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Next Labour Leader

Most likely Labour Leader

  • Chuka Umunna

    Votes: 13 38.2%

  • Andy Burnham

    Votes: 8 23.5%

  • Yvette Cooper

    Votes: 5 14.7%

  • Dan Jarvis

    Votes: 4 11.8%

  • Tristram Hunt

    Votes: 1 2.9%

  • Liz Kendall

    Votes: 1 2.9%

  • David Miliband

    Votes: 1 2.9%

  • Other

    Votes: 1 2.9%

  • Keith Vaz

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    34
Francesca R said:
But I do not think the state pension should be universal, so that for some it should be removed completely.
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Clearly for some pensioners, the state pension is a small part of their income, and so would be no great loss, but what sort of threshold do you think there should be, considering that many people will have spent decades of their working lives planning their retirement on the assumption that any work-related pension will be augmented by the state one? This seems especially pertinent given that many workers in both state and private sectors are facing having to get by on a lot less than anticipated, when it is far too late to readjust or compensate for that.
 
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angrysoba said:
At least Ed Miliband can say he was tougher than Chuka Umunna.
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I'm amazed at the news that Umunna has pulled out. I am also very sceptical about his declared reason for withdrawing. He must have known full well that he and his family would come under close media scrutiny during the contest. And what did he think would have happened to the scrutiny had he won the contest and become Leader of the Opposition?

I suspect, therefore, that there is very probably another reason why he has withdrawn. I suspect that it has more to do with internal polling and canvassing - it's obvious (and well-known) that Umunna has had a large and well-oiled machine working on his leadership bid since at least last Friday morning.

I believe that Umunna would be the most "electable" leader of the Labour party, but it could well be that the people who matter in the leadership election - the Labour Party members and MPs - felt otherwise. If Umunna and his team gauged that to be the case, then it would be pragmatically and politically the best thing for him to withdraw as soon as possible. He can then fall in behind the most likely winner, and attempt to secure a key place in the shadow cabinet as a reward.
 
angrysoba said:
Giving up or despairing that so many people disagree with you is not the same as being disenfranchised.
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I think more people agree with me than not that the tories are a threat to the well-being of our society. And yet Labour cave and follow them and tabloid "issues", instead of standing for their values, chasing votes instead of making their case. How many voted Tory? Only 66% turnout, so they only had around roughly 20% of the voters, and Labour agree with them that "the people" have massively supported them!

I feel they have deserted us.

Our useless first past the post system is now exposing us to being isolated in Europe and powerless and crippled as an economy, all due to the politics of fear, as people have said.

I feel disenfranchised because I literally have no stake in this country: I've no children, no job, no reason to involve myself in mainstream culture, no political voice speaking for my outlook on life, which is that of a life-long outsider poet with utopian socialist ideals (emigrated as a 4 year old, continued disruption and three changes of country by the age of 16 when I returned to Britain and subsequent traveling in other countries).

I've no affinity for marketing or business, and it seems that if you aren't into that you have no validity in mainstream society. (Even science is snarled in the marketing and money games, and anyway I wasn't turned onto science until too late for me to find a career there, which now I know is a possible way to live… School never made science relevant to me or made me to realise the value of engaging in it as a working life, which I sort of regret now.)

I feel like damaged goods, and my only affinity is with the drop outs and ravers and squatters and free festival travellers, the people Thatcher and the Tories made their enemies by literally attacking us with masses of police. I'm an outlaw because I use psychedelic drugs, and that is such a stupid situation and such a massive injustice that I feel persecuted and disrespected.

Although I can vote, my vote is useless.

I'd say I am disenfranchised. And this election result means we are risking losing every bit of compassionate infrastructure over the next 5 years… and I won't even be able to live in Europe again, where at least I could sleep on a beach in Spain and busk for food, should the need arise… if Cameron's playing politics with his EU referendum backfires on him. Frankly I'm not convinced the English masses aren't stupid enough to let that happen.

I expect disaster, and hope without any sense of ability to affect it that it turns out better than it might.

Hoping helpless and powerless. I withdraw from "politics" and simply be a poet looking on in sorrow and radical rage from time to time. The personal is political. It's all I've got.
 
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By the way, if everyone thinks this is unsavouury result is a matter of FTFP then think again. Under PR it would be Tory-UKIP coalition.
 
Francesca R said:
PR is a more representative system.
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PR is not a cure all, though people tend to assume it is. I can think of several reasons why it isn't not least the fact that MPs would not represent a geographical constituency for starters - most PR systems work that way. So who would represent the interests of a constituency?

You can also end up with coalitions which include radical parties such as the far right group Austria's current government.

And while compromise. which it does tend to encourage, might at first sight seem a benefit, it makes it much harder to do radical things when they need to be done.
 
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Rum said:
PR is bot a cure all, though people tend to assume it is. I can think of several reasons why it isn't not least the fact that MPs would not represent a geographical constituency for starters - most PR systems work that way. So who would represent the interests of a constituency?
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I started a thread on that some years ago but I am all for MPs not representing geographical districts. That allows special interests to be placed above national ones.
 
"It is astonishing, two decades after Mr Blair won the argument against Labour's unelectable left, that it is being re-run". (The Economist)
 
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Francesca R said:
"It is astonishing, two decades after Mr Blair won the argument against Labour's unelectable left, that it is being re-run". (The Economist)
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Labour may be unelectable altogether then, for Blair won by not being Labour. He wasn't then, and sure as hell he isn't now.
 
angrysoba said:
By the way, if everyone thinks this is unsavouury result is a matter of FTFP then think again. Under PR it would be Tory-UKIP coalition.
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That assumes all votes would be cast in the same way as they were in our FPTP election. Not a fair assumption IMHO.
 
Craig B said:
Labour may be unelectable altogether then, for Blair won by not being Labour. He wasn't then, and sure as hell he isn't now.
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Given the result in Scotland it's had to see how any one could argue that being to the left can't result in election victory.
 
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