Not at all. It's even more momentous than that. It's a place where the idea that "anyone to the left of Cameron is a Labour supporter" is unambiguously refuted.
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Jeremy Corbyn might actually win?
- Thread starter Giz
- Start date
If I've ever had the opportunity to vote for either of those parties I've been entirely unaware of it. I would have to guess at their policies. My awareness of Respect is entirely through George Galloway and is mainly in relation to his position on Islam/Israel.
angrysoba
Philosophile
Nothing's changed. You've demanded I dance to your tiresome tune of "defining" where Tory votes begins. I suppose the simple answer is "those who vote Tory" and as it seems to be your view and that of Dan Hodges that the Labour Party ought to shift rightwards to attract Tory votes, then I could simply say that you and Dan Hodges might be best served joining the Tory Party and getting the party that fits your policies rather than try to fit the party to your policies.
angrysoba
Philosophile
It seems to me that Yvette Cooper has no ideas at all, and whose campaign strategy appears to be to be some kind of feminist. I don't see much evidence that the Labour Party is electable under her in a general election, either.
And you call my efforts to understand you tiresome?
Let me say this slowly. I want Labour to move rightwards, more towards the centre left than the hard left, so that it picks up more votes. Those are not Tory votes. They're votes. I want it to be electable. I want it to provide a good strong opposition to the Conservatives in the current parliament because it has got a good strong base of support. I have seen nothing that indicates to me that a movement to the left will increase its support, and have plenty of good reason to think that a move left will have the opposite effect.
Now, twist that to your heart's content.
I completely agree. My estimation of why Corbyn is in the lead is that the bunch he is up against are pathetic. He is the only one who seems even half-human.
angrysoba
Philosophile
And you call my efforts to understand you tiresome?
Let me say this slowly. I want Labour to move rightwards, more towards the centre left than the hard left, so that it picks up more votes. Those are not Tory votes. They're votes. I want it to be electable. I want it to provide a good strong opposition to the Conservatives in the current parliament because it has got a good strong base of support. I have seen nothing that indicates to me that a movement to the left will increase its support, and have plenty of good reason to think that a move left will have the opposite effect.
Now, twist that to your heart's content.
Then who do you see as the best candidate?
Comrade Quixote
Thinker
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2012
- Messages
- 170
It must be nice to see the future so clearly
Personally I'm just interested in seeing how the experiment goes, I haven't the foggiest how the election will go in the (likely) even of a Corbyn win, I make no bones that my political sympathies lie on his end of the political spectrum, but that doesn't mean I assume others do, I'll just be interested to see how people react to the choice.So far, it has to be said, I've been pleasantly surprised how many people like my choice of Labour party leader.
Surely the rational thing to do here is for both parties to move as close as possible together in order to pick up all these votes? Once they've done that, all you are arguing about is which are most competent at implementing the same middle ground position.
Sad to say that none of the candidates have impressed me
Right now I don't care so much about policy detail, that'll have to be put through the mill over the next few years as the party tries to find the right balance between trying to retain "socialist" values such as the NHS, employment rights and a viable welfare state and appealing to enough of the electorate to have a hope of holding power. What I care about is that there is an effective and charismatic leader of the opposition who can hold the government to account as and when their policies deserve it.
Right now the things exercising me are:
- The ongoing dismantling of the NHS and its piecemeal transfer to the private sector
- The dismantling of education and the handing of money, hand over fist, to free schools, academies and other expensive boondoggles
- Providing support for the most needy in our society, Right now it seems to me that the least well off are doing most of the austerity-related heavy lifting while the better off (like myself) are doing rather well
- Our seeming headlong rush to leave the EU (I have very selfish reasons to want to remain)
- The reverse of measures to improve energy efficiency and environmental safeguarding in order to allow big companies to make more money more quickly (at the expense of our future climate and environment)
An effective leader of the opposition could take the government to task over things like these. An ineffective one and more pertinently one who doesn't appear to be the part will spend all their time deflecting Tory comments about how lefty/odd looking/bumbling/discredited (s)he is - just like Ed Miliband did IMO. They will always be on the back foot.
For his myriad faults (and his stance on Iraq and PFI in particular had me not voting Labour for the first time in a general election) Tony Blair was a consummate political performer.
I'm an architect. I draw. Maybe this will help. Understand this is diagramatic, and there are no values attached to anything. The shaded area of the graph represents the spread of the UK population political opinion, diagramatically only.
I find it hard to argue with The Don's comments. In response to the "Labour as I would like it" diagram. It seems to me that it contains a lot of assumptions.
1. People's political opinions are sufficiently independent of the political choices that they are offered that the underlying curve doesn't change between the two graphs.
2. That the shape of the curve is such that it encourages the two parties to avoid getting too close together.
1. People's political opinions are sufficiently independent of the political choices that they are offered that the underlying curve doesn't change between the two graphs.
2. That the shape of the curve is such that it encourages the two parties to avoid getting too close together.
Opinion. But what is your opinion?
You've had that times-over, Craig. I am a life-long Liberal/ Lib Dem voter, socially left-of-centre, but with centrist/ right-of-centre economic preferences. What's that got to do with the price of eggs?
ddt
Mafia Penguin
They were, AFAIK, one of the driving forces behind Respect, next to "Glorious George" of course. But the British landscape is awash with left parties which have fragmented over superficial or theoretical differences that are unimportant in the near-term political goals. A list of all parties that stood for the last national elections, in the order of garnered votes:
- Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, an electoral alliance of, a.o., the Socialist Party, the SWP and Solidarity (a breakaway from the SSP);
- Respect;
- People Before Profit Alliance, active in NI and Ireland, established by the SWP;
- Socialist Labour Party (Scargill);
- Workers' Party of Ireland, a Marxist-Leninist split off Sinn Fein;
- Communist Party (Great Britain), a Marxist-Leninist party;
- Socialist Party of Great Britain;
- Scottish Socialist Party;
- Alliance for Green Socialism;
- Class War, an anarchist party;
- Workers Revolutionary Party, a Trotskyist party;
- Left Unity, an initiative of film director Ken Loach supported by various other left groups.
And then there's also:
- the SWP, a Trotskyist (Tony Cliff tendency) party;
- Socialist Party (England and Wales), a Trotskyist party formerly known as Militant;
- Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee), also Marxist-Leninist;
- Alliance for Workers' Liberty, yet another Trotskyist party;
- International Socialist Network, a split-off from the SWP after said rape scandal;
- Socialist Resistance, which includes the International Socialist Group, the official British section of the Fourth International, so we here have another Trotskyist party (*);
- Workers' Power, yet another Trotskyist party
and a lot more I have missed.
(*) I think the term "Fourth International" for a Trotskyist international mainly refers to the fact that there are four different contenders for the title of "true Trotskyist".
ETA: make that four squared.
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Since the underlying shape of the graph is somewhat uncertain, wouldn't it be optimal for the perceived right wing part to position itself just to the left of where it thought the peak was, so long as they thought their opponents wouldn't do the same?
If the shape of the graph is certain, surely you position yourself over the centre to win?
If the shape of the graph is certain, surely you position yourself over the centre to win?
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Probably, so long as that ground wasn't occupied by another strong party. However, it usually is.
It wasn't on your graphic.
ddt
Mafia Penguin
Why then did you label in the first diagram "Labour as I would like it"? Wouldn't you want them to leave more space in the center for the LibDems?
The problem with that is that you leave space on the flank for an extreme party to get in. For instance, UKIP.