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Poll : Next Labour Leader.

Who would you like as next leader of the L.P.

  • Lisa Nandy

    Votes: 12 6.9%

  • Keir Starmer

    Votes: 88 50.3%

  • Jess Phillips

    Votes: 25 14.3%

  • Angela Rayner

    Votes: 5 2.9%

  • Rebecca Long-Bailey

    Votes: 6 3.4%

  • Emily Thornberry

    Votes: 4 2.3%

  • Other

    Votes: 35 20.0%
  • Total voters
    175
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Labour also needs to get behind a proper PR voting solution. Some promise to implement a proper one, like D’hondt or something.
 
ks.234 said:
Not disagreeing with you, but I do think the thick northern racist trope misses the important point. The North was hit disproportionately by Thatcher, but Labour in power failed to address their problems or significantly improve their issues. Brexit filled a gaping hole that had been growing for decades.

So while Corbyn failed to turn things around, the Tories and vested interests played the Brexit hole successfully, and played it successfully because it is their natural home.

The loss of the north has a longer history than Corbyn and is more complex than northern IQ.
Click to expand...

Being thick enough to think Brexit a good thing was not just a northern issue....alas...

However... for ex mining and steel towns to vote for more of what Thatcher did to them is not exactly bright!

What Brexit was really about in the north and in general was a "them and us" mentality that the right, as you say, played successfully...

Well educated, well off & well travelled people, maybe the "champagne socialist" of Islington we read about, or even, TBH, many of the centre right from that same socio-economic group, tend to be internationalist, tolerant and liberal in outlook....
Great change has been wrought upon our country and indeed the wider world in such a comparatively short time by the PC, the internet and mobile phone with WWW on it. Comparatively recently we all got our news and had our opinions formed by only a SHARED 3 TV channels and a few newspapers... if it wasn't on "News at Ten" or in "The Sun" it didn't happen..... Now there's information at our fingertips, information overload, so many variants of "the news"... some of it fake.... bombardment by advertising showing us how much better "the Jones" are doing than us and how we should look and think.... It's not parochial though, it's international, global.... It has been cleverly exploited to install fear of "them" into a certain demographic of "us".

Now non of this is a worry to the wealthy, internationalist and well travelled type... they are insulated from any threat by their wealth, and largely tolerant.... of new ideas... and of incoming, immigrant people.

In northern ex mining towns etc things are much more "tribal", even to the extent that I've spoken to people originally from towns only 15 miles away and who've lived here for 25 years who say they don't feel that they've been completely accepted as "one of us" by the locals!! There is still a sense of community to some extent but it's not particularly liberal, tolerant or welcoming of "outsiders" if truth be known... It's all a bit "Roystan Vasey"... "this is a local town for local people, there's nothing here for you"!

These areas never recovered from the devastation of Thatcher and they're scarred of losing any more by having to share what's left with incomers. UKIP, the Tories, The Brexit Party and assorted right wing scum have used this, exploited it, under a smoke screen of patriotism, sovereignty etc used to legitimise xenophobia, racism and a general fear of "them" ... a foreign "them", coming to take their jobs, their place at the doctors surgery, at the school etc.... A "them" that looks different (in some cases) and speaks a different language, dresses differently and has different customs coming to infiltrate their white, straight, "christian", northern, ENGLISH culture.

The right wing have exploited this for their own ends and so well that they got these people to vote against their own interests. They knew that people are ultimately tribal, selfish, greedy, xenophobic and have a sense of entitlement from merely being British and twisted this until people were happy to be turkeys voting for xmas.... so long as the foreign "them" was pushed way further down the ladder than they were, and were to be "punished" more severely than themselves... or even driven out altogether. A collective, community schadenfreude at "them" being seen to be hurt more than "us" that excused the collateral damage to "us" from Brexit....

That's what happened..... YMMV
 
This guy is generally annoying but he is probably saying something similar just a bit nicer :)

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/david-mcwilliams-brexit-and-the-economics-of-love-hate-1.4118277

Arkless Electronics said:
Being thick enough to think Brexit a good thing was not just a northern issue....alas...

However... for ex mining and steel towns to vote for more of what Thatcher did to them is not exactly bright!

What Brexit was really about in the north and in general was a "them and us" mentality that the right, as you say, played successfully...

Well educated, well off & well travelled people, maybe the "champagne socialist" of Islington we read about, or even, TBH, many of the centre right from that same socio-economic group, tend to be internationalist, tolerant and liberal in outlook....
Great change has been wrought upon our country and indeed the wider world in such a comparatively short time by the PC, the internet and mobile phone with WWW on it. Comparatively recently we all got our news and had our opinions formed by only a SHARED 3 TV channels and a few newspapers... if it wasn't on "News at Ten" or in "The Sun" it didn't happen..... Now there's information at our fingertips, information overload, so many variants of "the news"... some of it fake.... bombardment by advertising showing us how much better "the Jones" are doing than us and how we should look and think.... It's not parochial though, it's international, global.... It has been cleverly exploited to install fear of "them" into a certain demographic of "us".

Now non of this is a worry to the wealthy, internationalist and well travelled type... they are insulated from any threat by their wealth, and largely tolerant.... of new ideas... and of incoming, immigrant people.

In northern ex mining towns etc things are much more "tribal", even to the extent that I've spoken to people originally from towns only 15 miles away and who've lived here for 25 years who say they don't feel that they've been completely accepted as "one of us" by the locals!! There is still a sense of community to some extent but it's not particularly liberal, tolerant or welcoming of "outsiders" if truth be known... It's all a bit "Roystan Vasey"... "this is a local town for local people, there's nothing here for you"!

These areas never recovered from the devastation of Thatcher and they're scarred of losing any more by having to share what's left with incomers. UKIP, the Tories, The Brexit Party and assorted right wing scum have used this, exploited it, under a smoke screen of patriotism, sovereignty etc used to legitimise xenophobia, racism and a general fear of "them" ... a foreign "them", coming to take their jobs, their place at the doctors surgery, at the school etc.... A "them" that looks different (in some cases) and speaks a different language, dresses differently and has different customs coming to infiltrate their white, straight, "christian", northern, ENGLISH culture.

The right wing have exploited this for their own ends and so well that they got these people to vote against their own interests. They knew that people are ultimately tribal, selfish, greedy, xenophobic and have a sense of entitlement from merely being British and twisted this until people were happy to be turkeys voting for xmas.... so long as the foreign "them" was pushed way further down the ladder than they were, and were to be "punished" more severely than themselves... or even driven out altogether. A collective, community schadenfreude at "them" being seen to be hurt more than "us" that excused the collateral damage to "us" from Brexit....

That's what happened..... YMMV
Click to expand...
 
Tony L said:
I’m no fan of Blair or Labour in general, but I’d argue the state was in a vastly better state at the end of his time than either immediately before or right now. Any metric, be it hospital waiting times, education, social care, rough sleeping, policing etc was just obviously measurably better.

Yes, like you I have huge issues with the concept and ultimate price of PFI, but the bottom line is the country functioned far better under Blair than it has at any time since, or is likely to in the future until this destructive shower of Trumpian popularists are ejected.
Click to expand...

The flaw in your first para is exposed in your second. The 'improvements' were largely either a front or temporary, covering over the way they were hostage to increasing the intensification of the future deterioration they were based upon. PFI being the classic case of this. Buy now, pay a *lot* later, means Xmas can be happy, but the following years put you into the hands of loan sharks. Eventually you can't pay, have lost everything. But that Xmas was good, wasn't it... just a memory.

So, yes, Blair/Brown did make some 'improvements' - e.g.s like minimum wage and the tax credits. But the long term costs - which included validating the Tory approach - have been far higher. So are one of the causes of why things now are so much worse, and can continue doing so because we haven't seen any genuine example of reversal being possible. Thus validating 'TINA' from the Tories ever since.
 
Many thanks to Fatmarley for posting the George Monbiot vid on another thread. Here’s another


Here’s the one Fatmarley posted

 
Arkless Electronics said:
Being thick enough to think Brexit a good thing was not just a northern issue....alas...

What Brexit was really about in the north and in general was a "them and us" mentality that the right, as you say, played successfully...

In northern ex mining towns etc things are much more "tribal", even to the extent that I've spoken to people originally from towns only 15 miles away and who've lived here for 25 years who say they don't feel that they've been completely accepted as "one of us" by the locals!! There is still a sense of community to some extent but it's not particularly liberal, tolerant or welcoming of "outsiders" if truth be known... It's all a bit "Roystan Vasey"... "this is a local town for local people, there's nothing here for you"!

That's what happened..... YMMV
Click to expand...
Have you actually talked quietly and unaggressively with significant numbers of the relatively poorly educated people in the midlands and the north that supported brexit and Boris after having supported labour all their lives? Immigration may be a registerable issue for one or two but it is small and in no way the main factor in why so many ended up voting against their best interests.

These people are well aware that things have been going downhill where they live for the last 10 years and for some longer than that. This is less the case for older generations that had lengthy periods of employment enabling them to own their homes. But they are well aware of the situation of their children, grandchildren,... and the disappearance of the types of jobs that enabled them to buy their homes. They are almost all politically disengaged and voted based on how they felt about what they experienced in their environment.

Nobody I have spoken to that voted brexit was strongly for brexit at the time of the vote. Nobody. Several people weren't even sure which way they had voted it was that important. This is what happens when the national level political process stops acting in the best interests of the general population and the general population knows it. There were feelings that the system acted more on their behalf before we were in Europe and the UK was stronger and more important which is of course all true. So becoming more independent will bring it back which is of course false. To independently and rationally understand why the latter is false requires mastering a fair amount of factual information about the social and economics details of this country many of which are fairly unpalatable and not widely discussed. The vast majority of people including most of the posters here and myself in a range of areas simply aren't going to do this and will look to sources they trust for guidance while picking up a few disjointed facts to help support the position.

So why did these people with a declining quality of life vote for brexit? The message from remain was that if you vote remain your quality of life will continue to decline at the same rate while ours down south will continue being better than yours. The message from leave was that their quality of life would be improved because they were bringing the good times back. If you had no mastery of the relevant facts, pretty much equally distrusted the message from both sides, weren't interested in the subject and didn't believe it would have an impact on your life anyway how would you vote?

When brexit wasn't delivered soon after the vote but instead years of large scale arguing and political deadlock ensued the details of which were of no interest but the fact politicians had stopped doing their job while your quality of life continued to decline was how would you feel? Boris comes along (the jolly chap from those game shows) and says he will get rid of the deadlock, deliver brexit (details of no interest) and start rebuilding the good life. He takes strong actions that show he means business. OK they failed but he was trying to get things done. Would you vote for him?
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Yep. Exactly what I've been saying 'cept I take it further and say that Labour needs to do the same if it is to succeed and therefore must control the press in the same way as the scum do. This will need LP affiliates etc to buy newspapers and TV stations with which to feed left wing propaganda to the public... just like the scum do for their own evil purposes. Unfortunately it will require true altruism rather than being motivated by financial kick backs as are the owners of The Daily Heil and The Torygraph etc.
Unless Labour can get the thicko general public to realise that they've been played like a Stradivarius by the scum party, and by those whose vested interests are tied to those of the Tory scum, and that they've been brainwashed into being turkeys voting for xmas, then Labour are finished. People must be made to realise that their true enemies are "Huge corps PLC", hedge funds, The City and of course the scum party itself and not immigrants, the poor, the disabled etc.
I can recall walking around Tesco's smoking a fag.... and not long before that time it was OK to smoke in a hospital! Public opinions can be changed... Not just changed but completely reversed, but it takes effort and time.
Click to expand...
A nonsense idea, importance of press is falling all the time & how would such a fools errand be financed. Highly doubtful that any business would advertise in such a title & who would want to write for it?

When Kinnock was Labour leader the tory press had a circulation of around 18m, now it is around 5m. Population has risen so therefore its effect is less.

It is far easier to get a decent leader & spend time campaigning effectively over the next 5 years.
 
Whatever reasons you come up with for the north voting Brexit - devastation by Thatcherism, us and them-ness, disconnect with the London leftie intelligentsia, Tory press, being duped - all apply just the same to the working and middle classes in Scotland. But they voted Remain. But the Scots do have the SNP, which occupies much of the ground that the Labour Party used to, and who utterly trounced both the Labour and Conservative parties in the election. SNP:48, Conservative:6, Labour:1. When I was a lad, Scotland was just Labour wall to wall, and it was unimaginable that that would change. Think on. Good leadership and decent policies get votes. Losers lose.
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
T

So, yes, Blair/Brown did make some 'improvements' - e.g.s like minimum wage and the tax credits. But the long term costs - which included validating the Tory approach - have been far higher. So are one of the causes of why things now are so much worse, and can continue doing so because we haven't seen any genuine example of reversal being possible. Thus validating 'TINA' from the Tories ever since.
Click to expand...

Blair /Brown were also responsible for the deregulation of financial services thus giving us payday loan(sharks) online gambling and the petrie dish that allowed for the unfettered growth of the sub-prime mortgage market and the crash of 2008.
 
h.g. said:
Have you actually talked quietly and unaggressively with significant numbers of the relatively poorly educated people in the midlands and the north that supported brexit and Boris after having supported labour all their lives? Immigration may be a registerable issue for one or two but it is small and in no way the main factor in why so many ended up voting against their best interests.

These people are well aware that things have been going downhill where they live for the last 10 years and for some longer than that. This is less the case for older generations that had lengthy periods of employment enabling them to own their homes. But they are well aware of the situation of their children, grandchildren,... and the disappearance of the types of jobs that enabled them to buy their homes. They are almost all politically disengaged and voted based on how they felt about what they experienced in their environment.

Nobody I have spoken to that voted brexit was strongly for brexit at the time of the vote. Nobody. Several people weren't even sure which way they had voted it was that important. This is what happens when the national level political process stops acting in the best interests of the general population and the general population knows it. There were feelings that the system acted more on their behalf before we were in Europe and the UK was stronger and more important which is of course all true. So becoming more independent will bring it back which is of course false. To independently and rationally understand why the latter is false requires mastering a fair amount of factual information about the social and economics details of this country many of which are fairly unpalatable and not widely discussed. The vast majority of people including most of the posters here and myself in a range of areas simply aren't going to do this and will look to sources they trust for guidance while picking up a few disjointed facts to help support the position.

So why did these people with a declining quality of life vote for brexit? The message from remain was that if you vote remain your quality of life will continue to decline at the same rate while ours down south will continue being better than yours. The message from leave was that their quality of life would be improved because they were bringing the good times back. If you had no mastery of the relevant facts, pretty much equally distrusted the message from both sides, weren't interested in the subject and didn't believe it would have an impact on your life anyway how would you vote?

When brexit wasn't delivered soon after the vote but instead years of large scale arguing and political deadlock ensued the details of which were of no interest but the fact politicians had stopped doing their job while your quality of life continued to decline was how would you feel? Boris comes along (the jolly chap from those game shows) and says he will get rid of the deadlock, deliver brexit (details of no interest) and start rebuilding the good life. He takes strong actions that show he means business. OK they failed but he was trying to get things done. Would you vote for him?
Click to expand...

I think it's you that hasn't talked to the people.... I utterly reject your entire synopsis I'm afraid.

It was almost entirely about immigration. Not only that but I can report from personal experience that many of the real thickos strongly believed it was going to get rid of Muslims and prevent any more entering the country! Yes really! I overheard several such conversations in the days after the Brexit vote and even interjected to point out that Muslims didn't come here from EU countries...
 
Woodface said:
A nonsense idea, importance of press is falling all the time & how would such a fools errand be financed. Highly doubtful that any business would advertise in such a title & who would want to write for it?

When Kinnock was Labour leader the tory press had a circulation of around 18m, now it is around 5m. Population has risen so therefore its effect is less.

It is far easier to get a decent leader & spend time campaigning effectively over the next 5 years.
Click to expand...

No a very good idea and as I said in my post it includes TV stations etc. There is a wall of deliberate misinformation and anti left wing propaganda wherever one turns and this needs countering. Many would want to write for it, as they do already for The Guardian! I'm talking about setting up something on the scale of SkY News etc and of course advertisers would want a piece of that. Even if they didn't it's not there to be profit making but to get across the left wing socialist message and stir up hatred and mistrust against Tories, big business etc and generate an "us against them" mentality.... you know, all the filth and dodgy journalism and lies peddled by the right wing press... it's not there to be "nice" or "honest" it's a propaganda exercise, just like the ENTIRE right wing/Tory/Big Business PLC machine is, and is used to further its interests and keep any threats to the uber wealth and power of the scum demographic that runs it all and benefits from it.
 
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