Political round up.............

First topic message reminder :

Turn up for the books.............The hard left guy gets on the ballot for the Labour leadership !!....Managed to bag 35 nominations although some were chucked at him by Burnham who will no doubt pick up many of his second preferences...........

Corbyn has no chance....

However it means one of the other three is likely to get hurt in the first round..........Corbyn no doubt will hoover up the extreme nutty left of which there are no doubt plenty in the Labour party and will probably get enough to take him through the first round !!...

(Cruddas finished top in the 2007 Deputy leader race after the first round (He was the "left" candidate)...Of course Harman and Johnson did better as the rounds progresses with second prefs...)

That means one of the three favorites is likely to be eliminated first..................

Latest odds............

Burnham 10/11
Kendall 5/2
Cooper 3/1
Corbyn 66/1 .................

guildfordbat wrote:Cheers, wheels. That was my perception although it's interesting to hear a down to earth Labour member say the same.

As to whether it's ''right or wrong'' ... well, I certainly think it's understandable. Imo Blair's integrity has suffered heavily in recent times and that can only be damaging to candidates previously associated with him. Corbyn automatically benefits from not having been in that camp and. as you suggest, that benefit now increases further every time Blair opens his trap.

For some reason Blair continues to open his mouth he must know he is damaging the chances of his prefered candidate. I did not vote for Corbyn as i have said before but there is no doubt he has owned the leadership race so far and the other candidates have always been playing catch up

wheelchair1991 wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:Hi wheels, you clearly have an ear close to Labour's ground. What's your view of Blair's ''Alice in Wonderland'' speech and the effect it might have on the party's voters?

For my own part, I wonder if Blair underestimates the backlash against him now (''illegal'' war, ''moneygrubbing'' in particular) and whether his comments are more likely to increase Corbyn's share of the vote.

Every time Blair says to Labour members don't vote for Corbyn his vote increases more.  Blair and Blairism are poisonous words for the most ordinary labour members.  
Right or wrong that's how it is

Did you see the Clinton memos?

She basically said the same. That David M lost due to association with/support of Blair, and that Blair is currently still pretty toxic among a lot of Labour supporters.

Pretty harsh, IMO, as I always liked Blair. His & Gordon's 'golden rule' was a gem and they should never have ditched it. Did a lot of great things whilst in power.

However his legacy will forever be tarnished for piling into Iraq as special Bush's lapdog. Afghanistan was almost defensible, but he's no come back re Iraq.

TopHat24/7 wrote:

wheelchair1991 wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:Hi wheels, you clearly have an ear close to Labour's ground. What's your view of Blair's ''Alice in Wonderland'' speech and the effect it might have on the party's voters?

For my own part, I wonder if Blair underestimates the backlash against him now (''illegal'' war, ''moneygrubbing'' in particular) and whether his comments are more likely to increase Corbyn's share of the vote.

Every time Blair says to Labour members don't vote for Corbyn his vote increases more.  Blair and Blairism are poisonous words for the most ordinary labour members.  
Right or wrong that's how it is

Did you see the Clinton memos?

She basically said the same.  That David M lost due to association with/support of Blair, and that Blair is currently still pretty toxic among a lot of Labour supporters.

Pretty harsh, IMO, as I always liked Blair.  His & Gordon's 'golden rule' was a gem and they should never have ditched it. Did a lot of great things whilst in power.

However his legacy will forever be tarnished for piling into Iraq as special Bush's lapdog.  Afghanistan was almost defensible, but he's no come back re Iraq.

I think that post is pretty much spot on

Love to see the Clinton memo which say's If wally Bill hadn't insulted the black community in 2008 she'd have won the white house...

Note to Hillary..............Keep the idiot out of the spotlight this time !!!

I think Mrs Clinton will have difficulty keeping her husband hush until after November 2016

He's a big a naughty naughty boy as Blair.......

His 8 years of REPUBLICAN presidency was dog turd too..

I see Chuka  (Better If it was Chucky at the dispatch box "Mr Speaker don't F**k with the Chuck!!!")  Umunna isn't creating a right wing anti-Corbyn group in the Westminster Labour party now and is telling everyone to support Corbyn....

What do you think he's been offered Wheelie ???????????

Must be something good..

He's setting himself up for the next leadership election there years down the line and giving shelf 2 or 3 years of prep work time. First he will build an identity then he will polish his game and once Corbyns things we ought to do but can't afford to do act becomes old he will be ready and waiting. Remember miliband was expected to figure significantly in the game for the next 5 years at least. He would have been ready by then. The shock defeat led him to throw his hat into the ring till he came to his senses

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:I see Chuka  (Better If it was Chucky at the dispatch box "Mr Speaker don't F**k with the Chuck!!!")  Umunna isn't creating a right wing anti-Corbyn group in the Westminster Labour party now and is telling everyone to support Corbyn....

What do you think he's been offered Wheelie ???????????

Must be something good..

he's doing it because he has been painted as a bad guy in the Labour Party in the last few weeks as he has indeed setup a group within the Labour Party designed to oppose and criticize Corbyn. Therefore he is trying to save face somewhat, I think also he will be in the shadow cabinet now(having previously said he would not be under JC).

ShahenshahG wrote:He's setting himself up for the next leadership election there years down the line and giving shelf 2 or 3 years of prep work time. First he will build an identity then he will polish his game and once Corbyns things we ought to do but can't afford to do act becomes old he will be ready and waiting.  Remember miliband was expected to figure significantly in the game for the next 5 years at least. He would have been ready by then. The shock defeat led him to throw his hat into the ring till he came to his senses

Chucka will never be leader of the Labour Party after the way he bailed out of this contest. It has left a lot of previously supportive people in the Party doubting him. If there is to be another leader in the next 5 years my money would be on Dan Jarvis.

I though Chucka had shagged about and left too long a trail of destruction to risk increasing his public profile?

wheelchair1991 wrote:

ShahenshahG wrote:He's setting himself up for the next leadership election there years down the line and giving shelf 2 or 3 years of prep work time. First he will build an identity then he will polish his game and once Corbyns things we ought to do but can't afford to do act becomes old he will be ready and waiting.  Remember miliband was expected to figure significantly in the game for the next 5 years at least. He would have been ready by then. The shock defeat led him to throw his hat into the ring till he came to his senses

Chucka will never be leader of the Labour Party after the way he bailed out of this contest.  It has left a lot of previously supportive people in the Party doubting him.  If there is to be another leader in the next 5 years my money would be on Dan Jarvis.

I don't dispute that Wheels but two years of Corbyn might make anyone appealing and if as you say he has lost a lot of support by backing out - he might be gambling on it since he's got nothing much to lose anyway. I agree that Jarvis is a suitable candidate even an ideal candidate but that doesn't mean he'll accept and if he doesn't the guy who bridged a gap in the party (even if he contributed to it in the first place!) might be at the forefront in the minds of a group of people staring at three consecutive terms out of office.

There was a Labour party debate on Sky this evening. Corbyn p!ssed home.

David Skuzbee ‏@davidskuzbee  24m24 minutes ago
Poll of Sky viewers asking who won #LabourDebate

83.3% Corbyn
7.8% Kendall
4.9% Burnham
2.9% Cooper

Wow Cooper absolutely skewered Corbyn last night...........This is supposed to be a fellow Labour member and the probable next leader of her party....

What an over ambitious, vicious, sex card playing little mite she is.....

Burnham wins I may vote Labour.......Corby wins I'll likely not vote or vote for a smaller party..(No point in mentioning Kendall)

Cooper wins I'll start voting Conservative for the first time in my life until she's out...

Horrible piece of work..

People inside the labour party have told me Yvette Cooper is now the main rival to Corbyn.  She has seen a surge in support in the last week.

What is also helping her is that over 150,000 members have not yet voted and also that a large chunk of the people which the unions signed up to get a vote(supporting mainly Corbyn) have not voted and look like they will not vote before the dealine of September 10th.

This time tomorrow wheels you'll have a new leader....

Corbyn wins on first preference is my prediction. .

Sadiq Khan won against bookmakers odds today in the race to be Labour candidate for London Mayor so it can be difficult to guess i think corbyn will win on the 2nd round personally but you maybe right

Pleased Unite got the man they wanted - they give their members free County Championship cricket tickets and I can only applaud them for that!

What struck me most listening to 5Live is during the Deputy leader announcement it was clear most Labour Party members are shocking at maths. They couldn't work out what number of votes would win the over 50% barrier and cheered wrong one time then had to wait a bit for confirmation when Watson won.

Also, Watson (it was him who won that, wasn't it?) came across as a c*** in his speech.

Congratulationsto Jeremy Corbyn its not secret he was not my first preference when i voted. I will work as hard as i can for the party asalways and i hope the party unites

wheelchair1991 wrote:Congratulationsto Jeremy Corbyn its not secret he was not my first preference when i voted. I will work as hard as i can for the party asalways and i hope the party unites

Wheels - I doubt that any party is ever totally united but I feel the huge mandate for Corbyn will discourage opposing factions from within your party openly coming to the surface too soon.

guildfordbat wrote:

wheelchair1991 wrote:Congratulationsto Jeremy Corbyn its not secret he was not my first preference when i voted. I will work as hard as i can for the party asalways and i hope the party unites

Wheels - I doubt that any party is ever totally united but I feel the huge mandate for Corbyn will discourage opposing factions from within your party openly coming to the surface too soon.

Your right they never are fully united(speaking as someone who is part of the party machine). It may create more divisions however the sheer scare of theCorbyn win may help him. A junior shadow health minister has resigned already but as long as none of the big hitters resign Corbyn might be able to unite enough people in the PLP behind him

wheelchair1991 wrote:It may create more divisions however the sheer scare of theCorbyn win may help him.

What do you make of the clear disconnect between the parliamentary party and the members/supporters? Nearly 60% of the first ballot for someone that couldn't even really get nominated has to raise questions.

Well that disconnect is going to beone of the more interesting things to see, Kendall, Cooper, Reeves, Hunt and Ummuna have all resigned from the shadow cabinet already

A fine victory for socialism. They will have plenty of chance to talk about it in opposition but never in power. 

Good luck wheels, the Labour Party is full of well meaning, caring people. In danger though of being resigned to a pressure group rather than a serious government alternative. 

Be interesting to see how the political landscape all goes from here

It certainly won't be boring thats for sure

I am both a Labour and Unite Member and voted for Burnham, as I felt he was the man to help unify the party and make Labour an electable option again, but it was not to be.

I really hope however that he is given and also accepts a key role in the shadow cabinet.

Tom Watson now is the key man. He was my preference and I voted for him as deputy, and his role is now huge, as he will have to be the go between for the moderates and centre ground and of course Corbyn and the hard left. His position now can not be over estimated.

Although a shame to see Umunna, Hunt, Reeves and others drop to the back benches, I just hope that there is credible talent to fill those voids who are willing to work with Corbyn but also offer a more sensible centre ground voice.

As the above post says, whatever happens, it will be anything but boring and await the assemble of the shadow cabinet with intrigue.

I just hope all differences can be put aside, with the focus being on forming a cohesive and strong opposition, which now has nearly 5 years to rally against austerity and the Tories and hopefully be what I said above, an electable option once again.

Disaster for the country and a nail in the coffin for the Labour Party.

They've no chance of winning an election with Corbyn - he'll be 71 when the next election rolls round. Sheer idiocy.

You did it, Jez, you did it!

Absolute hero.

Shows how far to the right political debate in the UK has shifted over the last 30 odd years, (primarily due to incessant propaganda from the right-wing media), when Corbyn, whose policies would be regarded as little more than centre-left in most of Europe, is regarded as a 'hard-left', 'Communist'. 'Trotskyist' in Britain.

I think people, despite decades of evidence to the contrary, still doubt the impact of personality in the minds of the electorate.

That is to say, had someone else led Labour into the last election, with the same policies and the same campaign strategies, they might very well have won easily.  I simply think some people are unelectable as Leaders because their personalities just don't gel with the electorate.

When the electorate say that "they're all the same" they're usually simply talking about perception of the personalities involved rather than forming any in-depth reaction to policies that seem the same to them.  The electorate are reacting to the visuals - what they see and what they hear.

As an outsider looking in, I simply think that Corbyn came across as a real human, devoid of the robotic mannerisms of the usual selection of 'Autocue hopefuls' that come out and present the usual practiced and perfected nods, finger-points and fist-closing/thumb extended nonsense drummed into them by their image makers.

The Image makers have produced a generation of Political-class drones with their very own, very unusual versions of humanity.  And people are sick looking at them, see through the affectedness of it all and quite simply want their politicians to talk and act like real people again, not like soundbyte robots with their pretend levels of 'emotion' to suit all topics put before them.  All too false, all too familiar now and the electorate are sorely sick of the nonsense.

SecretFly wrote:The Image makers have produced a generation of Political-class drones with their very own, very unusual versions of humanity.  And people are sick looking at them, see through the affectedness of it all and quite simply want their politicians to talk and act like real people again, not like soundbyte robots with their pretend levels of 'emotion' to suit all topics put before them.

It was funny watching Burnham try to play the 'Westminster outsider' card when he's basically the Westminster bubble with a face drawn on. Thank goodness we don't need to spend the next few years listening to him mention how he goes to the pub before football games every time he wants to sound human.

4.5% - Blairite candidate.....

16,000 members joined Wheelie's party today and considering he got 49% of the vote of established members (wheelie types) before you count the newbies....and Blairite types will no doubt cancel their membership.....

The next leadership candidates want to start moving to the left......

Because that's where the value is..

59% on 1st round what a mandate..................

Can't vote for him but credit for his campaign...It was like watching Tommy the Opera..........Gesture politics is dying on it's a**e and that can only be good.

Like i have said throughout the party must now unite, i think it was wrong for the 7 shadow cabinet members to resign yesterday

Why? Their politics don't line up with his.

His job is to win an election, not make sound bites and recruit conspiracy believing "Rebels" into the party.

Scotland is lost, new labour voters will be lost under him - how on earth is he going to win a general election?

Because if they split or go off in a huff it makes the party weaker as a concequence.  I have said many times i didnt vote for Corbyn, but he has a massive mandate as truss says, there is a danger with them resigning it creates an unhealthy disconnect between the PLP and labour members.
My view is the most effective way to effect change is from within.  We must as a party unite

Ent wrote:Why? Their politics don't line up with his.

His job is to win an election, not make sound bites and recruit conspiracy believing "Rebels" into the party.

Scotland is lost, new labour voters will be lost under him - how on earth is he going to win a general election?

By not being confused with the Conservatives?

Every party has it's shades of left, middle and right.  I mean you can be Right but with shades of it (left, middle and right of Right for example )

That will always present tensions in the real world if there is a genuine real opposition.  So if Left Labour were in power and Conservatives naturally attacked their policies, that then creates tension within Labour itself as some right of Centre Labour people mumble that the Conservatives are right and that Labour needs to shift a few degrees right to get elected next time.
So, a strong ideologically opposite party in theory creates much more tension within the governing party because it gives voice to 'rebels' within.  They are given ammo from outside to campaign for change within.

But, given that Labour has for so long been seen as Tory BlairLite, they have in fact taken the pressure off many potential internal struggles within the true Tories.  Tory 'rebels' have nothing solid to draw energy from so they keep quiet.  There was nothing much to be gained by warning against the popularity of Labour policy, given it was obviously perceived by many to be so close to Conservatives own policy.  Labour weren't electable because they were too similar to Conservatives in the minds of their natural voters not because they were supposedly very different.

Now however that Labour allegedly swings dramatically Left again - Tories will no longer be able to smirk at Labour as just a pale shadow of Toryism and instead Corbyn will attack,  inevitably leading to some Tories becoming uneasy about the next election - their own seats - and pressure grows.  So I think Labour going back fully Left may seem like shooting themselves in the foot initially but I think they'll be able to find and prey on divisions within the Conservatives themselves now.

wheelchair1991 wrote:Like i have said throughout the party must now unite, i think it was wrong for the 7 shadow cabinet members to resign yesterday

It was idiotic, at least give the guy a chance to prove you wrong (or right as the case may be).

Kate Hoey has just called Chuka Umunna's actions 'utterly ridiculous. His stock appears to have dropped significantly seeing as he was the 'New Hope' for Labour.

Plenty of rats deserting the ship.....

John McDonnell Shadow chancellor.....Oh dear...

Should have been a chick......

Alistair wrote:

wheelchair1991 wrote:Like i have said throughout the party must now unite, i think it was wrong for the 7 shadow cabinet members to resign yesterday

It was idiotic, at least give the guy a chance to prove you wrong (or right as the case may be).

Kate Hoey has just called Chuka Umunna's actions 'utterly ridiculous. His stock appears to have dropped significantly seeing as he was the 'New Hope' for Labour.

His actions have left him tarnished, and put to bed any leadership ambitions he had for the future

So the cabinet members who led the party to an abject and humiliating defeat last time round don't want to be part of the new leadership? Where is the issue again?

wheelchair1991 wrote:

Alistair wrote:

wheelchair1991 wrote:Like i have said throughout the party must now unite, i think it was wrong for the 7 shadow cabinet members to resign yesterday

It was idiotic, at least give the guy a chance to prove you wrong (or right as the case may be).

Kate Hoey has just called Chuka Umunna's actions 'utterly ridiculous. His stock appears to have dropped significantly seeing as he was the 'New Hope' for Labour.

His actions have left him tarnished, and put to bed any leadership ambitions he had for the future

Weren't there question marks over him when he stepped out of the Leadership race? Something to do with bank accounts?

In other news Tony Abbot has just been defeated and therefore ousted as Aussie PM. Wow.

Not sure Ali, his official reason was he did not want his family in the spotlight. Which would seem to rule him out ever running, as surely this is an inevitable by product of a leadership bid, irrespective of when you make it.

Found it.

It was because he accepted a £2,500 donation from someone who claims Non-Dom status and his acceptance of a donation from the owner of Coral Bookmakers that had the press labelling him as a hypocrite.

I don't think he would have won the leadership even if he had stood

Bloody hell. That shadow cabinet is unelectable. Looks like a thorwback to an early 80's episode of Coronation Street.....

I'm currently in the process of resigning my membership of the Labour party.

I work with the Royal Navy and in particular with the nation's deterrent. This turkey will not be voting for christmas, unless Corbyn's position on Trident changes Labour are now unalectable for me.

If I want an end to Austerity and scrapping Trident I'll vote SNP. Labour will now have a very hard time distinguishing themselves from the SNP in Scotland and hence have hamstrung their chances further of being elected into the UK parliament.

glad Lucy Powell got a promotion

He's got plenty of young birds in there....The new generation...Me thinks Cooper will regret resigning...