Corbyn did win, what's next?

[angrysoba]

eta.........the BBC's what is unbiased?

What do you mean "The BBC's what is unbiased"?

I wasn't using a possessive apostrophe! I was using a contraction!

You should know what a contraction is because you used it here:

"I'm glad we agree."

 

[angrysoba]

Yes.

Well it isn't. Reporters from the BBC are just as capable of spinning things as any other media outlet and they do it very often. Such as here:



This is just the type of thing that I would expect to be spun on Radio 4 by its reporters as "Dennis Skinner refuses to be part of Corbyn's Cabinet", while clarifications are endlessly spun to make it appear as if the Corbynites are contradicting themselves.

That's why I can't take your word for it that an unimpeachable source has truthfully stated official Labour briefings. I would need to see what they have actually said.

 

[MikeG]

Don't overstate my position for me if you don't mind. It would be impossible to meet the criteria of never having any report which didn't show some bias, but over all, over the course of a year, the BBC manages to meet its legal requirement to be politically impartial. Reporters get sacked for making unsubstantiated claims.

 

[angrysoba]

Don't overstate my position for me if you don't mind. It would be impossible to meet the criteria of never having any report which didn't show some bias, but over all, over the course of a year, the BBC manages to meet its legal requirement to be politically impartial. Reporters get sacked for making unsubstantiated claims.

I didn't overstate your position:

Should I assume you were being entirely serious when you asserted that the BBC's coverage is necessarily unbiased?

Yes.

 

[Giz]

Moving from the biased BBC back to the Bolshevichy Corbynistas:

-----------------------------------
Ken Livingstone, the man in charge of Labour's defence review, has been slapped down by Labour after he said the party will look at whether the UK should leave Nato.

Mr Livingstone, a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, said that "one of the things we will look at" is if Britain should withdraw from the pact with America, Germany and France.

But just an hour after Mr Livingstone's comments, a Labour spokeswoman said: "The terms of the defence review are still to be agreed but will not look at our membership of Nato."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...eview-will-consider-Britain-leaving-Nato.html

------------------------------------------------

Perhaps another reshuffle is needed?

 

[MikeG]

Livingstone was parachuted in to jointly head the review into Labour's stance on Trident, to balance out the views of the pro-Trident then-defence secretary (Eagle twinlet).....which is all well and good, except the Defence Secretary wasn't informed of this, and found out via Twitter. That's the way to treat a Shadow Cabinet colleague! Livingstone has regularly spoken out of turn since Corbyn's election as leader, acting as quote-fodder for the press looking for the view from the left. Erroneously declaring Britain's position in NATO to be up for grabs isn't anything other than what you might expect from him.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

The main problem Corbyn has had is that he was too weak to maintain discipline within the party. You do not tolerate threats to your supremacy as party leader, and swift/decisive action upon ascent to Labour Leader would have saved him the grief that months of dithering and half-measures have given him now.

 

[MikeG]

The main problem Corbyn has had is that he was too weak to maintain discipline within the party. You do not tolerate threats to your supremacy as party leader, and swift/decisive action upon ascent to Labour Leader would have saved him the grief that months of dithering and half-measures have given him now.

How could anyone who has voted against his party whip over 500 times expect anyone to take him seriously on the matter of party discipline?

 

[The Don]

How could anyone who has voted against his party whip over 500 times expect anyone to take him seriously on the matter of party discipline?

Yes, for he knows of what he speaks.

AFAIK Jeremy Corbyn isn't asking for unwavering support from the entire Labour Party, he's seeking not to be undercut by members of his own frontbench team. The new "awkward squad" are welcome (for limited values of welcome) to express their opinions from the back bench (where Jeremy Corbyn expressed his dissent).

As reported, Jeremy Corbyn is even prepared (welcomes probably grossly overstates it) for members of his cabinet to hold opposing views so long as they don't brief against him or attack him in parliament once a consensus has been reached. This is significantly different to the reported situation in the Blair and Brown cabinets where dissenting voices weren't tolerated at all and where the cabinet itself was allegedly merely a rubber-stamping exercise.

 

[MikeG]

........As reported, Jeremy Corbyn is even prepared (welcomes probably grossly overstates it) for members of his cabinet to hold opposing views so long as they don't brief against him or attack him in parliament once a consensus has been reached.........

So long as they support the abolition of Trident and oppose bombing ISIS.

OK, that's overstating it because neither of those are settled Labour Party policies, but that is certainly the impression given by the bungling reshuffle this week.

Let me ask a couple of questions:

Will Jeremy Corbyn still be Labour leader by the time of the next election?
If he is, will he still be leader one week after the election?

 

[The Don]

So long as they support the abolition of Trident and oppose bombing ISIS.

I think Jeremy Corbyn's bigger problem with people like Pat McFadden were the ongoing insinuation in the press and in the house that Jeremy Corbyn's opposition to bombing in Iraq and his nuanced views on terrorism were a result of him being a terrorist sympathiser.

Time and again yesterday on the Radio, accusations were being thrown around about Jeremy Corbyn having funded terrorism, being an anti-semite and so on and when a clarification was made the allegations were a stretch.

OK, that's overstating it because neither of those are settled Labour Party policies, but that is certainly the impression given by the bungling reshuffle this week.

The reshuffle was "bungled" because the press chose to portray it in that way and because three junior ministers chose to throw their toys out of the pram. Had the press chosen to do so then the same exercise could have been spun as Jeremy Corbyn being a strong leader by listening to the party about Hilary Benn and keeping him in the shadow cabinet and refusing to brook disloyalty.

Look at the coverage of David Cameron's u-turn over cabinet members' support for the "Out" campaign in the upcoming EU referendum (I personally think that David Cameron got this decision right, to have forced Eurosceptics to either support the "Yes" campaign or kick them out of cabinet would have been damaging). What could have been portrayed as a weak leader performing a damaging U-turn in the face of opposition from his own cabinet has instead largely been positioned as a statesman taking a reasonable stance on a thorny subject in the cause of party unity.

Let me ask a couple of questions:

Will Jeremy Corbyn still be Labour leader by the time of the next election?
If he is, will he still be leader one week after the election?

Probably not, and almost certainly not.

That said, he was overwhelmingly selected by the membership and any of the other candidates (or indeed any other candidate) would have faced the same fate.

Like they did with John Major and IDS, the media have decided that he is a weak and ineffectual leader. IMO Hague and Howard were no more effective but the media gave them a marginally easier ride.

 

[MikeG]

.......IMO Hague and Howard were no more effective but the media gave them a marginally easier ride.

Howard..........you're certainly right. Hague? Well, he was made party leader at entirely the wrong time. If he had hung around, he should have followed Cameron and would have made an excellent PM in my view. The one I really regret, though, is Chris Patten. He would have made a much better alternative to Major after Thatcher went.

...... the media have decided that he [Corbyn] is a weak and ineffectual leader..........

I'm pretty sure it isn't just the media. I don't think the PLP see him as strong, or effective. Hell, I doubt that many in the Shadow Cabinet see him in those terms.

 

[Tolls]

Like they did with John Major and IDS, the media have decided that he is a weak and ineffectual leader.

Corbyn has, frankly, only himself to blame.
His lack of media savvy really hasn't helped from the off.

I agree with you that this "reshuffle" (it barely warrants the term) has been spun as some kind of weakness and spite, but that has happened because of the earlier cock-ups over things like the vote re: bombing. Once you have the sort of back-pedalling that occurred there (and earlier) you have set yourself up to have every action you take consequently viewed through a "weakness" lens.

Had he had a better grasp of what it actually takes to lead the party from the off then this reshuffle could have been spun, as you say, the other way.

 

[MikeG]

.......Had he had a better grasp of what it actually takes to lead the party from the off then this reshuffle could have been spun, as you say, the other way.

I think it is more fundamental than that. How could anyone misjudge their first shadow cabinet so badly that a reshuffle is needed at all within the first three and a half months? The fact of the reshuffle, as much as the way it was done, exposes both weakness and misjudgment.

 

[Tolls]

The one I really regret, though, is Chris Patten. He would have made a much better alternative to Major after Thatcher went.

Possibly, though I don't think anyone could have handled the situation Major faced terribly well. The sudden sense of power the "bastards" got with the ever-reducing majority would have taxed anyone.

 

[The Don]

I think it is more fundamental than that. How could anyone misjudge their first shadow cabinet so badly that a reshuffle is needed at all within the first three and a half months? The fact of the reshuffle, as much as the way it was done, exposes both weakness and misjudgment.

I agree, he was naive. I suspect (but have no evidence to support this) that he understood that he would have opposition from the Blairite right wing members of his but he didn't expect the levels of contra-briefing and disloyalty.

Jeremy Corbyn has regularly voted against the party leadership during his time as an MP but then again he has never, AFAIK, held a cabinet or shadow cabinet position.

I don't think he understood that people would accept a position in his shadow cabinet and would then use it as a platform to attack him and the apparent will of the party membership. I think he (mistakenly and naively) expected people to behave in as principled way as he would have done. If he felt he could not support the leader in all good faith then I believe he would have refused the shadow cabinet position.

 

[The Don]

I'm pretty sure it isn't just the media. I don't think the PLP see him as strong, or effective. Hell, I doubt that many in the Shadow Cabinet see him in those terms.

The PLP (and the PCP, and no doubt the PSNP, PUUP, PDUP and so on) is a nest of vipers. No doubt there are some genuinely principled people in there but most are professional politicians with no greater concern than their own future political careers. The current stance of the PLP seems to be at odds with the majority view of the members and whilst the membership put up with this during the electorally successful years of the Blair government, they're not now.

The PLP has a lot of members who are desperately trying to hold back the tide of party opinion.

 

[MikeG]

You talk about the will of the party, and of party members, quite regularly. It should be noted that this isn't a stable bunch of people who have been with Labour through thick and thin, but is a group which includes a huge number of new "£3 members" at least some of whom don't have Labour's interests as a top priority. As much as there is a Blairite (or moderate) faction who may be plotting against Corbyn, there is also a group of Corbyn supporters called Momentum who have, for instance, threatened sitting MPs, and have an agenda including the restoration of the ridiculous Clause 4 of the LP constitution. It is the Militant Tendency of the current era, and is apparently actively encouraged by Corbyn, even though many of its members have agendas not primarily focused on the health of the Labour party. So, "nest of vipers" doesn't apply just to the PLP.

 

[Tolls]

The PLP has a lot of members who are desperately trying to hold back the tide of party opinion.

However, let's not forget that it's not the party membership that voted these MPs in. They have a responsibility to their constituencies first and foremost, and I would (in their shoes) feel quite concerned about such a shift in party position that moved away from platforms that I had been voted in on.

This is where the clash lies. However many thousands of people voted Corbyn in as leader pales into insignificance against the numbers who voted the current batch of Labour MPs in.

 

[The Don]

You talk about the will of the party, and of party members, quite regularly. It should be noted that this isn't a stable bunch of people who have been with Labour through thick and thin, but is a group which includes a huge number of new "£3 members" at least some of whom don't have Labour's interests as a top priority. As much as their is a Blairite (or moderate) faction who may be plotting against Corbyn, there is also a group of Corbyn supporters called Momentum who have, for instance, threatened sitting MPs, and have an agenda including the restoration of the ridiculous Clause 4 of the LP constitution. It is the Militant Tendency of the current era, and is apparently actively encouraged by Corbyn, even though many of its members have agendas not primarily focused on the health of the Labour party. So, "nest of vipers" doesn't apply just to the PLP.

True but as a longstanding party member who finally lost patience with the Blairites in 2003 after 20 years of membership and who still keeps in close touch with "comrades" in the party, I'm confident in stating that the longstanding rank and file membership was consistently more left wing than the PLP throughout the whole New Labour period. New Labour and the Blairites were viewed by the longstanding members as undermining the true principles of the party but either a necessary evil to get hands on the levers of power or intolerable but those members couldn't being themselves to leave the party or vote for a party other than Labour.

A lot has been said about £3 members who may not have Labour's best interests at heart but that's difficult to quantify accurately. Anecdotally, a friend's daughter who is a Labour Party rep. at York University has reported that a large number of those £3 members have chosen to be involved, at least in the short term.

Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership election with a huge majority and IMO it's reasonable to assume that he represents the choice of the majority of members. IMO it's the longstanding members' attempt to wrest back control from the right wingers who they feel had hijacked "their" party. YMMV

Note: I was a regular attender at a couple of constituency Labour Parties both of which were in comparatively well off areas and which where moderate by the standards of the more firebrand constituencies in the inner cities.