Go on then, who do you reckon will win? The Labour Leadership contest, that is...

You have to be pretending not to understand the difference here, right?

Yeah, soz it was a crumby joke, not intended the way it came across, so my apologies.

Chuka does actually DJ (or at least used to? He still blogs about tracks he loves in his newsletters/social media/local press, which is quite cute) so it's not entirely impossible he was talking about the nightclub, Trash?

― The Hauntology of Celebrity (Branwell with an N), Wednesday, May 13, 2015 11:17 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He was involved in the garage scene, I think.

oh nickb already said that.

He's the first prospective leader/PM who is young enough for bullshit posts made a decade ago to come back and haunt him. They'll all be like that in a few years.

I'm sure we all remember the vociferous response pieces by Quentin Letts and Liz Jones defending the West End's vibrant diverse club scene at the time - no need to google.

To be fair if that's the worst thing he's written on social media in his lifetime, he's doing well.

not really bullshit - imagine going to a club in the west end

xpost otm

This poll feels premature

It *is* premature, on purpose: It looks like there wont be a winner until october, but I thought it useful to start some discussion away from the ongoing new politics thread.

What's the case against Burnham - Mid-staffs fuck up, possibly socially conservative (roman catholic), bit bland, actually political class (no unwestminster job ever that I can see), basically Miliband as a slightly more convincing man of the people? Still suspect he might do best with some of the voters they need back tbh.

articles and early pitches have been making Umunna seem truly awful, but think anyway it might be a shit idea to have a London leader. Interesting to hear he's a good constituency MP - that's something.

aiui Cooper's smartest/most competent here, just not hugely inspiring - again, that political class stuff is so fucking depressing/part of the problem - PPE/think tanks/research & advise etc

can't lie, think I'd get on with hunt, would happily read his civil war book or the one about engels or the one about victorian cities. He absolutely should not lead the labour party.

Don't know anything about Kendall apart from the Blairite noises as she launched, so fuck that.

I don't get the sense that any of these people have talked to enough lapsed Labour voters (new or old) to really understand what needs to be done. And if they have, they've talked to voters primarily in their constituencies, and given they're still in a job that's an unrepresentative sample.

I thought Hunt's article in the Guardian the other day gave a pretty perceptive summary of why Labour are in trouble, but no convincing answer to what they can do to get out of it, agree that he should definitely not be leader

I normally feel a politician's name should not matter, but he's called Tristram.

He may be willing to change it to Gideon if that helps?

I can't actually name a convincing candidate - not even sure what they'd have to do - get grassroots, paying-attn-to-people reform of the party properly underway while carrying the public/media side convincingly?

Ben Bradshaw

Bradshaw might not be a terrible choice but the talk of him "trebling his majority in 2015" overlooks the fact that it went from about 900 to 2700. Exeter isn't a safe seat by any means.

@djlogansama 4h4 hours ago
If Chuka Umunna gets in I'm on voting Green Party next time round. He doesn't like MCs. Left Garage for Deep House when crews came around.

he'll be dreading the mail getting hold of that

Dreading the K-Punk thinkpiece more like.

Love the implication that Ed Miliband and Natalie Bennett were caning More Fire Crew and Pay-As-You-Go.

tough on grime...

that tweet is a bit like an irl version of one of those unfunny weird twitter things where Joe Biden has strong opinions about the Wu Tang Clan or similar

Disappointed that all I'm hearing about is appealing to "aspirational voters"...I want at least one candidate to run on a platform of greater inter-generational balance and reform.

i don't know, i find it quite bracing to be told that i don't have any aspirations, i'd been wondering what was up with me

Sweepstakes on how long it takes before there are more candidates for the Labour leadership than there are LibDem MPs.

Be interesting to see what the membership swell will do to the election, with this one to be fought on true OMOV. It was 22,000 new members last time I looked, and all the ones on my timelines were doing it for "romantic left" reasons, not to encourage the party to re-embrace Blairism. Admittedly there's no romantic left candidate this time, but if one crops up – Tom Watson, for example – then they could find themselves surging up.

Also, Umunna, sadly, would be exactly the wrong candidate to woo back the Ukippers. Laura Kuenssberg sort of skirted round this on Newsnight on Tuesday, alluding to the possibility that he might be considered "too metropolitan" for those voters. Come on, it's not racist to say it – what you mean is he might be "too black" for those voters. Which is very sad.

think I've said this before but lol at Tom being on the romantic left in 2015

Chuka does actually DJ (or at least used to? He still blogs about tracks he loves in his newsletters/social media/local press, which is quite cute) so it's not entirely impossible he was talking about the nightclub, Trash?

Logan Sama said on Twitter that he wouldn't vote for Umunna because he ditched garage for deep house when MC crews started appearing on the scene

He wasn't talking about the nightclub, Trash. He was slagging off the punters of Chinawhite etc on asmallworld.

Laura Kuenssberg sort of skirted round this on Newsnight on Tuesday, alluding to the possibility that he might be considered "too metropolitan" for those voters. Come on, it's not racist to say it – what you mean is he might be "too black" for those voters. Which is very sad.

― Unsettled defender (ithappens), Thursday, 14 May 2015 13:22 (1 hour ago)

newsnight journalist describing ukip voters as racist would provide about a week's worth of press hysteria

voters don't generally seem to know a lot about the backgrounds of senior politicians but absent his ethnicity, ummuna is still a bit too london for a lot of provincial labour types.....private school, lawyer, luxe lifestyle etc.....he didn't go down the ppe/special adviser route probably because he didn't have good enough grades

lammy might appeal to some of those people because he is a relatively rare instance of a working class politician who made it into the gilded circle through hard work

in any case wrt ukip.....something like 10% of people who fled the liberal democrats voted for them; apart from the lapsed social-right conservatives, their electorate is such an incoherent category of resentful people, confused people, morons, basic nihilists etc that it is so difficult for any other party to appeal to them en masse

Chuka has withdrawn. I wonder what the story is there

My guess is that he thinks that Labour have zero chance of winning next time and would rather wait for more favourable conditions. The lure of potentially being the first black Prime Minister must be enormous but better to wait five years than rush into it and be chewed up and spat out.

What changed in four days though? That was just as true on Monday.

Wonder if the Sunday papers have something awkward.

maybe first real soundings told him he just wasn't getting 35 MPs.

Actually his stated reason might be true: he is seemingly upset (can't think why) that the tabs doorstepped his mum, his girlfriend's mum, and his girlfriend's 102-year-old nan.

Garagegate

If true that is both understandable and astonishingly naive.

Running for Mayor?

Chuka/Khan, etc.

“We need something so dynamic, so fresh, so strong that we need a born leader. None of the current contenders are natural born leaders, but it is clear that Keir is. I suspect he is from the left of the party, but it’s not about left and right; it’s about leadership.” Bernard said the online support for Starmer has been “overwhelming”.

He said: “It went crazy last night on Facebook after we launched – 180 or so joined in a matter of hours, which I didn’t expect.

Starmer / Khan on a human rights ticket would be fun, though i can't think of anything more doomed to ignominious failure.

Surely you can't stand for the leadership when you've been in Parliament for literally a week?

you can under the "ah fuck it, give him a go" clause

When you've been the DPP, you probably can. He's my MP, so it would be good if he concentrated on that role for now, right?

Surely you can't stand for the leadership when you've been in Parliament for literally a week?

― Matt DC, Friday, May 15, 2015 1:15 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Too Right! I nominate Bootsy Collins.

Chuka Umunna shows how the media is robbing us of ‘normal’ politicians
Owen Jones

seems like dogshit, if not the sunday newspaper then because of a tacit agreement to support whichever other candidate in return for a choice shadow cabinet post

Owen Jones, contempo normo

though fairly risible in any case that the early bookmakers' favourite was a 36 yr old with no meaningful experience of the so-called 'real world' and a single parliament of courting the press and talking the same shit, though with more grace than most of the other platititudinous dorks manage

keir starmer though a lawyer of some distinction and (doubtless reassuringly to the pr people) vaguely alpha in persona should not be taken for a civil libs type, any dpp is likely to be an authoritarian personality shithead and he is no different

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2012/mar/07/keir-starmer-guidelines-protester-prosecution

http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jul/29/paul-chambers-twitter-joke-airport

Rachel Reeves has confirmed that she's backing Burnham, and that he has asked her to conduct an "investigation into Labour's economic record".

Burnham has also demanded Cameron secure a two year ban on EU migrants getting state support and promise an in/out referendum in 2016.

@KayBurley I've always liked Andy Burnham
9:59am - 17 May 15

I'm guessing the editor of the Spectator is hostile toward Osborne because he's backing former Spectator editor Boris Johnson to be the next Tory leader/PM

Charter is tittle-tattle. This week's national anthem-type controversy.

LOL Owen Jones calling for party unity to hammer "work penalty" wacky phrase. Don't you know the PLP want to 'listen to voters' and focus groups and come up with more mixed messages on welfare instead?

McDonnell and economic team have to aim higher and come up with a more compelling vision as Neolib falls apart. xp

"it's like household finances! you can't spend more than you earn!"

vs

"hey quick everybody, get a mortgage"

you'd think the contradiction would be enough to drive a quite large, convincing bus through

Then there is his awkwardness - very Ed M with added touch of the Vulcan

Much as I despise Osborne, he definitely comes across as more natural than Ed M

Osborne in 2010 pouring scorn on the then-Labour idea of a fiscal charter:
https://amp.twimg.com/v/688fb821-3b34-4690-bcdf-78838d77a466

Then there is his awkwardness - very Ed M with added touch of the Vulcan

Much as I despise Osborne, he definitely comes across as more natural than Ed M

― Lionel Richie the Wardrobe (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thought the weird walk thing @ conference was fucking sub-human.

The current Guardian editor wrote the play I Am Rachel Corrie so I thought she'd be a bit less.... Blairy?

― voodoo rage (suzy), Friday, October 9, 2015 5:55 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Going back a long way, but at the time, I think I forgot to do a lol @ media class response.

So, <clears throat>

lol @ media class.

Jeremy Corbyn faces an immediate leadership challenge after a performance that was dismally inadequate, lifeless and spineless, displaying an inability to lead anyone anywhere. What absence of mind to emphasise support for free migration on the eve of a poll where Labour was haemorrhaging support for precisely those metropolitan views. Here was Labour’s golden chance to make this referendum campaign its own. Voters who blocked their ears to Labour on the doorstep this time may head for Ukip, never to return.

But to them, the cultural affront outweighed everything else. Identity beat economics. “Labour opened the floodgates,” one said accusingly. Scapegoating, looking for outsiders to blame – perhaps. But if Labour wants to get its voters back, it can’t block its ears as Corbyn, the party’s leader, does.

I know this Polly Toynebee article was already discussed on the uk politics thread, but: what exactly is she proposing as an alternative to Corbyn's supposed "blocking of his ears"? (engage with ppl's legit concerns about jobs, housing, public services etc of course, but that's exactly what Corbyn has been doing?) why does she think that Labour being more noisily anti-immigration would have convinced more Labour supporters to vote remain, surely the opposite would have been the case? it's infuriating that the Labour right are pushing this line that Corbyn responding to a question with an honest answer about the realities of how the EU works = "emphasising support for free migration" as if that's the only thing Corbyn said about the referendum over the last three months.

Corbyn does seem useless in many ways, in terms of presentation and organisation, but every person calling for his job at the moment makes me think that their chosen replacement would be 1000x worse.

(posting this here so as to not derail the actual substantive conversation on the politics thread with my insight-free venting)

As far as i can tell from the polling data, Labour got pretty much the exact proportion of remain voters as the SNP. One was a thumping statement of commitment to the EU, the other was a catastrophic failure.

Much as I object to the cult of personality around political leaders, I still expect theme to exhibit some leadership qualities. Corbyn will never come across as anything more than a generally affable dedicated constituency MP who does his bit from the back benches.

Are there any alternatives with vaguely left of the Labour Party policies but with a bit more about them than Corbyn? Or is this best alternative Andy Burnham?

McDonnell? but he is apparently even more unpopular with the PLP than Corbyn and would be unlikely to get enough nominations to end up on a ballot (and even if he somehow became leader there would be the same problem of a leader not supported by the overwhelming majority of his MPs). some people have talked about Lisa Nandy as a compromise candidate possibly acceptable to both Labour MPs and left-wing Labour part members.

I'm a big fan of Lisa Nandy, she was briefly my MP. She always seems very honest and forthright in her media appearances. But does she have the profile? And she's not exactly working class despite being MP for Wigan, with her grandad being a Westminster School & Oxford educated Lord.

I think Nandy manages to come across as "ordinary" and "down-to-earth", regardless of who her grandad was.

if the PLP forces Corbyn to resign (and don't allow McDonnell or another Socialist Campaign Group type on the ballot for his replacement) then you have to assume that the Labour members who voted Corbyn in are going to go apeshit; they would need to put someone who can make a credibly portray themselves as a leftwinger and break from the New Labour era, can't really think of anyone with a higher profile who'd cut it (certainly not Burnham)

I mean, I realise that "ordinary" and "down-to-earth" are amorphous and fairly silly concepts, but they matter and to extent that you can define them I think Nandy does ok on that score

Labour dream ticket 2016:

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/resources/images/2624572.jpg?display=1&htype=100000&type=responsive-gallery

Hilary Benn's been sacked

lol

omfg

a good time to bury good news :p

Separately, an anonymous vote on a motion of no confidence in Corbyn is likely to be held by the parliamentary Labour party on Tuesday. Backbench MPs have been using WhatsApp to garner support for the motion, and it is believed that up to 80% of the parliamentary party are now set to vote in favour of Corbyn standing down.

screenshots of that chat would be fucking amazing