So to again clarify, what you'd like to do is take the most electable Labour candidate we've had in perhaps 20 years and shackle him to an impossible electoral position where winning is almost impossible and will give further ammo to the ideal within that anybody who looks remotely New Labour cannot win?
I like the Labour Party and enjoy being elected so I don't tend to look at our diamonds and decide it would be best to put them in positions where they can only fail. But I'm the traditional, not totally stupid, type.
"Kid" lol. I've got socks older than you Ben. It wasn't that long ago that you were vomiting your angsty teenage drama all over the forum.
I'm going to charitably presume that you're not a member of the Labour Party or don't quite understand the current state of it. Let me help. Let's say Starmer wins then he very obviously loses the next election. What do you think the next step here is? A mass outbreak of rationality and togetherness?
No. He gets resigned as a backwards step and then we go into a good 3 or 4 election cycles of unelectable candidates each vying for control of a failing Party. The further reaches of the Party play the "we told you so" game.
Let's say RLB takes over. One of two things happens. Either she takes the nation with her to make her policy position an electable one, or she blows up and then we can say "it wasn't Corbyn, it wasn't Brexit, it was the policies" and the modern socialist experiment is over as a mainstream force, and we rebuild after that.
The only possible reason to vote for Starmer is that you think he can actually win a General Election. This means that you believe that he's not just electable but literally the most electable candidate in modern British history who cannot possibly lose, which I'd say is a massive massive misreading of the polls and of Starmer himself.
Just so he's clear, he's on ignore.
Best of luck putting admin or mods on ignore.
What the polls say now are immaterial, what they say after five years of Johnson is what matters. Generally, though not always, governments lose elections rather than oppositions winning them.
And Johnson has fuck up written all over him.
When Blair won a landslide in 1997, ask yourself, honestly, how much was that about how sick to death the country was with the Tories and John Major and how much was it down to Blair?
Can anyone honestly say that John Smith, had he lived, would have not won by a similar margin?
Over the next five years we're in for a lot of Harold Macmillan's "events, dear boy, events", they're going to determine the outcome of the next election more than anything else.
This would be a sensible post if we hadn’t already been through a achingly long period of austerity and general Tory shiteness. The difference is the public needs to see the opposition leader as someone they can take a chance on.
Britain would be three years into a Jeremy Corbyn-led government if not for the "disloyalty and disgraceful behaviour" of some Labour MPs, according to deputy leadership candidate Richard Burgon.
Because we're going to lose the next election. So, unfortunately, we have to forget about who is the most electable to the public because it doesn't matter. If we're not in power then we have no ability to create/change legislation and if we don't have that then we' cant help people.
My flow chart of voting tactics is always simple. If we're electable then vote for the guy who will most likely win the election. If a person is in power and is unpopular but the Party as a whole is still electable then try to push them towards an electable platform. If electability is a pipe dream then vote for the person who you believe can move the policy platform into something that I personally prefer.
Members votes are only really important if you can win an election and Labour can't do that in 2024 without one of the biggest political turnarounds in modern British history.
Yeah - I understood the logic as well - thought it was quite clearI understand the logic behind what Damocles has said and common sense would lead you to believe that it's an effective tactic.
The Labour party though, is dominated by people with no common sense and are in a constant state of denial and delusion. The views of the majority of the nation are completely unpalatable to them.
It's a forlorn hope. One of the biggest obstacles for the Labour party (if it actually wants to govern) is the rise of identity politics and social media.Yeah - I understood the logic as well - thought it was quite clear
Not sure how effective it will be though unless a good many others entitled to vote apply the same level of logic
Yeah - I understood the logic as well - thought it was quite clear
Not sure how effective it will be though unless a good many others entitled to vote apply the same level of logic
That is where my head has been for years...….It could result in the destruction of the whole party.
That would be good, then split the Tories up and scrap the detrimental two party system.
Trevor Phillips, the former head of Britain’s equalities watchdog, has been suspended from the Labour Party over allegations of Islamophobia, The Times can disclose.
A pioneering anti-racism campaigner, Mr Phillips, 66, now faces expulsion from the party for alleged prejudice against Muslims. He first alerted Britain to the problem of Islamophobia in the 1990s but is now being investigated for public statements that include expressing concerns about Pakistani Muslim men sexually abusing children in northern towns such as Rotherham.
Comments by Mr Phillips about the failure by some Muslims to wear poppies for Remembrance Sunday and the sympathy shown by a substantial proportion in an opinion poll towards the “motives” of the Charlie Hebdo killers also form part of the complaint.
Many of his statements date back years but Jennie Formby, Labour’s general secretary, suspended Mr Phillips as a matter of “urgency to protect the party’s reputation”, he was told. He has not been given the identity of any complainant. The suspension pending investigation means he cannot attend party meetings or run for office.
Mr Phillips was the inaugural chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is investigating Labour for alleged antisemitism. He was among a number of anti-racists who wrote to The Guardian last year and said that they were refusing to vote Labour at the general election in solidarity with Jews.
In The Times today Mr Phillips says he is a victim of Labour’s adoption of a cross-party group of MPs’ definition of Islamophobia as a “kind of racism” hostile to “Muslimness”. Labour said the party “takes all complaints about Islamophobia extremely seriously and they are fully investigated”.
The accusations are based on his public statements about how to integrate Muslims. As chairman of the Runnymede Trust think tank, Mr Phillips in 1997 published a report on Islamophobia. He successfully lobbied Tony Blair for a law protecting Muslims from incitement.
Khalid Mahmood, England’s first Muslim MP and a Labour backbencher, said “the charges were so outlandish as to bring disrepute on all involved in making them”. Mr Phillips has said there is no suggestion that he has done anything unlawful and “no one inside or outside the Labour Party has ever suggested that I have broken any rules”.
More evidence of Labour's total disconnect with the mainstream, and why they're not getting in power anytime soon.They’re getting rid of Trevor Phillips for daring to suggest concern over grooming gangs and integration of Pakistani and Bangladeshi people.
For those who don’t know he’s the former head of The Equalities Watchdog and incredibly well respected on all sides of the political divide.
Two interesting bits are-
‘Khalid Mahmood, England’s first Muslim MP and a Labour backbencher, said “the charges were so outlandish as to bring disrepute on all involved in making them”’
And the fact that he was strong on condemning Labour antisemitism.
They’re getting rid of Trevor Phillips for daring to suggest concern over grooming gangs and integration of Pakistani and Bangladeshi people.
For those who don’t know he’s the former head of The Equalities Watchdog and incredibly well respected on all sides of the political divide.
Two interesting bits are-
‘Khalid Mahmood, England’s first Muslim MP and a Labour backbencher, said “the charges were so outlandish as to bring disrepute on all involved in making them”’
And the fact that he was strong on condemning Labour antisemitism.
For those who don’t know he’s the former head of The Equalities Watchdog and incredibly well respected on all sides of the political divide.