What is happening to the Labour Party?

[DaveO]

I feel sorry for you Dave. Corby is a patsy for McDonald and the rest of the London lunatics. He has no policies, he never did have and simply does what he is told by McDonald. Coryn never had any coherent ideas / policies and was siply a single issue politician repeatedly voting againsy Government policy be it Tory or Labour.

If Corbyn is serious form The Momentum Political Party and leave Labour to decent working class people who have no desire to see the Tory government kep in power by clueless Corbyn.

Here is a ? Do you think he can automatically stand or does he need the votes of MPs. By my reckoning, he requires their support!

You don't need to make patronising comments about feeling sorry for me cpw. I know full well Corbyn is not electable and as I have said is seen as Michael Foot MkII outside of his core support.

I also know that the likes of Angela Eagle are equally unelectable. She voted for tuition fees and has abstained on votes such as IDS's workfare program for example along with quite a few other Tory inspired policies. That sort of Labour politician won't persuade those in the North to return to Labour or be seen as offering anything different to the Tories elsewhere.

As to your question I have no idea if he can stand or not. If he gets on the ballot paper he will probably win and so perhaps there will be another split in the Labour party like the SDP years ago.

[Owd Codger]

All politicians are the same irresp[ective of which part they belong to and when in power, governments are destroyed from within again irrespective of whichever party is in power.

He is a long long line that 'principled' labour members who repeatesdly failed to offer any credible opposition to the Conservatives. Far better candudated than Corbyn tried and failed. Why? blindingly obious that the centre ground voters dictate who gets elected. It will always be so. It does not mean that capturing the centre ground means you cannot be left or right wing but it does mean you have to work with the confines of reality.

Labour is in a very difficult position with the London Labour Party finally capturing control which is a nightmare for a nation. Abbot and McDonals both stood before and thankfully failed which meant it was apparently the turn of Corbyn. He wasn't even standing but was put up as a joke, a token lefty. Certainly a very bad joke!

Is Corbyn really Labour!!?? Hardly a labour background was it. A wealthy middle class shire background living in an acient mannot. Hence, Corbtn and his family played politics at the dfinner table but what politics? Meaningful? No related to the daily lives of Joe Public? No

Corbynwas only interested in getting elected to promote some of HIS causes. A selfish middle clsss country bumpkin with 2 failed marriages behind him which tell a story in itself!

So Labour is leftb with an unelectable elderly wierdo who is far happier sat arouind the table with McDonals and Abbot telling him what to do whilst he haopily promotes his middle class single issue politics. Corbyn has been an ever present figure at demos and marches, a joiner of committees, a champion of controversial causes, a tireless pamphleteer, handy with a megaphone. He truly believes he worked tirelessly re the EU. The reality was he was doing what he has always done, preached to the converted, to niches. Ask Corbyn to convert non believers and he runs in the opposite direction.

His passions beliefs are not well most are not ETREME they are just more akin to a train spotter and therein lies the problem, a trainspotter will never be elected as PM!!! but the London Labour Party are happy to sit around a rable patting each other on the bsack whilst lacking the guts to face MPS, Watson EVERYBODY telling Corbyn the truth.

Momentum can FO and take Corbyn, Abbot and McDonals with them. The workibng class are no more reprsented by Corbyn than they were by Blair or the Conservatives.

cpwigan, I think some of your comments about some members of the Labour party are a disgrace and to suggest that people from the middle and upper classes cannot be Socialists is insulting when you look back at some of the great Labour politicians of the past like Attlee and Wedgewood Benn etc. Not all higher up the ladder of wealth are Tories and many have a concern about how people less fortunate are treated in spite of their own more wealthy lifestyles.

As for a rabble, the only ones are the Blairites of the Parliamentary Party who have taken the party so far to the right that many Labour voters no longer vote for the party.

You are only showing that you are as bitter and twisted about certain members of the Labour Party as you are about Wane being the Coach of Wigan.

Is he a train spotter as well?

[DaveO]

And now we have Theresa May appealing to the 'Working Class'.
Gawd help us.

Isn't that what we all want? A party that is not divided upon the anachronistic lines of "class".

Sounds good to me!

Consign Socialism to the history books, along with Elitism. Forget the terrible idea of Equality and champion the cause of Equal Opportunity (obviously impossible in reality but we can nudge our systems towards it).

Equal opportunity is the great Blairite con. It's sounds fine but it's meaningless.

Why? Well because it's a simple fact that even if you give everyone the exact same opportunity and everyone takes it getting a great education etc, we all can't be employed in great jobs that pay well.

We only need so many CEO's, Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Engineers and so on.

If you want the economic argument to back this up it is there is only a finite amount of money in the economy. You can't just print it (or you get inflation) so when the top 10% or whatever coin 90% of the wealth you can give as much opportunity as you want to everyone but there is nowhere for everyone to go with it. You are fighting over the scraps.

But even if there was an infinite supply of such jobs and we all took them who then empties your bins, pushes the hospital trolley works in the care home or does the cleaning?

Socialism places value on what you contribute to society n jobs such as those. It isn't some free handout philosophy but recognises that people should be valued for their contribution and not consigned to a life of poverty because we all can't be CEO's.

Equally opportunity as espoused by the Blairites just kicks the Tory can down the road. You still end up with the Tory man mind thyself philosophy as you compete for the finite number of good jobs.

[DaveO]

And now we have Theresa May appealing to the 'Working Class'.
Gawd help us.

I thought the same.

She came across well though, well schooled and tutored, with all thoughts of the mess she made of border controls well and truly forgotten. Had she done her job back then, maybe the situation we are in now would be totally different.

I thought her statements were quite surreal.

She was speaking as if she was a PM who had just won an election in normal times with the economy ticking over nicely. Not a PM who has just inherited the biggest (and self inflicted...) political and economic crisis the country has seen since WWII.

Apparently Tory MP's were banging on the desk in approval. I think they are all deluded. How on earth she expects to address the issues she mentioned such as lack of job security, poor mental health provision and so on when faced with a likely recession never mind being distracted by Brexit negotiations I have no idea.

Words are cheap anyway. She has a track record at the home office of being rather stupid such as how she tried to get migration numbers down by making it hard for overseas students to study here when they are temporary residents anyway and earn Universities revenue.

I am just surprised she didn't say "We are all in it together".

[Owd Codger]

And now we have Theresa May appealing to the 'Working Class'.
Gawd help us.

I thought the same.

She came across well though, well schooled and tutored, with all thoughts of the mess she made of border controls well and truly forgotten. Had she done her job back then, maybe the situation we are in now would be totally different.

I thought her statements were quite surreal.

She was speaking as if she was a PM who had just won an election in normal times with the economy ticking over nicely. Not a PM who has just inherited the biggest (and self inflicted...) political and economic crisis the country has seen since WWII.

Apparently Tory MP's were banging on the desk in approval. I think they are all deluded. How on earth she expects to address the issues she mentioned such as lack of job security, poor mental health provision and so on when faced with a likely recession never mind being distracted by Brexit negotiations I have no idea.

Words are cheap anyway. She has a track record at the home office of being rather stupid such as how she tried to get migration numbers down by making it hard for overseas students to study here when they are temporary residents anyway and earn Universities revenue.

I am just surprised she didn't say "We are all in it together".

With you on where she is concerned, Dave O.

Like the Labour Party, elected because of there being a poor choice of alternative candidates within the two major parties.

Angela Eagle being no better!

[DaveO]

I thought the same.

She came across well though, well schooled and tutored, with all thoughts of the mess she made of border controls well and truly forgotten. Had she done her job back then, maybe the situation we are in now would be totally different.

I thought her statements were quite surreal.

She was speaking as if she was a PM who had just won an election in normal times with the economy ticking over nicely. Not a PM who has just inherited the biggest (and self inflicted...) political and economic crisis the country has seen since WWII.

Apparently Tory MP's were banging on the desk in approval. I think they are all deluded. How on earth she expects to address the issues she mentioned such as lack of job security, poor mental health provision and so on when faced with a likely recession never mind being distracted by Brexit negotiations I have no idea.

Words are cheap anyway. She has a track record at the home office of being rather stupid such as how she tried to get migration numbers down by making it hard for overseas students to study here when they are temporary residents anyway and earn Universities revenue.

I am just surprised she didn't say "We are all in it together".

With you on where she is concerned, Dave O.

It's taken less than a day for John Major's "Bastards" in the form of Norman Tebbit to have a pop at May. He has come out and said she will be the biggest recruiter for UKIP! Today! She isn't even in the bloody job!

If the Tories thought a referendum was going to end the issue of the EU they were clearly mistaken. Whatever May does it won't be good enough for those "Bastards". Any sign of compromise to secure a trade deal with the EU and they will be after her.

If she takes a hard line pacify them and the economy tanks, she is toast again. I am not sure why she wanted the job in the first place.

[SJ]

It's become or becoming an anachronism ,an irrelevance , a caricature of a political party,a bad joke. I think it was WW who said it was like seeing Nero fiddle whilst watching Rome burn I'll just have a bottle of wine and enjoy the tune. Don't despair Dave It won't happen the way you think.

[Caboosegg]

With you on where she is concerned, Dave O.

Like the Labour Party, elected because of there being a poor choice of alternative candidates within the two major parties.

Angela Eagle being no better!

id argue against that i think Andy Burnham would be a brilliant choice for labour leader, he shows more involvement and caring for his constituents that most and
his involvement in Hillsborough shows hes not afraid to go against general view of Gov.

unluckly he has the Blairite/Brownite tag

[BriH]

If you bothered to look at any of the policies being put forward you would see Corbyn's Labour is centre left not some loony left alternative. There are also some genuinely interesting policies such as the citizen's wage (being tried in Finland and Utrecht in Holland).

The problem is the alternative is Tory Lite.

Eagle and the likes of Benn suggest they want to follow the parliamentary route to socialism implying Corbyn can't because he is unelectable hence they are the best option to achieve this.

Therefore they have adopted many Tory policies having totally given up any attempt to change people's minds by making strong cases against such policies.

This is populism, not socialism.

If they really do believe in these policies they have no place in the Labour party. If they are trying to be politically pragmatic suggesting they are appealing to Tory voters by adopting (some) Tory policy they are letting the Tories set the agenda and are weak.

What happened to outright opposition to bad policy?

JC's election as leader should have given Eagle & Co the chance to shake off the shackles of following a Tory inspired agenda and allow them to follow what I'd hope would be their true socialist instincts. They clearly don't want to do so because they are either not socialists or they don't have the guts for the fight.

They have not in my view allowed the slight (and it is slight despite views to the contrary) move to left JC represents to be tested out when presented by a united party.

Has JC made mistakes and does he come across badly in the media? Sure but if those such as Eagle spent as much time supporting him as they do attacking him and offered a united front then maybe it would be possible to combat the right wing attacks on Labour and JC. And make a strong case for very real alternative policies.

There are plenty of good orators in the PLP who could aid Corbyn as Bevan aided Atlee. They have chosen not to it seems and if they get their way Labour can forget ever getting back Scotland and may as well add the Brexit voting North of England and much of Wales to that.

People in the Labour heartlands won't vote for them just to "save the NHS" and neither will floating voters in Tory areas if they see little difference.

Michael Foot was just the same as JC and look what happened to him,he was a decent chap and well liked by the labour rank and file they loved him. He was up against the most right wing government set on destroying the unions and the NHS and taking away workers rights. You would have thought he would romp home in the labour heart lands but no he was defeated in north and south. The same will happen again, the voters float about and pretending they want radical politics but when it comes to the election they vote for same old tried and trusted policy's .The idealists which you sound like are always unhappy with popularist policy's which win elections but most people look to how it will effect them in the pocket when they vote, and I have never known anybody vote to pay higher taxes

Who said anything about higher taxes? It's not idealistic to oppose the bedroom tax and a sanctions based welfare system that has dying people forced to look for work as has happened.

What I am on about is opposition to policies like that. Instead what your get from the Blairite faction is them trying to outdo the Tories on being tough on "benefit cheats" because they are clueless how to oppose the narrative that everyone on benefits is a scrounger.

The Tories have long adopted a "divide and rule" strategy and if it's not convincing people are benefits cheats it's convincing others they pay too much for a student's education (they used to pay naff all) or as they did before the referendum happily allowing the exaggeration of the impact of migrants because it suited.

That is the sort of populism I am on about. Letting the right wing press frame the debate and doing nothing to oppose it. In fact they perpetuate the problem. Given Eagle's voting record I am surprised she wasn't challenging May for the Tory leadership.

Agree with everything you say Dave. A man after my own heart: well said!

[Wintergreen]

And now we have Theresa May appealing to the 'Working Class'.
Gawd help us.

Isn't that what we all want? A party that is not divided upon the anachronistic lines of "class".

Sounds good to me!

Consign Socialism to the history books, along with Elitism. Forget the terrible idea of Equality and champion the cause of Equal Opportunity (obviously impossible in reality but we can nudge our systems towards it).

Equal opportunity is the great Blairite con. It's sounds fine but it's meaningless.

Why? Well because it's a simple fact that even if you give everyone the exact same opportunity and everyone takes it getting a great education etc, we all can't be employed in great jobs that pay well.

We only need so many CEO's, Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Engineers and so on.

If you want the economic argument to back this up it is there is only a finite amount of money in the economy. You can't just print it (or you get inflation) so when the top 10% or whatever coin 90% of the wealth you can give as much opportunity as you want to everyone but there is nowhere for everyone to go with it. You are fighting over the scraps.

But even if there was an infinite supply of such jobs and we all took them who then empties your bins, pushes the hospital trolley works in the care home or does the cleaning?

Socialism places value on what you contribute to society n jobs such as those. It isn't some free handout philosophy but recognises that people should be valued for their contribution and not consigned to a life of poverty because we all can't be CEO's.

Equally opportunity as espoused by the Blairites just kicks the Tory can down the road. You still end up with the Tory man mind thyself philosophy as you compete for the finite number of good jobs.

You're missing the point. No-one is saying there would be equal achievement. That's the point there never will be nor should there ever be. Where is the incentive if there is?

There never will be equal opportunity. How can there be? For example how do you ensure that a childs parents confer the same "benefit" onto each and every child? You cannot.

However, there are things that we can do to increase equal opportunity. Classic case is the Grammar school system (which the Socialists in the North decimated).

Under this system bright children were able to competete with publically educated children.

What exactly is wrong with competing for the good jobs? I don't understand why you think this is in any way bad? The key thing is that we should all have the opportunity (as far as this is possible).