Hilary Benn Sacked From The Shadow Cabinet - wider political debate

[hullefc]

Not to hand as I'm away from my desk but it was in the obituary for her in the Economist. Sure it's accessible with a quick Google

Found it. Thanks.

 

[Bungle]

Do you have the link/source with the words used by Jo Cox that she didn't want Corbyn as leader?

Not to hand as I'm away from my desk but it was in the obituary for her in the Economist. Sure it's accessible with a quick Google

http://www.economist.com/news/obitu...alaise-she-died-after-attack-her-constituency

OUT-OF-TOUCH and self-centred at best; deceitful and crooked at worst: Britons have developed smoulderingly low opinions of their rulers. Jo Cox—idealistic, diligent, likeable and rooted in her Yorkshire constituency—was a living rebuttal of that cynicism.

Britain’s political class is easily caricatured as an inbred elite. But she was the first member of her family to go to university. True, she found Cambridge daunting: it mattered so much how you talked and whom you knew. Other undergraduates had posh professional parents and had taken sunny gap years. Her only foreign travel had been package holidays in Spain, with summers spent packing toothpaste in the factory where her father worked; indeed she had assumed, until school pointed its head girl farther afield, that she would spend her life working there.

For all her brains and charm, Cambridge jolted her confidence—setting her back five years, she said. But when in 2015 she reached the House of Commons, mastering the ways of that self-satisfied, mysterious and privileged institution was easy.

Also unlike a stereotypical politician, she had a real life. She had been an aid worker for ten years. She had met rape victims in Darfur in Sudan, and talked to child soldiers about how they had been forced to kill their family members. She commuted to the House of Commons by bicycle, from the houseboat she shared with her husband and two young children, its view of Tower Bridge the only luxury she allowed herself to enjoy. (She wasn’t a TV star and wouldn’t dress like one, she firmly told a constituent who wondered if she might like to vary her trademark, unfussy blue blazers and red dresses.)

Principles mattered; tribalism did not. She was Labour “to the core”, but one of the most moving of many tributes after her murder was by Andrew Mitchell, her Conservative co-chair of the all-party Friends of Syria group. He called her a “five-foot bundle of Yorkshire grit”, and recalled her ferocious scolding of the Russian ambassador for his country’s role in Syria’s civil war. She and her Tory counterpart would text each other across the floor of the House of Commons, oblivious to the baying partisanship that raged about them. Other such friendships abounded.

Like many Labour moderates, she nominated the left-wing no-hoper, Jeremy Corbyn, for the party leadership, with the aim of making the contest livelier and more representative of the movement’s grass roots. Also like many, she regretted it later: the party needed a forward-looking election-winner, not a throwback bound by the comforting nostrums of the past.

But unlike many self-styled Labour modernisers, she did not plot against the hapless party leader. Back-stabbing was not her style: there was work to do. A lot of that involved championing unpopular causes. Working-class Labour voters, like the ones who put her in Parliament, tend increasingly to be pro-Brexit and nativist. Mrs Cox was a fervent pro-European. Her Batley and Spen constituency, she said fondly in her maiden speech, was not just a great maker of traditional biscuits but also “deeply enhanced” by immigration.

Fired up

She bemoaned British foreign policy’s missing moral compass. Whereas many Labourites droned or ranted at the prime minister’s weekly question-and-answer session, she asked him, calmly and devastatingly, whether he had “led public opinion on the refugee crisis or followed it”. That unsettled Mr Cameron, and (aides now say) helped change British policy. Her plainly spoken ambition to be foreign secretary one day looked more than plausible.

Helping her constituents was her most rewarding job, yet also prompted the tragic circumstances of her death. Though Westminster and Whitehall are tightly guarded, British politicians have scant protection when they venture outside. Only a handful of senior ministers have police bodyguards. Constituents wanting to meet their representatives simply make appointments for their regular surgeries (advice sessions)—or, as in the case of Mrs Cox’s assailant, wait outside in the street.

Trust and openness come at a cost. Five politicians were assassinated during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the last of them Ian Gow, blown up by a car bomb outside his home in 1990. In 2000 a regular visitor to the Cheltenham constituency office of Nigel Jones, then a Liberal Democrat MP, entered in a frenzy, wielding a sword, wounding the lawmaker and killing his assistant, Andrew Pennington. In 2010 an Islamist extremist walked into a constituency surgery to stab and nearly kill the Labour MP Stephen Timms. A recent survey showed four out of five MPs saying that they had experienced intrusive or aggressive behaviour. Mrs Cox herself had complained to the police about abuse—although not involving the 52-year-old gardener with, seemingly, far-right views and psychiatric problems who is now charged with her shooting and stabbing.

The toxic echo-chamber of social media, plus untreated mental illness, help turn stalkers and oddballs into murderous maniacs. One of Mrs Cox’s political precepts was that ignoring problems makes them worse—something to ponder as Britain thinks about its lawmakers, belatedly and sombrely, in a perhaps kinder light.

 

[magicjuan]

Mate, you know how you represent those with no voice? By keeping your core principles at heart, but doing everything you can to recognise the political playing field and gaining power, so you can act for them.

Corbyn has never, ever done that. It's easy to protest; it's a lot harder to channel that anger and aspiration to help into viable politics.

You make changes. You offer alternatives. You represent the wishes of the public who agree with your points. You don't patronise them with empty promises and more of the same.

You patronise the tolerance of the support and you get the backlash we got last week.

 

[Tubey]

But didn't he do this by trying to have a broad cabinet, which most of them refused to serve in? He offered Kendall and Cooper top jobs in the cabinet.

I am nervous of the pragmatism V protest stuff as well. Through holding a popular position he got the Tories to U-turn on school acadamisation and benefits. The Tories actually moved further to the left than what the Labour Party was Proposing 12 months earlier and the 3 other candidates had proposed along the "pragmatic" guise. Through articulating his position, IDS took a more left wing position than most of his own MP's. Do you really think he'd have done that Labour pragmatically supported welfare cuts as it did 12 months previously?

I do agree it can't all be principles but lets be honest the MP's want Labour to remove not just principles but any notion that they try to help ordinary people. Most of his colleagues are very wealthy, ordering on millionaires who are completely out of touch, I am not sure being in opposition to them is such a bad thing. They need to have a long look at themselves.

Token gestures aren't the same thing as incorporation. He put people in the cabinet, then expected them to bend to his will. That is a stupid thing to do.

He came into the role and immediately did stupid things like advocate scrapping Trident, in one sweep making himself unelectable. He didn't consider the party as a whole; he simply took one issue he thought was important, and went with it no matter what.

Take the referendum as well. He bent over a bit and 'campaigned' for Remain, as he recognised he'd be screwed if he didn't. But he didn't take those views on, understand them and fundamentally alter his position - instead, he deliberately half-arsed it.

Compare that to Cameron - a natural Eurosceptic, but he understood the broader landscape, chose to alter his stance and campaign wholeheartedly for Remain. As much as I dislike Cameron, they are the actions of a leader of a political party. Being a leader extends beyond right and left politics - it's a role, and Corbyn would have done well to learn it.

 

[Tubey]

Again though, look at UKIP. You're telling me protest doesn't work on a larger scale?

On a one topic argument, of course it can.

As a prospective government, absolutely not. UKIP will never hold power in the UK for a reason.

 

[Milkman]

ukip have one seat, its worked well on their single issue...but they are million miles from government

5 million GE votes and a successful Leave campaign tells me otherwise. We are sleepwalking into some very dark times.

 

[neil999]

http://www.economist.com/news/obitu...alaise-she-died-after-attack-her-constituency

so not a careerist and didnt vote for iraq war, just doesnt agree with corbyn...like many other decent mps

 

[Tubey]

5 million GE votes and a successful Leave campaign tells me otherwise. We are sleepwalking into some very dark times.

That's a protest vote. Cleggmania had it too - where are the Lib Dems now?

There's a ceiling to that type of politics.

 

[magicjuan]

So in your view, you're either extreme left, or not left at all.

That's why you like Corbyn, and why you'll never see an elected government you personally like, as you have a snowballs chance in hell of getting it.

I'm a socialist, but I'm one with common sense. I know that to help those who need it, you have to be pragmatic.

There's pragmatism and then there's having a lack of understanding of whose voice you represent. Parliament is a representative democracy.
So you can take socialism or leftism and carry it as far as you want as long as you deny the democratic principle? Got it.

I too have, on occassion, been known to demonstrate common sense.

 

[Tubey]

There's pragmatism and then there's having a lack of understanding of whose voice you represent. Parliament is a representative democracy.
So you can take socialism or leftism and carry it as far as you want as long as you deny the democratic principle? Got it.

I too have, on occassion, been known to demonstrate common sense.

By doing that, you become totally unelectable and betray those you claim to represent, as you'll never do anything of substance to actually make a change for them.

That's not common sense; that is protest for the sake of protest.

If I had to make a concession to big business or the banks in order to secure power to help the most vulnerable in society, I'd make that concession every day of the week.

 

[magicjuan]

ukip have one seat, its worked well on their single issue...but they are million miles from government

Maybe a million miles from government but they've just brought down a prime minister, thrown the country into constitutional crisis and threaten the foundations of the EU.

 

[Gwladysstreetlad]

And friends like Blair, Mandelson, Kinnock?

The three thoroughly vile people you mention above were all within the Labour party (and indeed the power of the Labour party) at the same time as Corbyn was a backbencher, correct? Yet not once did he offer his resignation and refuse to be associated with such people. If he's such a fine upstanding person of honestly and integrity why did he not leave the Labour party then? Could it possibly be that, he didn't want to risk losing his MP's wages? Hardly something I'd criticize him for BTW, but I simply can't abide this pedestal he's been put on by his supporters, who seam to think he's one of the disciples of Jesus!

 

[magicjuan]

By doing that, you become totally unelectable and betray those you claim to represent, as you'll never do anything of substance to actually make a change for them.

That's not common sense; that is protest for the sake of protest.

If I had to make a concession to big business or the banks in order to secure power to help the most vulnerable in society, I'd make that concession every day of the week.

Then they are your principles. Others have become tired of seeing others bow down to business for the sake of power. You negotiate with business on their terms and they become government. With no accountability

 

[Tubey]

Then they are your principles. Others have become tired of seeing others bow down to business for the sake of power. You negotiate with business on their terms and they become government. With no accountability

No, not for the sake of power - for the sake of helping the most vulnerable in society. They go hand in hand.

So it's a choice between being able to take practical action, or screaming pointlessly from the sidelines.

 

[magicjuan]

The three thoroughly vile people you mention above were all within the Labour party (and indeed the power of the Labour party) at the same time as Corbyn was a backbencher, correct? Yet not once did he offer his resignation and refuse to be associated with such people. If he's such a fine upstanding person of honestly and integrity why did he not leave the Labour party then? Could it possibly be that, he didn't want to risk losing his MP's wages? Hardly something I'd criticize him for BTW, but I simply can't abide this pedestal he's been put on by his supporters, who seam to think he's one of the disciples of Jesus!

Have any of the rebels lost wages?