Labour leadership election 2015

On the anointing of Corbyn

Turgon on September 13, 2015, 4:32 pm6 Comments | Readers 1146

At 11.30am yesterday in the room where the Labour leadership result was to be announced there was an uninvited guest: a spectre who had hovered over every party gathering for almost twenty years. Then when the result was announced an older yet spritely man strode forward to do battle with the spectre. Wearing his priestly garb of not a tie (though he did have a dark sports jacket and had removed any Lenin style hats) he approached the lectern. Then …

Labour’s Leaderships: Entertaining political psychodrama or a struggle with the protean reality of 21C Politics?

Mick Fealty on September 3, 2015, 1:51 pm4 Comments | Readers 468

So, normally I hate futuring. But leaving aside what the polls say, the betting markets are convinced Corbyn is home and hosed as the new Labour Party leader. He may even come in at anywhere between 60% and 70% of the party electorate. The party electorate as opposed to the party membership. As William Hague took rather too much delight in telling the Daily Telegraph’s readership, those aren’t the same: If there was an NVQ Level 1 in How To …

Nationalisation is always a disaster: another truism in need of challenge?

Turgon on August 30, 2015, 7:18 pm10 Comments | Readers 1616

Corbynmaina has gone a little quiet recently centrally due to repetition. Personally I am still unsure whether he will win or not. However, after having looked at some of the potentially questionable truisms regarding the unelectability of Labour in 1983 and the disaster which was the 1970s, I thought, to take our minds off the current excitement of UUP politics, a look at another truism would be reasonable. Another supposed suicidal policy of Corbyn’s is nationalisation: he has specifically mentioned …

#Corbynmania and figuring what UK Labour needs to learn, unlearn and re-learn…

Mick Fealty on August 18, 2015, 12:33 pm30 Comments | Readers 1154

UNLEARNING FROM THE PAST: The status quo ante no longer exists. There is no safe place to go back to. But figuring how to unlearn and relearn the lessons of the past (distant and recent) may provide the new Labour leader with the best possible platform for the future.

Labour leadership: Corbyn, his opponents and The Vision Thing

Turgon on August 14, 2015, 3:55 pm5 Comments | Readers 453

The Labour leadership contest has every appearance of a soap opera. I noted below that the historical precedents that Jeremy Corbyn would be unelectable as Prime Minister were strong but by no means overwhelming and were based on a post hoc deterministic analysis. One of the most fundamental problems for the non Corbyn candidates is that they have singularly failed to outline their vision in sufficiently persuasive terms to become newsworthy. They may indeed have a vision but have failed …

Reclaiming the Labour Party? Thoughts on the Corbyn Phenomenon

Chaminda Weerawardhana on August 11, 2015, 10:05 pm18 Comments | Readers 1149

The entry of Jeremy Corbyn MP to the 2015 Labour leadership contest injected an unexpected bout of energy to an internal election within the Labour Party that would have otherwise been near-unnoticeable. Media attention to Mr Corbyn has intensified in the aftermath of recent surveys and poll findings that he could well be on the lead. A key factor that distinguishes the Corbyn candidacy is the Blairite political blandness of his contenders for Labour leadership. Liz Kendall, Andy Burnham and …