orchard
Player Valuation: £60m
What, like helping to wrest power from an out of control Tory government which caused Sterling to rise from historic lows?
Current Affairs The Labour Party
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So basically both polls show that Labour have the support of just over a quarter of the electorate.
tsubaki
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Luciana Berger was bullied - but it was by far right trolls, at least one of which was jailed for doing it.
When her CLP was accused of bullying her, what actually happened was that a couple of members proposed votes of no confidence in her based on her reluctance to say whether or not she was going to stand as the Labour candidate at the next election. Those votes never took place (after being withdrawn under pressure from the leadership), and she left to join TIG a couple of weeks later (the company that was the basis of TIG having been set up the month before the row).
You are right though that Labour needs to appeal to the centre ground, though then again it would help a lot if centrist voters actually looked at what Labour was proposing rather than what the papers tell them.
davek
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The "LP institutional anti-semitism" charge is a complete fabrication.It's one of th greatest political cons of our time.
Shame on those carrying it out, and a massive appreciation to those in the Jewish Voices For Labour who stood tall to defend the party from the slurs from their own community. Heroes one and all.
For the first time in my life, I'm frightened to be Jewish
And non-Jews attacking the Labour party aren't helping.
www.opendemocracy.net
Everyone should read this.
....there seems a number of Labour MPs who are very close to this and suggest the party has a major problem with anti-semitism. Perhaps they are imagining it and it’s all fabrication. Whatever it is, the Labour Party is tainted and rather than say it’s everybody else’s fault, it needs to turn things around or it will always only appeal to the left wing.
Whilst policy is key, unfortunately image is also a major factor. The Labour Party needs to be clever, I think Corbyn should step aside for the good of the party. I dare say, members will vote for another Momentum candidate but it will at least be a fresh face without the Corbyn baggage.
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
Eggs - that is what we are told, repeatedly. It is not something that really stands up to any kind of scrutiny. Remember Ed Miliband?
...scrutiny and reasoning are fine, but the reality is that voters need convincing. Some of us will vote Labour regardless (even if we don’t like Momentum), but to win the majority to govern the Party needs to be seen as an attractive option, despite a hostile press.
I was horrified to hear people being interviewed in Bury saying they fear Corbyn and ‘prefer Boris’. We can reason all we want, but the Labour Party need to turn that situation around, especially with the Tories in such a mess.
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
I agree entirely, but it does sort of assume that there is anything that the party can do to break through that.
They came close in 2017, but the media is even more down the rabbit hole on Boris this time (not to quote myself, but honestly take a look at some of the articles in today's Mail on Sunday) and when the GE comes it will get even worse than it is now.
If our country is ever going to get better then people - and there are millions of them - need to at least realise that what they are being told is bollocks. Look at @Joey66 here, who despite (he says) years as a trade unionist, a socialist to his core, yet reads the Express or some other right-wing rag and as a result thinks Corbyn is a Jew-hating, Marxist, coffee-peasant exploiting, traitor.
He does have a beard though.
....I know some don’t like reminding, but there are lessons to be learned from New Labour. The Blair machine became electable. This Labour Party needs to be clever, they need a strategy. I do think the Party would realise a surge in just replacing its leader and Shadow Chancellor. The Momentum members would want another left winger, but fresh faces with less baggage could persuade some voters to change.
It’s a game, Labour need to learn how to play it.
tsubaki
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If we are going to look back at New Labour, we should also acknowledge what Blair actually did to get "electable" - ie: form an alliance with the press, specifically Murdoch. That alliance came at a cost which many people would argue was far and away beyond what anyone should have paid - doing nothing in the face of widespread and serious criminality (hacking phones, corrupting public officials etc), abandoning the people who were victimized by that (including normal members of the public), fostering a climate of hate against various groups and not effectively investigating scandals that the Press had already been involved in (Stuart-Smith being the worst).
Of course it also guaranteed good coverage, especially for things like the windfall tax - which if Corbyn proposed now would be labelled as the very worst kind of Marxist-Leninist thought.
Personally, if doing that again is what people think is required for Labour to win power then they should say so. I'd much rather Labour (under whatever leader) fought against that.
....i’m not suggesting selling their soul to the Devil, but they need to be smart and I don’t think they are.
magicjuan
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The real issue is that this 'centre ground' is still two steps to the right of Thatcher now, the whole political sway having shifted over 20 years.
It's a big problem, to claim any of that Blairite ground they would have to be erm, Blairites, which in turn would lose votes.
The other side is the ever absorbing Lib Dems, as morally bankrupt as the tories, are aiming for the enter ground on a business mentality, not political.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Brilliant piece.For the first time in my life, I'm frightened to be Jewish
And non-Jews attacking the Labour party aren't helping.
Everyone should read this.
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