

my feelings exactly

that's his job, to be hateable and otm.

(Not shareable and ohm, stupid spelling corrector)

some of his sneery disablist stuff is unacceptable imo, but it is quite easy to ignore him.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/03/corbyn-to-pledge-30bn-to-restore-pride-and-prosperity-to-south-east-england

This is good, and the sort of thing he should have been doing more of all along.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
It's Friday night, I want a drink & some peace. Before I go, a few stats for the people who like their socialism mouthy and impotent.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
It's Friday night, I want a drink & some peace. Before I go, a few stats for the people who like their socialism mouthy and impotent.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
600,000 — The number of children lifted out of poverty in the eight years following New Labour's 1999 child poverty pledge.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
175,000 — The number of extra apprentices between 1997 and 2007.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
103,000 — The number of extra teaching assistants between 1997 and 2007.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
81,000 — The number of extra nurses in the NHS between 1997 and 2007.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
39,000 — The number of extra doctors in the NHS between 1997 and 2007.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
39,000 — The number of extra teachers between 1997 and 2007.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
69 — By March 2009, waiting times for a hospital appointment in England had fallen by 69% on March 1997.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
61 — In 2010/11, spending on benefits and child tax credits had risen in real terms by 61% on 1996/97.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
50 — By March 2009, the number of people on in-patient waiting lists in England had dropped by 50% on March 1997.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
Three — By the end of the last Labour government, the UK was the third-highest spender on family benefits of any country the the OECD.

J.K. Rowling ‏@jk_rowling 23h23 hours ago
Call people like me 'Tory Lite.' Call us 'neoliberals.' Call us whatever the hell you want. Call me back when your achievements match those.

Obviously I think the last one misses the point, but I thought it worth reprinting the tweets, partly because some people here seem to have a funny idea of what she was actually saying, and partly to underline the fact that Frankie Boyle should be shot into the sun.

Never much cared for Boyle but his Guardian columns since GE2015 have been tremendous.

Yes, I think The Guardian didn't publish one of his a couple of months ago so it went up elsewhere. Mostly good.

As for those figures I don't think anyone is denying the '97 Labour government did a few things that immediately helped people (although I think health spending and extra teachers have gone up under most governments) but the arguments against that government are also clear (yes including Iraq, and no I don't care if you are bored by that).

More importantly we need things to change underneath on the way things are run and done. Any increases of spending and apprentices are just stuff waiting to be scaled back when economic winds change.

Well unless someone's going to go back in time and do something to convince a generation in favour of compassion and activism, we're probably fucked then.

those tweets do not underline anything about frankie boyle's response to jk rowling's position on the scottish independence referendum

How so?

I do find the idea of a billionaire trying to paint a positive sheen on New Labour's legacy quite distasteful tbh. I'm not having a swipe at you Andrew, but I don't understand why you would want to be an apologist for such trash. Especially considering Labour's own hand in the current conditions in which a budding single parent author would likely be a lot worse off and be vulnerable to benefits sanctions or even potential homelessness. There is some serious hypocrisy and denial about Labour's legacy from JKR that deserves nothing but contempt imo.

Which of those achievements exactly is the Labour right pledging to emulate after the next election?

Those are charity statistics that have fuck all to do with what a Labour government with a massive mandate should have aspired to. It would be easy to find a list illustrating how well the wealthiest fared under Blair. The gap got bigger. Billionaire liberals fuck off. The wealth gap got bigger.

It's all very well and good to laud Labour's domestic/social/welfare achievements while in power (and JKR did criticise the Tories when they were peeling all of that back) but I feel Corbyn supporters within Labour are disappointed that the party in opposition didn't kick up enough fuss when all those policies were pared back. They didn't defend the disabled, infirm or poor in the face of these things, or challenge 'scrounger' narratives at all. It fell to people on the left of Labour to defend benefits, and be portrayed in the media as 'extreme' for so doing. The mythical 'centre' isn't set in stone, and moves when the debate does. More 'centrist' Labour figures had every opportunity to push back or portray social security gains as settled policy, and they bottled it.

In the Blairite belle epoque I worked for a single parent charity, then managed by a woman who is now a Lab MP and Owen Smith campaign manager, and to which JKR bunged a couple of million quid. Even at the time the org took the view that NuLab's "doing good by stealth" was some very weak sauce, particularly considering Blair's *very first act in power* was to cut single parent benefits - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/38656.stm - and especially considering the popular mandate he had. They were all waiting for some gloves-off, crusading Brown premship that never ever materialised. Absurd to see this now retrospectively hailed as Attlee/Bevan legacy.

Suzy, Stevie, otm

I'd agree with all of that, Suzy - I'm definitely one of those Corbyn supporters - but the tweets show that she at least values the same things a Labour supporter would. She isn't the second coming of Thatcher, or trash that I am apparently apologising for.

yeah, some pretty good evidence for your case there Andrew.

The tweets show that she has no truck with changing the country's economic structure - she believes in being more cuddly to the worst victims of capitalism - New Labour's entire philosophy

Getting into a public spat with young, idealistic Labour foot soldiers when you're a zillionaire on the left (which JKR undoubtedly is) strikes me as a bad battle in the midst of a shitty war.

BTW those of you not following @TheMiliverse on Twitter - get on it, v. LOL.

i do doubt JK's position "on the left" and she undermines that position every time she speaks out in favour of the status quo: Scottish referendum, both Labour leadership votes. well-meaning but defensive criticism of capitalism is as old as capitalism. nobody who wants to preserve a socioeconomic system that relies on segregation of class, race, gender gets to describe themselves as a socialist in my world.,

It is beyond the power of any individual government, even the US or China, to change an entire global economic system in one or even two terms, and certainly not on its own. Any elected Labour government, even a prospective Corbyn one, will have to work within the system to some extent, even if that involves working sincerely to change it. (And there is still more chance of the British public electing a zebra right now).

Rowling's defence rests upon the fact that she's only really prepared to look at the nice bits and therefore completely overlooks everything else. When Blair came to power its because he was capable of selling his own vision to his own party as much as the rest of country. New Labour more generally was about convincing half the country that it was pretending to embrace the post-Thatcherite consensus in order to win enough votes to change it - and I don't doubt that a sizeable chunk of formerly social-democratic politicians genuinely believed this. Some of them are still drinking the Kool-Aid now. But they wouldn't have won without convincing the other half of the country that they wouldn't harm their spiralling house prices and low income tax rates.

The thing is, you can only perform this trick once. And everyone is pretending that isn't the case. You can't try it again without losing a big chunk of the coalition of votes required to win again. So the fourth rate Xerox of New Labour is focusing on the largest constituency there. The only problem is, they vote Tory again, and they're reasonably okay with doing so.

The financial crisis has destroyed the myth that sustained New Labour, that you can have both neoliberal economics AND social-democratic policies and that will please enough people enough of the time to ensure perpetual Labour governments as long as the person at the helm is marketable enough. Because Labour is so used to seeing itself as The Good Guys they assume that most of the population would really prefer to vote Labour as long as they can convince the country of their competence. I can't see any reason why that would be inherently true.

But given the lack of any new overarching vision (and Corbyn is not the man to provide it) you now have to take a side, neoliberal economics OR social democratic policies. And the two wings of the Labour party are making their choices, and they can no longer kid themselves that they stand for the same thing. And for all the pissing and whining about how the country needs a liberal, centrist, capitalist party, no one can bring themselves to endorse Tim Farron, which is hilarious in its own right.

The problem for Corbynites is that Blair's underlying diagnosis (you can't win without Tory votes so you need to appeal to them) is still basically true. The problem is that you can't now can't win without SNP votes as well, and I can't see any way in which it's possible to fight on both those fronts at once.

word to your long post, except you might be wrong about Corbs, but again, he is our flag of convenience more than anything

and i think you're broadly right about the electoral system, but the world is getting darker and more frightening and who knows what a well-organised leftist Labour party might be able to do a little down the road?

Yeah I mean the voters of ten years' time will think very differently. Corbyn is to an extent speaking to those voters now, but they don't exist in sufficient numbers yet - and they aren't evenly distributed around the country in any case. I think Corbyn is feeling his way but is fundamentally more comfortable with his old certainties (he's far from alone in this, whatever wins in 2025 will have to address the problems of 2025 not 1945 or 1965 or 1997, which sounds fucking obvious but I don't think many politicians think that way).

You have to win arguments and create those voters - if you don't then someone else will - and Owen Smith fanboys are never going to do that.

It is beyond the power of any individual government, even the US or China, to change an entire global economic system in one or even two terms, and certainly not on its own. Any elected Labour government, even a prospective Corbyn one, will have to work within the system to some extent, even if that involves working sincerely to change it.

Yes, one look at what happened with Syriza (or Berlusconi, who didn't play nice) tells you any Corbyn government wouldn't last very long LOL fighting the system, but its about electing representatives that talk and highlight the problems, and say a big fat NO to the proposed solutions - and having enough of those around the world (which is happening). This is a very long fight but we are here because the system is on its knees.

Corbyn - or more importantly what gathers around Corbyn (he isn't Moses) under Corbynism - are far more likely to provide alternative. Now what that could be is an open question. I doubt it would be mere re-set of social democratic policies. Corbynism provides an open space where that's possible.

yes Matt Labour left and right are largely holding onto ideologies that have lost meaning - Corbyn's supporters of course include a large cadre that are different to that and intent on addressing the future

In ten years time I doubt Labour AND The Conservative party will exist as they are.

Europe will also fundamentally change. I am not even sure this referendum result might matter that much.

otm

It was interesting to see McDonnell raising the idea of UBI again this week:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/universal-basic-income-not-credible-idea-labour-leadership-contender-owen-smith-a7226051.html

It's not (yet) Labour policy and isn't something i am remotely convinced about but it's probably the kind of thinking that Labour needs to at least be open to if it's going to try to redefine what a progressive future might look like.

For all the stick Corbyn gets about being 'stuck in the past' or whatever, the leadership does seem to be grasping imperfectly for a forward-looking leftism, in contrast to Blue Labour banging on about George Lansbury.

BBC News channel have been announcing a return to the system of an elected shadow cabinet tonight. Has been said several times.
They or Newsnight said a couple fo weeks ago that if that was brought back in before the conference it could go against Corbyn since the new members of the NEC didn't get a vote until after the conference.
So is the internal power battle just going to drag on interminably.

When was it ever not going to drag on?!

Corbz and the PLP tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSMfdKMZfiE

Interminably until we purge those fuckers

I've always preferred those 5 furlong type affairs in horseracing, not those boring 3 mile NH jump races where your 20/1 shot leads all the way and unseats the rider at the last fence. This is starting to feel like a fucking 1000 mile steeplechase ran at a slower than plodding pace and the fav is gaining a millimetres lead at a time. Stalin had some bad work practices but you can't knock his record of rapidly getting party moderates out of the way.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Crswl7dWAAAq8l1.jpg

one of the Black Lace members got a short custodial sentence for benefits fraud recently

I bet he wasn't having a ball

his agadooings were reduced

I've looked at their twitter feed and it seems that the above screenshot is a fake? oh well.

to the Left, to the Right