Jeremy Corbyn vs Angela Eagle

nobody in PLP is backing any of Smith's policies other than stopping Corbyn. He could be saying he would make it mandatory for everybody to take a shit on a pic of the queen every wednesday and still there would complete silence.

I think that's probably right but for them to be publicly undermining him on his only significant campaign pledge shortly before the election isn't something i expected.

Maybe Chuka is regretting shitting out at the first hurdle, especially after seeing how much slack the press have been cutting Smith's diabolical performances. I could imagine a large swathe of Blairites secretly wincing like fuck at Smith so far. But still parotting the "electoral credibility" line about him.

I mean seeing Smith as a Labour leadership contender gives me hope I might be living in a castle in Monte Carlo one day.

Chuka shit it at the slightest bit of press scrutiny previously, but now Corbyn is here he realises opposing him is a piece of piss. As evidenced by Smith continually shitting the bed and getting away with it.

well this is my crude homegrown theory

This thread got p scatalogical.

Stay out of the us election one for a while maybe....

xp
lol you are right, i'm blaming it on the afternoon sesh rather than my own shittiness

Even in the unlikely event that he were to somehow win I'm not sure Smith is even remotely prepared for everything that would rain down on him at once Corbyn is safely out of the way. The Murdoch press isn't giving him a free ride because they agree with his policies either. This is assuming Smith agrees with his own policies, which is a huge assumption.

Chuka's own constituency voted overwhelmingly for Remain fwiw. I'm sure that will be rewarded in four years time.

Ha, I was drinking in the club near my flat, and someone mentioned the local party were next door (I had received the email, but had overlooked it amongst all the labour spam). So I went in, and it was a vote on an amendment to the decision to endorse smith. Basically saying that whoever wins we need to unite behind the winner. Shrug. Interesting the votes and abstentions were from smith supporters.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/tim-farron-i-want-to-park-lib-dem-tanks-on-the-tories-lawn-a3344426.html

think Mr Farron might have to promise to move his party further right before any of the PLP will offer to join him

those lib-dem tanks in full

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/pacificrim/images/6/61/Cat_Tank_01.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131122224114
https://pp.vk.me/c623619/v623619031/1fc66/l4mKt4FfQz0.jpg
http://ru.fishki.net/picsw/032013/20/pics/pics-0030.jpg

lol

Those tanks would definitely get more votes

"They are not interested in getting into power because victory is a bourgeois concept,” Mr Johnson said.

Tell that to Stalin.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/17/labour-crisis-alan-johnson-demands-relentless-rebellion-against/

Stalin had the right idea for the likes of Johnson

"It makes me really depressed and sometimes angry when I see some smart-arse 26-year-old saying, 'We've always felt the Labour Party is a place of nasty Blairites but now Jeremy is there we've decided to give them the honour of our membership'."

Mr Johnson added: "It's worse than self-indulgent, it's ... tyrannical.

this seems so obviously counterproductive; Neil Kinnock (for example) always seems careful to say that he thinks the influx of new, young members is a positive thing, even when he's criticising Corbyn and the current direction of the party.

AJ is probably still butthurt about the referendum result, and eager to perpetuate the myth that Everything Is Jeremy Corbyn's fault, even though he himself was in charge of the Labour campaign and couldn't deliver an In vote from his own constituents. Curious to know how many Out voters were motivated by the desire to screw David Cameron, along with the "concerns about immigration" people and the "£350m a week for the NHS" crew.

Johnson is also a serial bottler of leadership challenges.

I have no idea why he's considered a safe pair of hands or a 'big beast' considering the bottling, etc.

While we're here: Paul Mason - going bonkers or speaking truth to power structures?

As I was saying to my housemate just a couple of hours ago: my father is also wondering about Paul Mason's mental health.

That is all.

I get the impression that Mason has always had some odd views, but that this was less obvious when he was a TV news economics correspondent, rather than whatever he is now? he doesn't seem noticeably more bonkers than any other member of Workers' Power that I've met, certainly.

(not that I've ever met Paul Mason, but you understand)

I am increasingly finding myself agreeing with everything Mason says these days, probably not much of an endorsement:p

https://twitter.com/jamesgoldstone/status/762960132095565824

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/17/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-members-choose-shadow-team

In what will be presented as a conciliatory move to unify the party, one proposal is that a third of shadow cabinet posts are elected by the parliamentary party, another third by the leader and a final third by members.

um, good luck with that

Yeah I don't get that at all. What information will the membership have from the candidates on which to base their selections? Voting track record, tax returns, health records?

Could be about as meaningless as the old posters I use to see round uni in the 80s for elections to the NUS committee. People I'd never heard of, statements I didn't believe.

As it happens, 2011 was also when I interviewed him last, and we meet in the same Soho cafe. Mason still drinks multiple cups of cappuccino but everything else has changed. The pinstriped suit has gone, along with the need to try and at least appear impartial. He’s now in jeans, stubble and giving off a palpable sense of purpose. He’s not quite the movement’s Jagger but he’s one of the headliners, a star act, punching through on Twitter, appearing at the rallies, top of the bill at The World Transformed – though he’s no Corbynista. “On the night we won the NEC decision that allowed him on to the ballot paper, I was at a rally in Camden. There was a thousand people in the room cheering on Corbyn, shouting: ‘We love Jeremy!’ and I shocked them by saying: ‘I don’t give a shit about Jeremy Corbyn!’ To me, he is a good guy, I support him, but he’s a placeholder for a different kind of politics.”

It’s this different kind of politics that’s energising him. In America, he says, “what the Occupy generation chose to do was to occupy the Democratic party and that’s effectively what the people who don’t like neoliberal capitalism have chosen to do here: to occupy the Labour party.”

That’s interesting, I say, because that’s exactly what Richard Angell of Progress says is happening. Only the word he uses is “hijack”.

“I’m quite glad about that, though all we’re really doing is reclaiming it.”

But at what cost? Won’t it split the party?

“We, on the left of the party, didn’t want this fight. But it’s like what General Sherman said in the American civil war: ‘You’ve chosen war. We’re going to give you all the war you can take.’”

It’s a slightly chilling answer.

Capuccino is my drink of choice too btw.

Corbyn was also the cover feature in the Guardian weekend section yesterday which came with this interview
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/17/jeremy-corbyn-should-be-tougher-not-my-style

just listened to 15 minutes of John Pienaar and other political journalists discussing Corbyn and the Labour Party and weirdly the subjects of policy, economics, the electorate or democracy didn't come up once. it's almost as if political journalism has got fuck all to do with those things.

so if one were making wry observations about Paul Mason's emotional stability - and i think that's fair game! - my question might be why don't more hacks go stark raving mad in the face of the smug technocracy they feed off?

I can't listen to Pienaar any more - not that he ever was worth shit, I just pretend he doesn't exist these days and feel a lot happier.

Yeah I don't get that at all. What information will the membership have from the candidates on which to base their selections? Voting track record, tax returns, health records?

Could be about as meaningless as the old posters I use to see round uni in the 80s for elections to the NUS committee. People I'd never heard of, statements I didn't believe.

― For bodies we are ready to build pyramids (wtev), Sunday, September 18, 2016 7:14 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh, I think giving the membership a role in electing the shadow cabinet is a great idea if Corbyn can manage to get it through. the left did very well at getting members to vote for their slate in the recent NEC elections, and there are a lot of very engaged members with strong opinions about the PLP, so I don't think it will be like the NUS situation you describe. I doubt that Corbyn's opponents are going to view giving one third of the vote to the leadership and one third to the overwhelmingly pro-Corbyn membership as a "conciliatory move", though

I agree with a lot of what Mason says but his rhetoric is increasingly hysterical and his technobabble is virtually 100% bullshit. Ultimately he is a better journalist than a polemicist but opting for the latter effectively frees him from any obligation towards self-questioning.

I don't think he's mentally ill fwiw and in any case Channel 4 news is surely one of the better environments for a left-wing journalist.

It’s a slightly chillingcool answer.

Is there any substance to the story that Corbyn didn't know how many seats the Labour Party has to recover/win at the next election?

not really imo - at the last debate Smith said at that Corbyn probably didn't know how many seats they need to pick up for a majority, and challenged him to give the number, Corbyn said "over 90", Smith said it was actually 105, and it's appalling that Corbyn didn't know this etc. I think the exact figure depends how you work it out, though - there are 650 MPs, so you need 326 for a majority, Labour won 232 at the last election which is presumably where Smith is getting his 105 from - that includes the speaker though, and three deputy speakers, none of whom take part in votes as far as I know. and obv all this could change with the boundry review, anyway.

also there are the Sinn Féin MPs who don't take their seats, and possibly various other quirks that I'm forgetting

it's of no importance whether anybody is carrying the number around in their heads, that's another quirk

yes, that too. (obv Smith wouldn't need to carry it around in his head anyway, as he's going to get it tattooed on his chest if he wins)

another revealing little snippet of Smith's "thought" process, true

also aren't there going to be less than 650 MPs? not that the question deserves an answer, but

it would be down to 600 under the proposals from the boundry review, if that is approved

Sorry to go back but this is beautiful:

Paul Mason Verified account
‏@paulmasonnews

List of brands that have advertised vs C4’s anti-Corbyn programme: #Dubai, #Lavazza, #Kia, #Samsung - £30k of ad spend.

Paul Bailey
‏@paulbailey

@paulmasonnews And? Christ, what happened to you?

In Bristol and Mason is here on Wednesday to give a talk on his favourite films - really tempted to go.

Just to check for signs of you know...

If I was trying to market coffee then I would all fucking over a programme watched exclusively by bourgeois wonks and metropolitan lefties.

There is a genuine young (>30) person in my Facebook friends who posted about going to a Smith rally and called him 'wonderful', I was astounded but don't know her well enough to start piling in on her feed with snarky comments.