Hilary Benn Sacked From The Shadow Cabinet - wider political debate

[Ratkiller]

Reading this thread it seems people think we need another Tony Blair.

Sucking up to the likes of murdoch to get elected and continuing the charade of socialism and democracy.

 

[moyeslovechild]

"Lefty political activism" might not be a vote winner amongst the working class, but some of his policies are

What ones?

 

[tsubaki]

All well and good but my comment was in response to an earlier comment saying that huge benefits would accrue when the PLP finally united behind Corbyn and argued a unified passionate stance to the nation. My point is that the PLP will never give Corbyn that support. You have taken my comment and applied it to a different context.

Not really - why do you think the PLP won't give him their support?

 

[Whistlin' Dixie]

What ones?

Erm...

Scrapping the bedroom tax?

Abolishing the 'workfare' system?

Making the banks invest in infrastructure, instead of sticking down on taxpayer £'s and awarding themselves obscenely for failure?

There's three off the top of my head...

 

[moyeslovechild]

Not really - why do you think the PLP won't give him their support?

Because they don't think he has a chance of winning.

There were constant rumblings over Miliband for that reason too. Funny how short people's memories are.

They probably view this as more urgent given Corbyn will absolutely destroy Labour if he's still there in 2020.

 

[ToffeeDoug]

Reading this thread it seems people think we need another Tony Blair.

Sucking up to the likes of murdoch to get elected and continuing the charade of socialism and democracy.

Labour needs a leader who can take the fight to the Tory Party, UKIP and the SNP with passion, sound judgement and decent policies and who understands that to achieve anything an election has to be won. That doesn't necessarily mean another Tony Blair and going even more right of centre. Give the electorate a proper choice by all means, a real alternative to swamping the centre ground, but it will require a leader with energy and charisma and joined up thinking to win those votes back.

 

[tsubaki]

What ones?

Well, rail renationalization (which is consistently popular, from every type of voter), more social housing and a right to buy for private tenants, the scrapping of tuition fees and living expenses loans and their replacement by grants for university students (ie: the system that worked perfectly well up until 1997) and getting rid of PFI by buying them out (which would save literally tens of not hundreds of billions over the lives of the deals).

 

[tsubaki]

Because they don't think he has a chance of winning.

There were constant rumblings over Miliband for that reason too. Funny how short people's memories are.

They probably view this as more urgent given Corbyn will absolutely destroy Labour if he's still there in 2020.

Yes, but as I said they are the ones with the lengthy record of defeat. Labour has to either be fixed so that its more in tune with its support or change direction, and there is nothing that they have come up with that would suggest they have the slightest idea of how to do either with success.

 

[ToffeeDoug]

Not really - why do you think the PLP won't give him their support?

172 of them said so this week in the no-confidence vote. In 2001, 2005, 2010 the Labour candidates standing for the first time in those elections were largely Blairites and Brownites and that niche of Labour Party thinking are now in the PLP, which is now predominantly centre-right. They didn't vote for Corbyn to become leader in 2015, bar 20 or 30 of them, and they aren't suddenly going to show him their undying support.

 

[Mountfield1985]

Because the guy has spent his whole political career fighting inequality. He's spent what little time he's had as Labour leader fighting austerity. He wants to in public services, to protect the NHS, de-privatise the railways, up corporation tax... I mean, the list goes on. It's fair to say his policies are favourable to the working class.

To bring it back to Everton pretty tenuously (God we need a signing to stop us talking about politics for a bit!) – it's like when Goodison gets on Ross Barkley's back, even though he's been shoved out onto the left wing (apt). Of course he looks crap if he's got 40,000 people booing him, but play him in his right position and get behind the lad and look how much better he plays. To me, this Labour coup is like bringing Barkley off at half-time before you even try him in his best position.

I'll stop with the football analogies now. It's just been a long time since I talked about Everton.

All true but if we've learnt anything from this referendum, and pretty much every General Election ever, it's that the masses will listen to the mainstream media and vote accordingly. JC will never have the media on his side. The media will always portray him as untrustworthy with the economy, as someone who will compromise national security, as a terrorist sympathiser, as unprofessional and incompetent. It doesn't matter how fair that is, joe public swallows it whole.

He can not win at a general election. I hate that he can't. But we need to be looking at the bigger picture here. With the tories conspiring to make boundary changes, an early GE this year might be the last chance in a generation for Labour to get power. To give us the best possible chance we need a leader with a far broader appeal, and to work alongside other parties to keep the tories out. Corbyn needs to be part of this process but he is not the man to lead it.

 

[moyeslovechild]

Well, rail renationalization (which is consistently popular, from every type of voter), more social housing and a right to buy for private tenants, the scrapping of tuition fees and living cost loans and their replacement by grants for university students (ie: the system that worked perfectly well up until 1997) and getting rid of PFI by buying them out (which would save literally tens of not hundreds of billions over the lives of the deals).

OK, so how do you tell the public you're paying for this? They voted in the Tories last year on the basis they didn't trust Labour with the economy after all.

Do you think all the Labour voters that have flocked to Ukip will consider voting for a lefty like Corbyn? I just don't think so at all.

Need to win votes from Ukip, Lib Dems and Tories if we want a chance.

 

[Mountfield1985]

Reading this thread it seems people think we need another Tony Blair.

Sucking up to the likes of murdoch to get elected and continuing the charade of socialism and democracy.

It's all very well to object to "sucking up to Murdoch". The fact is you can't win an Election with this type of media barrage against you.

I've not read all the replies on here but nobody I know wants another Tony Blair. JC has taken the party in the right direction in regards to policy, and i'd like a charismatic left wing candidate to take that on.

 

[tsubaki]

OK, so how do you tell the public you're paying for this? They voted in the Tories last year on the basis they didn't trust Labour with the economy after all.

Do you think all the Labour voters that have flocked to Ukip will consider voting for a lefty like Corbyn? I just don't think so at all.

Need to win votes from Ukip, Lib Dems and Tories if we want a chance.

Well, for a start I would make sure McDonnell makes it abundantly clear that many of the proposals - rail nationalization (which costs at least twice as much in subsidy and in real terms as BR did), PFI (which in 2012 had a paper value of £54 billion, and an expected cost of £300 billion over the whole deal) and building more council houses (as opposed to putting people in private accomodation and paying a higher level of rent via HB) - would cost less than what we are doing now.

 

[Milkman]

All true but if we've learnt anything from this referendum, and pretty much every General Election ever, it's that the masses will listen to the mainstream media and vote accordingly. JC will never have the media on his side. The media will always portray him as untrustworthy with the economy, as someone who will compromise national security, as a terrorist sympathiser, as unprofessional and incompetent. It doesn't matter how fair that is, joe public swallows it whole.

He can not win at a general election. I hate that he can't. But we need to be looking at the bigger picture here. With the tories conspiring to make boundary changes, an early GE this year might be the last chance in a generation for Labour to get power. To give us the best possible chance we need a leader with a far broader appeal, and to work alongside other parties to keep the tories out. Corbyn needs to be part of this process but he is not the man to lead it.

I get what you're saying and, sadly I agree that the media will try to destroy him and they'll probably succeed. But that would be giving up which is exactly what they want you to do. Vote for what you believe in, not the best of what's left.

 

[ToffeeDoug]

Well, for a start I would make sure McDonnell makes it abundantly clear that many of the proposals - rail nationalization (which costs at least twice as much in subsidy and in real terms as BR did), PFI (which in 2012 had a paper value of £54 billion, and an expected cost of £300 billion over the whole deal) and building more council houses (as opposed to putting people in private accomodation and paying a higher level of rent via HB) - would cost less than what we are doing now.

Why hasn't McDonnell made this abundantly clear already?