The greatest threat to the Labour Party could be a modest success for Jeremy Corbyn in 2020 and the greatest threat to the Conservatives remains Europe. Its removal was seen as a highly symbolic move by the traditionally socialist party to the center-ground of British politics.
Advertisement
Jeremy becoming leader will, they say, split the party.
Since the election Labour member has risen from 194,000 to 270,000 – the fastest growth since 1951 when Clement Attlee was Prime Minister. Labour leaders are like rabbits in the headlights.
There is no reason other than historic cultural habit and practice why nationalised services should be less efficient, less customer-facing, less well organised or more expensive than private sector operations – and this saves the vast overall costs of the pantomimes of franchise renewal competitions adjudicated by public servants from whose DNA any entrepreneurial sensibility is, by nature, absent.
He urged those present to register as supporters within the next week. Historically, they have tended to act as a force against the left and in support of the party establishment. The gobbledygook of the “Third Way”, with its mystical centrism, was born.
Labour perhaps has less at stake than it first seems in experimenting with a Corbyn leadership. This is a profoundly radicalising development, whichever way the vote goes.
But he kept open the possibility of reopening coal mines in South Wales.
Dismissing the personal criticism aimed at him, and rumours in Westminster that fellow Labour MPs could seek to oust him if he won, Mr Corbyn added: ” It is the name-calling, the depoliticisation of serious political debate that drives people away.
But she insisted that the veteran left-winger “doesn’t have a monopoly on hope”, and said his “solutions based on conventions of the past” will not help Labour “win the national conversation in the years ahead”. If Corbyn does nothing else, he will at least push Labour into winning back traditional territory and restoring shredded values.
Some of the factors involved are clear. The Tory MP is Mayor of London, a city that mostly votes Labour.
This was followed by acting Labour leader Harriet Harman’s appalling decision not to oppose the Conservative government’s budget. Jeremy comes from the “hard left”, the “far left”.
Some within Labour, including Barry Sheerman, a Kendall supporter and MP, are even calling for a pause in the contest to stop “entryists” signing up to vote for Corbyn despite not being true party supporters.
“Conviction politics” is playing a role. We were not wedded to any one party, but made up our minds as to the best option on offer for each election.
The SNP, which reduced Labour to just one MP in Scotland in the May elections, have acted as the real parliamentary opposition to the Tories.
Corbyn too is seeking to defy conventional wisdom.
Advertisement
Harman’s credentials, by the way, include voting for the Iraq war and against an investigation, as did the other leading contenders Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper (though not Corbyn, of course). Blair himself will be 78 – drawing his state pension, perhaps claiming the winter fuel allowance and even (who knows?) making use of his free bus pass. Such is the melancholy fate of the man who once declared Britain to be “a young country”. (Regardless of his way with words, Galloway was ever one to jump on a bandwagon, and he seems to have forgotten that he didn’t resign from the party, he was sacked.).
