Political round up.............

First topic message reminder :

Turn up for the books.............The hard left guy gets on the ballot for the Labour leadership !!....Managed to bag 35 nominations although some were chucked at him by Burnham who will no doubt pick up many of his second preferences...........

Corbyn has no chance....

However it means one of the other three is likely to get hurt in the first round..........Corbyn no doubt will hoover up the extreme nutty left of which there are no doubt plenty in the Labour party and will probably get enough to take him through the first round !!...

(Cruddas finished top in the 2007 Deputy leader race after the first round (He was the "left" candidate)...Of course Harman and Johnson did better as the rounds progresses with second prefs...)

That means one of the three favorites is likely to be eliminated first..................

Latest odds............

Burnham 10/11
Kendall 5/2
Cooper 3/1
Corbyn 66/1 .................

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-takes-22point-lead-in-labour-leadership-race-10422523.html

22 point lead! Burnham flagging; Corbyn narrowly edging the second choices.

Stan James make the old man the favourite now! From 100/1 to 5/4...

Don't like Kendall but agree when she says this is a fake BS poll. Just scaremongering.

"Meanwhile, Labour's acting leader Harriet Harman said the party was "very, very vigilant" about preventing non-Labour supporters from registering votes, after reports some were signing up for £3 in order to back Mr Corbyn."

Yeah love, you're a bit slow on the uptake!

The beard to be feared is evens on some betting sites. Quite a few unions backing him now. Bad news for the Labour party. #jezacide

Think you're still getting a bit over-excited, Duty.

Yep, terrifically over-excited.

I am with Gentleman on this, whilst we are a long way away from Corbyn winning it would not be a complete disaster. As a labour supporter the main reason Corbyn is seemingly ahead is the rest of the runners are such an uninspiring bunch of non entities it is almost impossible to get behind them. None have a personality worth the name or seem able to articulate anything that can be regognised as a policy or ideology. Whatever one thinks of Corbyn or his policies at least you can discern what he stands for.

If him winning is what is needed for the rest of the party to get its act in order and actually identify a leader capable to galvanising the party he may be just what is needed and as gent has said whatever else his faults he will not give the conservatives an easy ride, which is kind of the idea for an opposition party.

Not sure if Corbyn will appeal to the poor northerners who vote labour. Need someone like John Prescott or Arthur Scargill who they can identify with.

seanmichaels wrote:Not sure if Corbyn will appeal to the poor northerners who vote labour. Need someone like John Prescott or Arthur Scargill who they can identify with.

Or Tormund Giantsbane.

As the only poor northerner on here I approve of Galted's choice.

Not sure this guy is the joke I thought he was....

1. He's run the perfect campaign. The first of the candidates to hit social media hard. Got his message out there !!.

2. He's gone "positive" and invigorated a section of the sleeping and disenchanted.

3. He's refrained from popping at the other candidates who have offered nothing but meaningless platitudes and negatitivity. Been the "Better man" as it were

4. He's been out there...Touring the Country and filling out Town Halls..

He's no dud this guy and while I don't think he will win.....It's a lesson for all not to underestimate someone with nothing-to-lose.... and the importance of momentum.

As for Cameron and Duty.... This guy has obviously stirred young voters and voters who didn't think Labour was left enough. Whilst the Tories may hoover up sensible right wing Labour types no one has any idea how many Green, Lefty-UKIP, SNP and people who don't normally vote because they-are-all-the-same types this guy may sweep up.

If he wins I wouldn't take him for granted....

Like in the film TOMMY..........It seems a lot of people "aren't going to take it anymore !!!"

I have been out campaigning for Andy Burham the last few days, I have to say that I have been very disappointed by the election overall. There is a lot of abuse going around from all sides, I think its unhelpful and frankly wrong

Corbyn is doing well because:

a) The other three candidates are, at best, bang average. And completely uninspiring.
b) He has a free run. He hasn't served in any cabinet post, thus failings of the past cannot haunt him, unlike the other candidates.
c) He actually stands for something.

I see he was, briefly, odds-on favourite to win the leadership election over the weekend, but has now slipped out to second favourite again.

If Corbyn does win the leadership election, the Conservatives will sweep a landslide at the next general election (Cameron should seriously think about calling a general election in 2018/19 if Corbyn becomes Labour leader). I don't think there can be too much doubt about that - Miliband was veering to the left, and he only did narrowly better than Foot in '83. What could Corbyn possibly achieve? Zilch.

And many, more sensible, members and MPs of the Labour Party know it.

The Labour Party will probably collapse, in such a scenario, and will be torn apart from internal sniping - how many of the current shadow cabinet will refuse to serve under Corbyn?

Corbyn might galvanise some idealistic young voters, but what does that really mean..other than the collapse of the Green Party!

All in all....Come on Jeremy!

Duty - GE dates are now fixed, by an Act of Parliament, so incumbent governments cannot call snap elections or manipulate timing.

Don't see why even a non supporter would want the Labour Party to collapse, seems a pretty short sighted and immature position to take. A strong and cohesive opposition is an essential part of an effective government. It guarantees policies are properly debated and their flaws are outlined and potentially stopped. I have no love for the tories and have never voted for them but would certainly not want to see them collapse.

TopHat24/7 wrote:Duty - GE dates are now fixed, by an Act of Parliament, so incumbent governments cannot call snap elections or manipulate timing.

Oh right, I didn't know that.

Thank you.

Rowley wrote:Don't see why even a non supporter would want the Labour Party to collapse, seems a pretty short sighted and immature position to take. A strong and cohesive opposition is an essential part of an effective government. It guarantees policies are properly debated and their flaws are outlined and potentially stopped. I have no love for the tories and have never voted for them but would certainly not want to see them collapse.

I want the Labour Party to collapse because they are a truly vile party who actively discriminate and they believe that the skin colour of a person matters. If Ed Miliband had won the last election, he would have curbed democracy (no referendum on the EU) and hindered free speech (the criticism of Islam would have been made a crime).

I agree that a strong and cohesive opposition is required. But there is no reason why that has to be Labour.

Duty281 wrote:

Rowley wrote:Don't see why even a non supporter would want the Labour Party to collapse, seems a pretty short sighted and immature position to take. A strong and cohesive opposition is an essential part of an effective government. It guarantees policies are properly debated and their flaws are outlined and potentially stopped. I have no love for the tories and have never voted for them but would certainly not want to see them collapse.

I want the Labour Party to collapse because they are a truly vile party who actively discriminate and they believe that the skin colour of a person matters. If Ed Miliband had won the last election, he would have curbed democracy (no referendum on the EU) and hindered free speech (the criticism of Islam would have been made a crime).

I agree that a strong and cohesive opposition is required. But there is no reason why that has to be Labour.

Yeah - the vile f*cking bastards with their f*cking NHS, welfare state and minimum wage. C*nts.

Not holding a referendum on EU would not have been a curb on democracy. They clearly stated that they wouldn't have a referendum and they gave voters a choice to vote for them or not. Choice made.

Rowley wrote:Don't see why even a non supporter would want the Labour Party to collapse, seems a pretty short sighted and immature position to take. A strong and cohesive opposition is an essential part of an effective government. It guarantees policies are properly debated and their flaws are outlined and potentially stopped. I have no love for the tories and have never voted for them but would certainly not want to see them collapse.

Spot on.

Rowley wrote:Don't see why even a non supporter would want the Labour Party to collapse, seems a pretty short sighted and immature position to take. A strong and cohesive opposition is an essential part of an effective government. It guarantees policies are properly debated and their flaws are outlined and potentially stopped. I have no love for the tories and have never voted for them but would certainly not want to see them collapse.

Rowley is spot on we do not want a case where like the 1980's or early 2000's the opposition are effectively not doing their jobs because of bitter infighting, its bad for democracy and for the country as a whole.

wheelchair1991 wrote:I have been out campaigning for Andy Burham  the last few days, I have to say that I have been very disappointed by the election overall.  There is a lot of abuse going around from all sides, I think its unhelpful and frankly wrong

I think Labour is two parties in one mate............There just doesn't seem to be any common ground between the wings...

Whoever wins unless Cammy screws up is dead.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

wheelchair1991 wrote:I have been out campaigning for Andy Burham  the last few days, I have to say that I have been very disappointed by the election overall.  There is a lot of abuse going around from all sides, I think its unhelpful and frankly wrong

I think Labour is two parties in one mate............There just doesn't seem to be any common ground between the wings...

Whoever wins unless Cammy screws up is dead.

I think all parties have the problem of wings of a party not being able to stand each other after a defeat, it has happened always after big defeats, one accuses the other of 'betrayal'. I had hoped though that this sort of pointless debate would have ended but it seems my hopes were forlorn

I don't agree mate................Apart from Europe the Tories are pretty much united.  Big business, smaller government , more privatisation, lower taxes....

Right wing Labour seems to be closer to the Tories than left wing Labour...

I'd actually love to know what both sides regard as Labour values..

Because I have no idea what your party is all about....Although I did vote to get out the Liberal in 2015 and glad to say he got kicked out..

Yes but when the Tories were losing they were divided. Mainly on Europe at the time, The Labour Party is a broad church it always has been, with many different view points, a regard myself as centre left, I admired much of what Blair did in the 1997-2001 period, The tories have become more united but if they get defeated at the next election old wounds will open up, it was ever thus

I agree the Tories can be self defeating but my point stands that their values are pretty much Europe apart very similar.......

The Labour right are all for more privatisation of the NHS, Academies, 90 day detention, big business and are against nationalisation..

How does that correlate with a left wing who are diametrically opposed to this stuff ??

any wing will put up with things they deteste as long as the side is winning, many of Thatcher's Party couldn't stand her, being more Heath types(one nation conservatism). This was true within her own cabinet especially during her first two terms of office, However they swallowed it because she was a winner, same with Blair and Labour.

I can't say much about Thatcher as I only got her tail end....

But I always thought she stood on a platform of Conservative values.

Did Blair post 2001 stand on a Labour platform ???

Thatcher was hated by People such as Jim Prior(a member of her cabinet 79-87) and other Heath associates, she actually broke away from many of the Conservative values which had been cherished up to that point by the party since 1945, William Whitelaw(her deputy pm) was another who instinctively was a Edward Heath type, but because she won they went along with the things she did, much of which they disagreed with at the time.

I believe that post 2001 Blair became obsessed with foreign affairs and failed to build on much of the good work he did in his first term domestically.

She got rid of Heath.....I imagine if I got rid of Joanne I wouldn't be too popular with her friends..

You know more about her than me....I always thought she was a low taxes, less government type of chick a bit like Ronnie...

Blair endorsed Kendall is on 11% ............

Thatcher endorsed IDs, Hague and Howard...........

She did run on those things and they became her and her parties trademark along with the privatisation agenda, but before her since 45 the tory party was very different and many in her party were oposed to her 'wets' were opposed to her 'drys' were pro her. The Worcester MP Peter Walker at the time was seen as a wet.
So just shows what a strong leader can do to unite a divided party. Only when winning though,
Im afraid the endorsment of Blair is like a kiss of death in the party these days

Eight years after Maggie left she was deified....

Eight years after Blair left he's hated.....

Because I imagine Thatcher stayed close to her party's roots...

Problem for Labour is the membership is obviously centre left and the parliamentary party is centre right..

When big Labour stalwarts die you can't find Blair anywhere...

When Thatcher died he couldn't stop talking about her and made sure he got front row seats at her funeral...

I imagine members notice things like that..

Yes truss your right but she put the roots there and the conservatives have largely stuck to them, my point is before kieth joseph and maggie took over the party, the party was larely simmiler to labour under wilson, in fact political journos used to say you could barely notice a difference between them, maggie moved the party rightwards and in the late 70's she faced lots of opposition within her party, but because she won it larely subsided

Those words should be largely lol

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Eight years after Maggie left she was deified...

Eight years after Blair left he's hated...

I wonder how Labour would feel if they'd pulled out the knives like the Tories did.

Lowlandbrit wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Eight years after Maggie left she was deified...

Eight years after Blair left he's hated...

I wonder how Labour would feel if they'd pulled out the knives like the Tories did.

I think that has something to do with it, there was a lot of guilt in the Tory Party for so long about the way they dealt with Maggie

wheelchair1991 wrote:

Lowlandbrit wrote:

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Eight years after Maggie left she was deified...

Eight years after Blair left he's hated...

I wonder how Labour would feel if they'd pulled out the knives like the Tories did.

I think that has something to do with it, there was a lot of guilt in the Tory Party for so long about the way they dealt with Maggie

Shouldn't have been she was way behind Kinnock after the poll tax fiasco..

My Father-in-law loved the poll tax...Waxed lyrical about it..

wheelchair1991 wrote:I think that has something to do with it, there was a lot of guilt in the Tory Party for so long about the way they dealt with Maggie

Also I'd imagine it's a lot easier to remember the good times if you pulled the plug when you thought it had gone bad, instead of letting it fester.

I disagree. Iraq has defined Blair whether he was pushed or not.

Got a good laugh this morning when Burnham sent me - and other Labour 'supporters' presumably - his 'radical' vision:

- staying in the EU (yeah..),
- having a 'look' at TTIP (wow!),
- having a 'look' at fracking,
- opposing the Tory welfare bill (even though he didn)'t even vote against it),
- making the House of Lords proportionally represented (does anyone want this?),
- tackling something made-up called 'islamophobia' (whilst simultaneously promising to champion the cause of LGBT people),
- discriminating against people who have white skin colour so there can be more 'BAME' candidates (how strange that some people like Burnham believe that skin colour is actually relevant to the merits of a person),
- having an artificial 50-50 gender split on the shadow cabinet (whyyyyy?),
- creating an N.H.S. that is as good at treating mental health as it is cancer (even though we're currently lagging behind),
- renationalising the railways (about as radical as it gets).

Radical? Is this the best Labour can do?

You aren't worth bothering with on politics...are You ??

Am fully supportive of an elected upper chamber. Don't like the HoL as it is...

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:You aren't worth bothering with on politics...are You ??

What do you wish to dispute? I don't find Burnham's ideas radical - they seem to be rather similar to Miliband bar one or two differences.

It seems that in promoting what he calls 'radical' ideas, he is trying to out do Corbyn on that flank - something which he can't possibly hope to achieve.

TopHat24/7 wrote:Am fully supportive of an elected upper chamber. Don't like the HoL as it is...

Yes, I think the House of Lords needs reform, but PR is surely not the answer.

I would be in favour of scrapping it altogether.

We all have bias... I'm the first to admit I am biased Duty....

But you're just way out there and completely unrational...

Makes it pointless trying to debate....

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:We all have bias... I'm the first to admit I am biased Duty....

But you're just way out there and completely unrational...

Makes it pointless trying to debate....

But you haven't tried, Truss.

What is it you wish to argue?

Nothing at all...

Read an article that states nearly half the available voters in this election have joined since GE2015..

Has to be good news for Corby..

200,000 to start... plus 70,000 new members and 50,000 plus through the Union..

Labour seem a bit worried that the election process has been infiltrated. It would be a PR disaster if the leadership election was halted, and possibly enough to edge Corbyn over the winning line.

Labour's own fault..

Elect Corbyn lose the right..Start again and change the rules lose the left..

Screwed either way....They'll have to hope Burnham wins. ..

Good time to be a Tory.

It's going crazy...........

Corbyn............ 4/5
Burnham......... 3/1
Cooper............ 4/1
Kendall ...........100/1

Two months ago................

Burnham........... 4/5
Kendall............. 3/1
Cooper............. 4/1
Corbyn............ 33/1 ....................

I can't explain it..............Apart from people giving two fingers to the establishment.

Could be same as Scots ref and GE15 though, reversion to mean once people are actually stood in the booth with pen in hand and voting slip 6 inches away....

Corbyn might fall away same as Yes and Labour did......