Current Affairs The General Election

[Eggs]

How's it a blow for Labour?

...thinking of the bigger picture. I know lots of Corbyn supporters don’t like Watson, I know he’s had his problems over the accusations, but folk who are centrist and folk Labour have to win over like him and his more moderate views.

The Corbyn converted don’t matter, Labour have to attract voters who supported the Tory’s last time. It’s a blow.

 

[abelard]

the people who are going to decide the election do not know who Tom Watson is

 

[The binman chronicles]

the Daily Mail said so

To be fair to them they have wrote turn to page 32 to see the Tory sex scandal in size 1 font. Balanced journalism.

 

[orchard]

the Daily Mail said so

Blimey, good balanced journalism right there - no wonder there spaff gets filtered out by search-engines, shame the same can't be said of their doofus readership.

 

[The binman chronicles]

...thinking of the bigger picture. I know lots of Corbyn supporters don’t like Watson, I know he’s had his problems over the accusations, but folk who are centrist and folk Labour have to win over like him and his more moderate views.

The Corbyn converted don’t matter, Labour have to attract voters who supported the Tory’s last time. It’s a blow.

I liked to think that Watson was a human handbrake just to make sure the policies didn't go over the top. But we'll see now he has gone if it makes any difference.

 

[orchard]

...thinking of the bigger picture. I know lots of Corbyn supporters don’t like Watson, I know he’s had his problems over the accusations, but folk who are centrist and folk Labour have to win over like him and his more moderate views.

The Corbyn converted don’t matter, Labour have to attract voters who supported the Tory’s last time. It’s a blow.

He realised he was in the wrong party and left, to suggest that one votes for a far right party reinforces this and simply confirms that he isn't interested in the social well-being of the nation nor plight of the poor whatsoever.

 

[tsubaki]

...thinking of the bigger picture. I know lots of Corbyn supporters don’t like Watson, I know he’s had his problems over the accusations, but folk who are centrist and folk Labour have to win over like him and his more moderate views.

The Corbyn converted don’t matter, Labour have to attract voters who supported the Tory’s last time. It’s a blow.

This has it backwards quite a bit; anyone who claims to be a Labour centrist has no reason to like Watson. The left can at least say he helped get rid of Blair.

Also, Ian Austin is a disgrace.

 

[abelard]

There is an assumption that voters who are undecided between Labour and the Tories must logically want policies that fall in the exact centre-point between the two, along some sort of imaginary economic and social spectrum.

This is wrong.

The people who will decide this election live in Wales, the North, and the Midlands. They are cynical about politics, and distrust exactly the sort of candidate which people who believe my first sentence think would be a magical solution to all that ails Labour.

And they are not wrong to do so.

The election will not hinge on which party can better present that which Laura Kuenssberg deems 'moderate', but on which party better captures this very much justified sense of disaffection.

It will come down to whether or not the Tories' Brexit-based performative assault on the status quo proves more resonant and persuasive than Labour's social and economic justice-based assault on the status quo.

Running candidates who try to maintain an imagined, performative centre will end in disaster, as every election in nearly every Western country in the last few years consistently demonstrates.

 

[Eggs]

I liked to think that Watson was a human handbrake just to make sure the policies didn't go over the top. But we'll see now he has gone if it makes any difference.

...good point. Pity for Labour that he didn’t announce he’d be standing down a few weeks ago, the timing of this isn’t great and it’s not good news regardless of what the Corbynists say. Hopefully it’s early enough in the campaign for a recovery.

Ex-Labour MP Ian Austin now on Sky News saying Corbyn is toxic and urging voters to support the Conservatives. He’s clearly got a grudge, but voters Labour need to attract will be influenced, so this is another blow.

 

[Eggs]

This has it backwards quite a bit; anyone who claims to be a Labour centrist has no reason to like Watson. The left can at least say he helped get rid of Blair.

Also, Ian Austin is a disgrace.

...possibly, but those views only appeal to folk who will vote Labour anyway. Labour can’t be insular, they have to appeal to non-Labour supporters.

That interview with Ian Austin is powerful will be used by the Tory’s. It will have a negative impact, a truly damaging blow. The Tory’s have had a poor start, Labour probably having a worst one now. The Ian Austin interview being played and played by Sky.

It’s not surprising Corbyn is a millstone around Labour’s neck, just when we need a strong Labour Party.

 

[tsubaki]

...possibly, but those views only appeal to folk who will vote Labour anyway. Labour can’t be insular, they have to appeal to non-Labour supporters.

Yes, but when people are being told untruths like Watson being a moderate (or worse yet, a centrist), or Austin being merely an ex-Labour MP rather than an ex-Labour MP who has never accepted the twice expressed democratic will of the party, these things must be challenged.

Half of the anti-Corbyn argument after all consists of various people linked to the ruling class going around telling everyone else that he and Labour are extremists, without any real explanation of why they are (and when there is, it’s usually massively hypocritical like the “Corbyn is pro Putin” meme).

 

[Eggs]

Yes, but when people are being told untruths like Watson being a moderate (or worse yet, a centrist), or Austin being merely an ex-Labour MP rather than an ex-Labour MP who has never accepted the twice expressed democratic will of the party, these things must be challenged.

Half of the anti-Corbyn argument after all consists of various people linked to the ruling class going around telling everyone else that he and Labour are extremists, without any real explanation of why they are (and when there is, it’s usually massively hypocritical like the “Corbyn is pro Putin” meme).

...all the analysis and arguments only pander to the converted. Labour should have shifted Corbyn a long time ago, simply because he’s not popular. Labour party Governance is run by Momentum, it appeals to the few and not the many. I desperately want a Labour Government, but I shake my head when I see how it’s run.

The Austin interview will probably have more of a negative impact.

 

[Blue 1]

Cynical of me to point out the jobs the two most vocal anti-Corbyn shobgites have been given by the Conservative government, I suppose: Trade envoy to Israel (Austin) and Antisemitism Tsar (Mann).

Oh that Gerald Kaufmann were still with us for the ragging he'd give Austin.

 

[jackyboy]

...all the analysis and arguments only pander to the converted. Labour should have shifted Corbyn a long time ago, simply because he’s not popular. Labour party Governance is run by Momentum, it appeals to the few and not the many. I desperately want a Labour Government, but I shake my head when I see how it’s run.

The Austin interview will probably have more of a negative impact.

Anybody giving any credence to what that war-mongering toad has to say wants their head feeling.

 

[The binman chronicles]

This has it backwards quite a bit; anyone who claims to be a Labour centrist has no reason to like Watson. The left can at least say he helped get rid of Blair.

Also, Ian Austin is a disgrace.

Quite, but he still had a different view point and the fact that Corbyn didn't choose him was a good thing to have someone in the high ranks to 'test' the policy making decisions.

It would be interesting to know as Watson sat down last night if he thought what might have been if he wasn't so machiavellian.