CORBYN, McDONNELL AND LIVINGSTONE.

JC Footy Genius said:

There is rage coursing through the veins of today’s Labour party. Even before the latest act of self-laceration over Syria, it’s been bursting out from all but the truest of true believers in the new leader: rage, despair and bewilderment at whatever new low has been plumbed.

One minute it’s the shadow chancellor smiling as he quotes Chairman Mao in the Commons; the next it’s Jeremy Corbyn having to clarify that, yes, if a homicidal terrorist were massacring people on a British street, pausing only to reload, it might be OK to stop him with a bullet.

Most of this fury comes from the obvious quarters: the MPs, the former advisers, the longtime activists – the people who have devoted their working lives to the Labour party – boiling with anger at the serial unforced errors of their new rulers. The Corbyn camp will dismiss them, of course, as “Blairites” or “red Tories”. They’ll say their critics are whining because their brand of austerity-lite, soft capitalism has been jettisoned, dumped by men of principle determined to fight for economic justice and a more peaceful world.

That response could not be more wrong. It fails to realise that what enrages Corbyn’s critics most is not a doctrinal difference with the leader, but their assessment of the damage he is doing to the party. Their chief concern is over Labour’s prospects of ever again winning the trust of the British people and forming a government. And they want a Labour government very badly. In other words, they despair of Corbyn not because they are on the right, as the leader’s chorus would have you believe, but because they remain on the left.

Take this week’s autumn statement by George Osborne. There was so much to criticise, so much to oppose. You could have begun with the trail of broken promises left by this chancellor, who swore he would eradicate the deficit by May 2015 and who did nothing of the sort; who solemnly vowed to be bound by a new “welfare cap” only to break it on Wednesday; who tightened the belt on the poorest in July only to reveal four months later that the public finances had been magically transformed by the sudden discovery of a hidden stash of £27bn. What possible credibility does this repeat promise-breaker have?

The opposition could then have moved to the choices Osborne makes. His instinct in July was to punish the hardest-working and the lowest-paid, by slashing their tax credits. He only ran scared when he realised his ambition to reach No 10 was in jeopardy, spooked by rebellions on his own benches, in the Lords and on the front page of the Sun.

Unrepentant, though, he continues to slash the money available to local councils, bleeding them dry. With a 56% cut, he is depriving them of the cash they need to clear the rubbish, maintain the parks and look after the vulnerable. Try as they might, and the best councils have been stretching every sinew, town halls will simply not be able to provide for the frail and the lonely, the adults who need social care, or the young people with learning difficulties who need a ride to school. Those services, along with the local library or swimming pool, will be starved of money until they are gone.

All of this needs to be opposed, just as Osborne’s autumn statement needed to be forensically dismantled line by line. This was why Labour people were furious at John McDonnell’s flourishing of Mao’s Little Red Book. It was for the same reason Osborne and David Cameron were so delighted by the stunt, the Tory benches lighting up with red faces guffawing in unison. Both sides knew that Labour’s critique would be forgotten, buried by the story of a shadow chancellor already lampooned as an unreconstructed communist appearing to vindicate his accusers in the most ostentatious fashion imaginable.

It’s not just the ineptitude that infuriates the Labour leadership’s internal critics. It’s the sure knowledge that Corbyn and his lieutenants are allowing the Tories to get away with it. Allowing them to escape scrutiny on a day when they should be under pressure, so that Labour’s economics spokesman spends his few precious minutes of airtime not lambasting the cuts that will disfigure the landscape of this country, but debating the record of China’s murderous dictator. All because of the vanity that thought it more important to make a juvenile joke than to speak for the people who are, and who will be, hit hardest by a Tory government unbound.

But the gift this gives the Tories is bigger than just one day of easy, unopposed headlines. McDonnell’s bow to Mao, like his past praise for the IRA, or Corbyn’s reluctance to stop terrorist murderers or his refusal to sing the national anthem, or Ken Livingstone’s blaming of Blair rather than the killers for 7/7 – all these estrange Labour from large swaths of the British public, including that section of it that once saw Labour as its natural champion.

Canvassers on the doorstep ahead of next week’s Oldham byelection report incredulity among past Labour voters at the antics of the men at the top. As for the voters of middle England, some of whom at least will have to find Labour acceptable if the party is ever to return to government, the current leadership is all but urging them to stay away.

So when MPs or other Labour voices condemn Corbyn and his team, their chief motive is not ideological disagreement. It is their hardening conviction that, with each daily misstep, the ruling circle is making Labour unelectable and turning the Tories’ lease on Downing Street into a freehold. That’s what they speak about privately. That’s what gets the veins bulging in their neck. Their belief that Labour is guaranteeing the Tories at least 10 more years in office: after which the NHS, the welfare state, the BBC, the country itself, will be unrecognisable.

What will it take to bring about a change? Perhaps the new ruling group itself will shift, realising that it will simply have to compromise with the electorate and start, say, blaming terrorists for terrorism. Maybe the young and idealistic who rallied in such impressive numbers to the Corbyn flag will wince once too often at the dinosaur attitudes of the men they have elevated, whether it be Livingstone’s casual insulting of the mentally ill or the much noticed allocation of the most senior positions to men rather than women. Or maybe they will simply turn away from a top brass that still carries the baggage of ancient left struggles, like those over Mao or Irish republicanism.

Or maybe it will fall to the trade unions to save the party they helped found. Note Unite leader Len McCluskey’s warning to Corbyn this week that the latter could no longer “say the first thing that comes into his head”.

Either way, something has to move. There is less time than some in Labour might like to think. The party’s reputation is declining with each passing day. Labour needs to rescue itself, not for its own sake – but for the sake of the country it once aspired to govern.

http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...orbyn-terror-mao-labour-alienating-supporters

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glasfryn said:

people can write want they want and rage all they like, but eventually it will be the grass roots that will decide what happens in the labour party ...................democracy at its best
I wouls also like to comment on the tory ministers phoneing Labour MP's to get them to vote for bombing Syria, which is all very well ....but it might be a little more sensible to phone round their own constituants

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glasfryn said:

people can write want they want and rage all they like, but eventually it will be the grass roots that will decide what happens in the labour party ...................democracy at its best
I wouls also like to comment on the tory ministers phoneing Labour MP's to get them to vote for bombing Syria, which is all very well ....but it might be a little more sensible to phone round their own constituants

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Herr Tubthumper said:

Fair points. One thing the current situation has made be do is think/re-think who the MPs should respond to and I'm coming around to the idea it's the party membership primarily.

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Herr Tubthumper said:

Fair points. One thing the current situation has made be do is think/re-think who the MPs should respond to and I'm coming around to the idea it's the party membership primarily.

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beorhthelm said:

despite them being voted in by a wider electorate? whats not being recognised by the Corbynites saying he has a mandate from the memebership, is that every MP has their own mandate from their constituents. in many cases the local membership may not reflect the same view as the national membership. remember over half the total membership didnt vote for Corbyn (including the non-voters), so one cannot assume that all local party organisations are behind Corbyn.

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glasfryn said:

or cameron

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beorhthelm said:

despite them being voted in by a wider electorate? whats not being recognised by the Corbynites saying he has a mandate from the memebership, is that every MP has their own mandate from their constituents. in many cases the local membership may not reflect the same view as the national membership. remember over half the total membership didnt vote for Corbyn (including the non-voters), so one cannot assume that all local party organisations are behind Corbyn.

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Herr Tubthumper said:

My take is that the electorate are voting primarily for the Labour Party and their policies. Are the electorate really voting for the individual candidate? Or are they voting for party and policies the party stand for? It's the latter. Consequently MPs should listen to the party members.

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glasfryn said:

people can write want they want and rage all they like, but eventually it will be the grass roots that will decide what happens in the labour party ...................democracy at its bestI wouls also like to comment on the tory ministers phoneing Labour MP's to get them to vote for bombing Syria, which is all very well ....but it might be a little more sensible to phone round their own constituants

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Herr Tubthumper said:

My take is that the electorate are voting primarily for the Labour Party and their policies. Are the electorate really voting for the individual candidate? Or are they voting for party and policies the party stand for? It's the latter. Consequently MPs should listen to the party members.

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beorhthelm said:

though of course many vote tribally on the rosette, some will be voting for the individual, one cant dismiss that out of hand. more the point though, the local constituency party selects the candidates. MPs should listen to the party members that selected them, more so than a new membership that didnt. as example, Kendall must be have been supported by her local party, doesnt seem credible that would suddenly change. unless of course the membership has changed so much that she no longer has the backing of the local party. this may well be the case, if so does this shift in the party membership not mean the party is in crisis, with dozens of members no longer represtning the party? maybe they should do the honorable thing and resign? i think the point is the party members national and local are not necessarily of the same voice, and the local MP is voted for by their local constituents, not central parties.

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Hastings gull said:

I think you may well be right in that primarily voters go for the party - many a good MP loses his/her seat at election time, as that particular party is voted out by a disgruntled electorate. However, your use of the word "members" is a jump too far. You and I both know that the members of any party are likely to be far more strident in their views than the average chap in the street, who is nowhere near as committed. Yet it is millions of these chaps who will decide their future at the ballot box. not the members.

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glasfryn said:

people can write want they want and rage all they like, but eventually it will be the grass roots that will decide what happens in the labour party ...................democracy at its best
I wouls also like to comment on the tory ministers phoneing Labour MP's to get them to vote for bombing Syria, which is all very well ....but it might be a little more sensible to phone round their own constituants

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Herr Tubthumper said:

I But we the party, and us alone, decide our party's policies and who will represent us and these policies. It's then up to the electorate to decide if they want the policies and candidates we chose.

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Chicken Run said:

The electorate did decide and will decide again in 2020 if this shambles continues, you the party got it wrong not once but twice now with your selection for leaders, maybe the members are the ones who can't be trusted to make the right decision.

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Herr Tubthumper said:

The tipping point for me voting Corbyn was that he felt a party should not bend it's policies to match the electorate ie compromise for votes. More they should decide its policies and then go out and convince the electorate their way is the way forward. Whilst "millions of these chaps" will decide the UK's future the Labour party should decide what they think their version of the future is.

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DataPoint said:

Gosh! You’re so extreme in your views that you just can’t feel the pain in that article.

It is voters who will decide the relevance of the Labour party. But I guess you don’t care!

I’ve not voted Labour since the ‘70’s but I recognise the party has many people good people who want to do the right thing for this country. They must be utterly shell-shocked at the collapse in their fortunes since May and to be honest I sympathise with them – I want to win the arguments not crush the opposition.

The wonderful thing about the British is that their politics hover pragmatically around the centre. Left or Right wing extremist are certain to be wrong – you get that – certain! Not because of which side of the fence they are but because their opinions become ‘black holes’ nothing can escape their point of view and they completely disqualify themselves from rational debate. ISIS is an example of unrelenting extremism.

Corbyn and his comrades are just too extreme for me – they make me feel uncomfortable – it is utterly impossible that I could vote them into Government.

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Hastings gull said:

OK, fair enough, if that is what you think, and I can see that from the left wing perspective, that this is what JC's followers want. It is just that it is unlikely that they will see themselves in power, unless the Tories really foul it up. Principles or pragmatism, I suppose -in the end you opt for one.

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Hastings gull said:

OK, fair enough, if that is what you think, and I can see that from the left wing perspective, that this is what JC's followers want. It is just that it is unlikely that they will see themselves in power, unless the Tories really foul it up. Principles or pragmatism, I suppose -in the end you opt for one.

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