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

The papers were hinting that the blocking and vetting is being carried out deliberately in a ridiculous way so that it will inevitably lead to a challenge in the courts or elsewhere, enabling the party apparatchiks to declare the leadership contest void.

xp as you might imagine it's a slightly convoluted story and my favourite thing about it is that however he has tried to explain it the story still makes no sense whatsoever. anyway, I'm by the sea in somerset waiting for a lift to arrive so I'll offer a totally unenligtening overview: he works in a two-person business in a small rural town, and it was relatively early on when he was still on best behaviour, finding his feet, trying to placate his let's say unpredictable boss, and doing his best to make polite conversation with the various local people who would just wander into his office to complain about sheep prices/the government/outsiders, or try to get him to join the rotary club etc.

at the end of a working day one of his boss's associates ('friends' seems like a push for this sort of small town sustained mutual acknowledgement) arrives a little anxious and explains that he's in a tight spot wrt organizing the upcoming local election as he's short of a candidate or two, just a formality you understand, need to make up the numbers but oh, wait a minute, here's a crazy idea, could you do me a big favour and just fill out a form? i happen to have brought one with me. thank you so much. do you have a preference for political party? that's fine I'll just put you down as an independent. you're a life-saver, ok, got to run!

my brother is already quite embarrassed by this turn of events and resolves to forget about it but clearly keeps a vague eye on local news before very coyly telling me a couple of months later "i think i might have stood for election as a conservative" which was naturally the most amazing thing i had ever heard. googled a bit and could only find a few scattered bits of copypasta but they all had him down as a tory, getting about 300 votes for his ward. he remains supremely mortified but I'm sure great political careers have been built on less

That is an amazing story.

i always knew he was an entryist

that's brilliant

the unseemliness of the vetting procedure beggars belief - basically anybody who can be identified as ever having bad-mouthed the party or any of its members, however corrupt, useless or off-message. my radge is gradually turning into amusement as Corbyn's campaign continues undamaged, but the sheer stupid dishonesty and lack of acknowledgement of the Labour party's history as a coalition of leftish interest groups and sub-parties is shocking, whether that lack of acknowledgement is thru ignorance, willful denial or desperate carpetbagging.

i can't think of anybody who's opposed Corbyn publicly who hasn't made themself look like a crook, an idiot or a stooge.

This a very amusing story, but you know the Labour Party did the same thing to my father in the early 70s. He was supposed to be a paper candidate but the story who had won every election for the previous century dropped dead of a heart attack on the eve of the election and my Dad's 300 votes got him elected to the County Council. He ended up serving two terms, the second of which he won in his own right.

So the moral of both stories is, be careful what forms you fill in!

haha wow, how common is this? an interesting insight into hiw much bluff and bluster is required to keep the decorum of local democracy in tact

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3207363/Prime-Minister-Corbyn-1-000-days-destroyed-Britain-brilliant-imagining-Corbyn-premiership-reveals-Tories-gloat-Labour-s-woe-careful-wish-for.html

Swiftian

The "Sorted by best" comment section is interesting, basically "what a load of tripe"

ha, is this the same guy?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-2394872/Thriller-How-commit-perfect-murder-paper-Author-David-Thomas-reveals-secrets-writing-best-selling-thriller.html

1-000-days-destroyed-Britain-brilliant-imagining

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/25/labour-leadership-andy-burnham-yvette-cooper-liz-kendall-want-extra-voter-checks

it's as though no one can believe that anyone in their right mind is voting Corbyn because they genuinely agree with him and believe in his values.

good comment on guardian article:

The entire frame of the Corbyn debate has - I was going to say: has become weird - but it's been weird from the start.

There's all this anticipated chin-rubbing umming and ahhing about whether he'd be able to win an election now: when he hasn't even won the party leadership yet and the next election is years away.

There's all this pretend-worried concern about whether he'd be able to convince the party to agree with his policies: when he keeps on saying that he's stating his own views, and invites debate.

People don't seem to get that Corbyn is miles away from the school of politics whereby someone takes a definite position, and then suffers political execution if they don't manage to implement it: because for some unstated reason, if someone fails to convince their party/Parliament to approve a policy, that makes their political credibility nil and they have to resign.

The result of this way of doing things is a complete absence of real debate in a whipped-to-death Parliament (sometimes, though I'm generally anti-Lords, their chamber is the only one to bring any rationality to bear on a question). The supposed benefit is some weirdly-British fetish for "strong", "stable" government.

And this is precisely why people are attracted to Corbyn.

If you're attracted by Corbyn's ideas, but disagree with him on some things (e.g. NATO or Trident): join the party and argue with him!

it's as though no one can believe that anyone in their right mind is voting Corbyn because they genuinely agree with him and believe in his values.

it's as though no one can believe anyone would genuinely want to join the Labour Party to support the Labour Party

Just over 3,000 have been excluded for being supporters of other parties, including 1,900 Greens and 400 Tories.

This concept of excluding people who previously supported other parties is stupid too. If they don't believe people can genuinely switch from Green or Tory to Labour then they can't win an election regardless of who's in charge. Winning an election relies on those people switching to Labour!

While I agree that no aspect of this is smart on any level, there is in fairness a distinction between "I voted Green" and "I am a fully paid up Member of the Green Party".

I'm not sure how either is relevant in deciding who can join the labour party and/or vote for its leader. this is a good chance for the labour party to gain a crop of motivated and engaged members

Especially when you consider that three out of the four candidates began the campaign by explicitly saying they need to win back those people, especially the fucking Tories.

lol, they banned Mark Serwotka from voting. Presumably as the leader of a union with 250,000 members he doesn't share Labour values.

I'm very interested to hear about the former Tory whose £75k donation to Yvette Cooper is A-OK and has presumably been allowed to vote, while a Labour voter who complained the immigration mug wasn't for her and not as nice as the Greens' mug has been rejected.

BONUS: looks like The Patriarchy and all who sail in him are really cross about the very idea of having to act to stop the harassment of of ladies in public.

corbyn's proposal seems to be suggesting the patriarchy don't have to act because he wants to put women in separate trains to relieve men of the burden of not harassing women.

like if you want a trainwreck of arbitrary responses based on prefabricated allegiances - just dive into this lake of souls right here: https://twitter.com/hashtag/womenonlycarriages?src=tren

Looks like The Patriarchy can't be bothered to read the Corbyn proposals, either. Where you'll find Corbyn isn't convinced a women's carriage is the answer because there should be zero tolerance of harassers everywhere in public, but enough women have suggested it that it seems only fair to open up a discussion. Awaiting the Dan Hodges opinion piece with bated breath and glendajacksonfacepalm.gif

Dunno if you mean me but I read the proposals this morning. Seems a lot of People Who Aren't In The Patriarchy Because They Are Women are against it too.

The fact he added in a "of course I'm just shooting the shit here and I'll talk to women about my proposals" seems to exonerate him in the eyes of many - a golden ticket of a free pass based on the fact people badly want him to be labour leader, I suppose.

I like Corbyn's "confuse 'em" approach. The papers will lead with anything he says, so as soon as he wants to change the subject he only has to say something like "I think we should attempt a landing on Mars within 20 years" and everyone falls over each other to have an opinion on it and he scoots away like Muttley

this seems to be the biggest noise he's made. typically.

a lot of the rest of what he said was more interesting and strident tbh

I'm not fond of a women only carriage because it might have unintended consequences eg. 'you got hassled, why weren't you in the women's carriage?' victim-blaming BS. Men just need to stop imposing themselves on women in public. My stance has always been 'I'm not doing anything wrong going about my daily business, the man who wolf-whistles or nudges my tits ought to be the one forced to curtail his behaviour'. Government has a role to play in ending sexual harassment.

i don't see how this is saying that "the patriarchy don't have to act", it's one line among several paragraphs about how the patriarchy do have to act. there's not necessarily an opposition between wanting to wipe out patriarchy and having some ameliorative measures while it's still around.

You do seem to be falling foul of conrad's comments from yesterday, LG.

i don't think i am at all - i pointed out how arbitrary all the responses to this are.

Unless there's an overwhelming consensus one way or another then commenting on social media responses is usually a waste of time, you can slice the usual mix of entrenched positions, kneejerk responses, insightful observations, illiterate morons etc to illustrate whatever point you want.

that wasn't what i was doing either.

Well you're saying "corbyn's proposal seems to be suggesting ... he wants to put women in separate trains", when his document says the opposite - he'd rather not do this, but it's been suggested, so discussion should happen. And you seem to consider the idea that we note the context of this to be a dodge that people are only considering because they already support him.

So if I've got those wrong, sorry about that, but I'm not sure what you're saying (unless it's standard ILX cynicism that Corbyn shouldn't have tried to have a grown-up thought in public).

we?

is there someone with you

'we' as in comrades, as in 'our friends, hamas' ;-)

fair - say instead "the idea that the context of this should be noted"

you could read like a handful of the last few posts instead of ilx sensible chieftain summarising the thread for me and it'd be quite clear i myself said the context was missed.

that doesn't change the fact that it is quite weird for a male politician to tout quite a bad idea and defend it with "oh some women told me this" and "btw i dunno if this is even right but hey let's talk about it" and not be met with total derision.

i support corbyn but for that to be met itt with a comment that's anti some strawmen who are attacking the comments of another man on sexual harassment against women, a man who's actually running against two women for a position of power, well it does seem pretty confused.

i mean maybe corbyn should be silent about this and let yvette cooper and liz kendall speak?

Ghost of Thatcher or nothing imo.

it is quite weird for a male politician to tout quite a bad idea and defend it with "oh some women told me this" and "btw i dunno if this is even right but hey let's talk about it" and not be met with total derision

Don't agree with this at all. Why would it merit total derision given it's obviously not a bad idea to the women who suggested it to Corbyn. Men are often called on to raise these issues because women feel they themselves are too readily dismissed (by men) and a wider women-only spaces discussion should occur which this could encourage.

I'm not really with 'no men' spaces on public transport as a thing (plus perhaps Overground-style unicarriages likely to increase on short distance services anyway) but the derision for even suggesting it is ridic.

Men are often called on to raise these issues because women feel they themselves are too readily dismissed (by men)

by who?

i mean maybe corbyn should be silent about this and let yvette cooper and liz kendall speak?

lol

Even if they privately agree they won't mention it for fear of upsetting some disgruntled Tory voter in Derby.

i'm maybe being particularly dense but i can't at all discern what you're getting at lg. for one thing plenty of women think it's not such a bad idea.

It's also an idea that already exists in other cities

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/26/labour-leadership-election-party-to-check-voting-history-of-new-supporters

But it is understood that people will not be automatically excluded based on how the canvass data says they have voted in the past. It is more likely that a new supporter found to have voted Conservative, Green, Liberal Democrat or for another party would be telephoned by party HQ to check whether they have just changed their political persuasion or are in fact an infiltrator.

check how, exactly?

'Are you voting for Corbyn or for one of the three Labour candidates?'