Come anticipate the upcoming Labour leadership election with me

this is so dumb. if they're going to get a new leader, they should wait a while so that he/she hasn't exhausted the honeymoon period/salad days of exciting new leadership before a general election comes along. a year and a half, two years is pointless. i know this theory happily proposes prolonged suffering under brown for the next little while, but it's still preferable to a tory government for the next decade.

i also think that this could be avoided by headline-grabbing policies, like putin's veteran parades and stuff, but they're seemingly not on the agenda.

Actually it kind of makes sense. Getting someone in now who would be sacrificial lamb to a snap election is the only hope Labour have of coming back in 2013. If Brown hangs on till 2010 they would be looking at a generation out of power

Sacrificial lamb? Sounds like a job for...
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/uploads/images/Ed%20Balls_p3%231%23.jpg
Indiana Balls

Whoever comes in would pretty much have to call a General Election to gain any legitimacy (in the popular consciousness, not real legitimacy). And they will lose.

Unless the unthinkable happens and the country is so excited by Harriet Harman or David Miliband they they bounce back into Number 10. Which is unthinkable.

do you think it's set in stone that there couldn't be any turnaround? i can imagine the playing field being levelled if it was new guy with three months of crowdpleasing under his belt versus cameron. i also like this:

Much of his credo is wrapped in an attack on Cameron, admitting that the odds are now against a Labour victory, but arguing that Cameron in "classic Conservative style is stuck reconciling himself to New Labour Mark 1 at just the time when the times demand a radical new phase". He also echoes his close political ally James Purnell in arguing that Cameron is a Conservative, not a radical.

given that there's been pretty much no engagement with what cameron's like, or the gulf between his rhetoric and policies/support on abortion time limits &c, it's kind of nice to think that there's someone who'd make the election about the tories failings.

Labour should set an election for around August 09, and just spend the time between the election of a new leader and the next election engaging in ridiculously short-term financial actions. Tax breaks, propping up banks, all that good shit.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1061/646473641_144df560c0_o.gif

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/thickofit/images/thick_char2_swain.jpg

crumbles in the face of horse-faced indignation.

t's kind of nice to think that there's someone who'd make the election about the tories failings.

A government that has to do this - 12 years in - is clutching at its last straw

harriet harman would be the worst of a lot of possible worlds

I'm trying to think of a worse possible Labour leader than Harman. All I can come up with is Shaun Woodward.

A government that has to do this - 12 years in - is clutching at its last straw

A cursory look at PMQs shows that on 18th June Brown answered a question on the Lisbon Treaty by responding that the Conservatives couldn't criticise him, because John Major hadn't managed to unite the party over the Maastricht Treaty back in the day and didn't hold a referendum over it.

On the whole government's 11 years in, mid-term, facing difficult (although that is WILDLY overstated) economic circumstances, don't tend to be too popular. It's got sweet FA to do with leadership, and Labour would be insane to have a leadership election. And they won't. And they'll probably lose the next election, but not as badly as all that. And Cameron is such a vacuous turd that I can't imagine him being anything but an ummitigated disaster in power, so it would be ON for the election after.

Also, is Nick Robinson the worst political journalist ever?

governments, goddamnit!

I read that up there as "June Brown answered a question on the Lisbon Treaty"

A government that has to do this - 12 years in - is clutching at its last straw

I'm assuming he meant the current Tories' failings, rather than the Major government.

There's nothing Labour can do to win the next election, they could offer free housing for the entire nation and the public would dismiss it as a bribe.

I don't know, I think pointing out the failures of the Major government is maybe even more pathetic.

http://www.virginmedia.com/microsites/tvradio/slideshow/tv_fossils/img_4.jpg

"Oooh yes, well, I was just saying to Ethel, I think the Irish vote means it's dead in the water."

w/ all this "acceptance" of the tories winning the next election, isn't it scary to think what a tory government would do for scottish independence?

They'd push for it, probably, or at least for some form of federalisation - no Scottish MPs would mean Labour would have greater difficulty regaining power.

The point about Maastricht is not about what the Tories were like when they were in power, but a constitutional one. If a treaty that did change the position of the UK as much as that one isn't worth a referendum, then why should there be one over a much more modest tweaking treaty?

Seems a pretty sensible point.

yes Forest Pines Mk2 not scary?

OK, substitute the Maastricht comment for any of the other "you can't talk, look what happened when you were in power" statements during PMQs. As late as his second or third last PMQs, Blair was still blaming his problems on the previous Tory government.

yes it isn't fair to blame everything on just the previous tory government

Depends whose side you're on - full independence would be the worst possible outcome for the SNP, as an organisation, for example. The only scary thing about it for me is: that the Tories would be more dominant in an English parliament.

(xxpost)

Well, not when you've been in power for ten years since, I wouldn't think.

xpost

yes

xpost

yeah the tory governments before the previous one didn't help

xpost

I agree, it's lame. Just look at the last Tory government, they were still banging on about the winter of discontent in 1997. Eh? Oh.

PMQs is a pointless waste of time anyway. I'm amazed it even gets reported, let alone that you (or I) remember it.

Yes, I agree with you Jamie etc, although not on PMQs which frequently has some interesting things tucked away in it.

My original point was in contention to water's one - attacking the other party rather than pointing out the good you do isn't last straw grasping, it's been the steady-state of UK politics for 20 years at least.

Well, one of the things the DExpress likes to bang on about is the whole "Bin Collection" thing.

The current situation is a direct result of farming out rubbish collection to outside contractors, who pitch with pricing based on Key Performance Indicators, which in turn are based on maximum volumes.

.. which is back to Major, I believe.

think aldo's saying that maybe they could have changed things like that a bit by this point

A government that has to do this - 12 years in - is clutching at its last straw

clutching at its last JACK straw more like

quite good that i thought

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/12_04/culshaw2912MOS_228x365.jpg

It's got sweet FA to do with leadership

It's got a lot to do with leadership. Labour were flying in the polls before the autumn election that never was - a cock-up completely down to Brown-Balls. Since then it's been down, down, deeper and down.

Still not sure about Milliband. Decent guy, and he gets more criticism than he's due. But I would prefer Johnson. But we need not just a new leader, but a new direction. Indeed, in the cabinet, they appear to be on the progressive side. I think they should get rid of the triangulating tendency: Blears, Hutton, Flint etc. I don't believe that this is a conservative country. That doesn't mean that we should banish the New Labour tendency, but I don't like how some seem to play devil's advocate for the right, in order to score some political points.
But New Labour is a wide spectrum. I think on the left of New Labour, you could have people like Ken, or Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper.

How about:

Livingstone-Johnson
Johnson-Milliband
Harman-Livingstone?

Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?
Harman-Livingstone?

i always thought it was ridiculous during the primaries that hillary was going to wait for a victory, to bow out on a good note; it would have christened obama the candidate fresh from losing a contest. and having livingstone?, so soon after losing to boris, it's not going to win any new ground.

you been raiding HYS again dom

LabourHome

Miliband came top in a June 2008 poll showing which British politician gay men would most like to go a date with. He won with 39% of the vote, David Cameron came in second. [27]

Hang on, Miliband's a complete neo-con cunt isn't he?

If he goes with the slogan "A millie, a millie, a Miliband", I will give him 20p.

It's got a lot to do with leadership. Labour were flying in the polls before the autumn election that never was - a cock-up completely down to Brown-Balls. Since then it's been down, down, deeper and down.

And whose leadership over that difficult summer had led to Labour flying in the polls?

Or, to put it another way: How would Labour be doing if Blair was still PM?

I agree that the "election that the media got wrong" was a real turning point, but that's still not got nowt to do with leadership.

I actually agree with Milliband. It's time to forget about personalities (which is good as he doesn't have one.) The perception is that the economy is fucked, they've been in power a long time, and the media are relentlessly against them. Take it on the chin, be the best government they can be, and see what happens.

No point ruining career of possible future leader now (and who would be such a twat as to take it?) and some sort of caretaker figure is just admitting defeat, which is not going to help, is it?

If he goes with the slogan "A millie, a millie, a Miliband", I will give him 20p.

The other side could use some variation on "David Hood and his Miliband of Men". Bonus points for working in something about robbing the poor to reward the rich.

I think rushing to dump Brown has as many cons as pros. Polls indicate that there's no guarantee that a change in leadership will see a significant bounce and a change in leader would almost certainly necessitate a general election or at the very least a date in the near future for one. The electorate may accept a change of one PM without an election, but not two. The problems that are affecting Brown, high fuel costs, food costs,falling house prices etc won't disappear overnight, however by 2010 the worst may be over and then Brown could claim credit for steering the ship through a stormy spell.

In addition by 2010 Northern Rock may be starting to pay back he money the government gave to bail it out and that would be a major fillip to Brown and Darling, showing strength and nerve in preventing a meltdown of the banking sector.

Of course things may be even worse by then or no better and that's not forgetting the possibility of some other economic or social calamity occuring between now and then, and if that happens they're screwed no matter who's in charge..

I think there is no doubt it would be pointless at best, disastrous at worst to dump Brown. The only question is: how stupid are Labour MPs?

(Sorry, I'm not joining in with jokes and tings am I? Whole thing makes me grumpy.)

Bob Marshall Andrews is calling for Miliband to be sacked, so he must be doing something right.

Who? Bob Marshall Andrews? Yes he is doing something right: any Labour MP who praises Margaret Thatcher should be sacked

Extreme mixed feelings about all this. On the one hand, Brown's is the most entertaining premiership I think I'm ever likely to see. On the other, Prime Minister Harman is the one person who might top it.

Going back to the points made about the constitution and the referendum issue: what's not widely acknowledged is that the reason why there have been referenda in relation to Europe in the past is not because, as a point of principle, the electorate is entitled to a referendum on constitutional issues; but because it suited particular Prime Ministers to have one for a hotchpotch of short-term political reasons, mainly to do with party unity.

For Anti-Europeans to have extrapolated from this potted history the principle that where there is significant constitutional change there should be a referendum is understandable, if cynical. That so many other people have swallowed the idea is just plain bizarre.

The people expressing most of the synthetic outrage at the government's refusal to hold a referendum are Little England Tories, exactly the same people who in other circumstances would be explaining that we are a parliamentary democracy - mother of Parliaments, long tradition, leave referenda to foreigners like the Swiss; and that the electorates function is to elect a body of MPs to make decisions for them, and a good thing too in cases like the European Union, too complex an issue to be fully understood by the average voter. Their claims that the government is ignoring established principle in not holding a referendum are pure hypocrisy.

(They have a somewhat better argument in that the government promised a referendum on its manifesto. But it is still a pretty weak one. Governments fail to keep manifesto promises all the time. There was a convenient fig leaf for the government in the argument that the new proposals were different enough from the old ones to obviate the need for a referendum, and in those circumstances no government was going to hold a referendum that could only cause it massive political damage).

Incidentally, I think the point about being a parliamentary democracy also takes care of the alleged difficulties of Labour electing a new leader. The electorate elects MPs; the MPs choose the Prime Minister. There is nothing in our history to support the idea that there would be constitutional difficulties were Labour to elect a new leader who chose to continue as Prime Minister with the support of the House. There may be political difficulties of course, and you can be sure that opponents of the government would pretend to some constitutional outrage, but there is no real constitutional problem.

PUH-LEASE.
I do not think Harriet Harman is happening. People like Miliband because he's sassy and fresh (its also why I like him but thats neither here nor there) but he will be an epic FAIL. (Btw; if my political language gets too intellectual for some of youse please tell me and I'll try to make it more 'accessible')
On the one hand, Brown's is the most entertaining premiership I think I'm ever likely to see. On the other, Prime Minister Harman is the one person who might top it Fair point.

Incidentally, I think the point about being a parliamentary democracy also takes care of the alleged difficulties of Labour electing a new leader. The electorate elects MPs; the MPs choose the Prime Minister. There is nothing in our history to support the idea that there would be constitutional difficulties were Labour to elect a new leader who chose to continue as Prime Minister with the support of the House. There may be political difficulties of course, and you can be sure that opponents of the government would pretend to some constitutional outrage, but there is no real constitutional problem.
WORD.
When did Miliband praise Thatcher? I don't remember this...

http://www.heady.co.uk/rm/wm750.jpg
If this isn't the face of our next PM then I don't know what more you people fucking want.

There wasn't a Labour leadership election.

Still not sure about Milliband. Decent guy, and he gets more criticism than he's due. But I would prefer Johnson. But we need not just a new leader, but a new direction. Indeed, in the cabinet, they appear to be on the progressive side. I think they should get rid of the triangulating tendency: Blears, Hutton, Flint etc. I don't believe that this is a conservative country. That doesn't mean that we should banish the New Labour tendency, but I don't like how some seem to play devil's advocate for the right, in order to score some political points.
But New Labour is a wide spectrum. I think on the left of New Labour, you could have people like Ken, or Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper.

How about:

Livingstone-Johnson
Johnson-Milliband
Harman-Livingstone?

― The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Wednesday, July 30, 2008 4:04 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ok this has to be c+p.

http://www.labourhome.org/story/2008/7/29/185018/464

special guest stars inability to google morelike

― VeronaInTheClub, Wednesday, 13 August 2008 01:53 (4 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

RIP