Tories win Copeland b-election.

[Chippy_boy]

This is a farewell speech from a senior party employee called Mike Creighton who has just retired after 27 years service.

http://chalkhilldigital.info/author/mcreighton/

It's worth a read in full but the two bits that stood out were his quote from an interview that Vogue did with Alastair Campbell. In that interview Anna Wintour, the editor, said “Leadership is coming up with an idea and executing it. Ideas themselves are a dime a dozen”. Can anyone seriously claim that Corbyn has the ability to execute his ideas? The ability to execute is why politicians like Churchill, Atlee, Wilson, Thatcher & Blair stand head and shoulders above non-entities like Major, Brown & Cameron (and probably May as well).

At the end, he tells the story of a Blair visit to Hove where, among the Iraq war protestors, are 2 women who wanted to thank him for setting up Sure Start, which helped them turn their lives around after being battered by their partners. The point being that worthy ideas are all very well but you need to be able to execute them and to do that you need to be in power. Ideas on their own won't win you elections.

Do you think Corbyn wants to win a general election? Strikes me he's perfectly happy protesting, albeit now on a bigger stage. I don't think he'd have a clue what to do if he won, and I don't think in his heart of hearts, he imagines he can. Bit of a moot point since he isn't going to win anyway.

 

[bluemoonmatt]

The problem labour have is they don't seem to have anyone inbetween the yoghurt knitting commies like corbyn and the 'centerist' Tory lite lot.
It warms my heart though to hear the cries of concern about the state of the labour leadership from Tory's and Tory voters. It just goes to show that some things are bigger than party politics, and even die hard Tory's want to see an effective opposition - just like the rags wishing us well when we were in the second division :-)

I disagree mate to be fair I think the wrong brother was much like you describe. Despite the red Ed tag he got, he was what I'd call a progressive socialist. Fact is his message was resoundingly rejected at the ballot box. Even I was shocked how any labour leader could be seemingly more dispised than brown. Labour should have realised this and decided that Tory lite as some like to term it is more preferable to the electorate than foot & scargill et al, instead we lurched even further to the leftist abyss

Sheffield and South Shields don't decide who governs our country any more than Windsor or Witney. The parliament is decided by swing seats or middle England as some call it, and middle England don't trust the left. It may be unpalatable to some in labour (even before the influx of the 'new' members) but I've said it before, we should be a party of at least potential government, Corbyn and his momentum mates have relegated us to a protest movement.