The Labour leadership race

Thought this deserved its own thread.

Currently the candidates appear to be

Keir Starmer
Rebecca Long-Bailey
Emily Thornberry
David Lammy

There are rumours of Jess Philips or Ian Lavery also potentially entering their hat into the ring.

I'm hoping it won't be Emily Thornberry or Jess Philips. They really come across as unlikable, snooty scolds who might leave much of the electorate cold. Although Jess at least seems to speak to most voters' reluctance to vote Labour's way this time, making her one of the few candidates who seems to have learned any lessons from the last election.

David Lammy I think is too much of an identity politics ideologue (but Sargon being the stupid clown he is, seems in favour of getting his followers to vote him as next leader just to deliberately make Labour completely unelectable).

Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey might be seen as too much in the Remain camp. Of the two I would prefer Rebecca since she's a lot more close to working class concerns, and though she adheres to a lot of Corbyn's policies, she's *not* stupid on defence and knows there's a need for actually using drone strikes to eradicate ISIS (I shed tears for how much better Labour might've done this last election with her in charge).

My concern is that she might appear still too wet behind the ears for the electorate to see her as credible enough, and she is still very much Momentum's candidate and is unlikely  to overturn the hostile environment they've created or bring about the party change that will convince deserter voters back into the fold.

I heard Clive Lewis is going for the leadership, and Richard Burgon for the deputyship (is that really a word?)

Ian Lavery is the only one who seems to understand the current disconnect between the working class and Labour.

The Times are shitting their pants over him; already calling him a stalking horse to help Long-Bailey get in!

Of those Tannman mentions I would favour Jess Phillips.

Lammy would be disastrous imho. Every time he opens his mouth he just seems to make a pratt of himself. Strong feeling and passion are good so long as they are anchored by some element of intellect and an ability to construct a rationale argument with a healthy mixture of verbs, nouns and adjectives.

In my view Thornberry comes across as patronising and condescending. A Labour version of Anne Soubry. If she takes Caroline Flint to court I hope she gets slaughtered.

I cant take a view on Long-Bailey as I haven't seen much of her.

Keir Starmer seems  a good candidate to me. His close association with Remain wouldn't be that bad provided he moves on from now. If like Blair he continues to argue for EU membership even after the election then it may become a problem for him. But then if Johnson's strategy fails and we see the worst predicted consequences of Brexit reach fruition then Starmer may benefit from that.

It's kind of irrelevant at this point. For as long as the party membership remains dominated by middle class, postmodern identitarian ideologues frothing with contempt for the country they seek to govern, Labour isn't getting back into power. The deranged, hysterical response to Long-Bailey's use of the term "patriotism" over the last few days is yet another demonstration of how utterly incapable these lunatics are of self-reflection. It would take nothing less than a purge to begin repairing the party's damaged relationship with working class voters, which just isn't going to happen.

ClockworkOcean wrote:It would take nothing less than a purge to begin repairing the party's damaged relationship with working class voters, which just isn't going to happen.

Probably not.

It took a lot of long, hard, frustrating work for Kinnock to expel the Militant element from the party in the 1980's. And I don't see anyone currently in the party who's willing to even begin to try.

Keir Starmer - probably the most "professional" looking candidate who the public would identify as being Prime Ministerial, but his Remainer credentials go against him & would not win back the lost Northern vote. He always looks permanently haunted like he's just about to tell the kids that the pet dog had to be put to sleep or something.

Rebecca Long-Bailey - Principled but a little scripted & humourless. Would stick with Corbyn's manifesto but would probably not win over either the PLP or the electorate. Her inexperience goes against her.

Jess Phillips - Ghastly gobshite. Murdoch's favourite for leadership but the membership wouldn't vote for her in a million years. Her celebrating Labours defeat was nauseating. She's like a female version of that odious cunt John Mann.

Clive Lewis - He's okay, but a bit of a weather vein like Andy Burnham was, his Guardian piece announcing his candidacy was uninspiring and wishy-washy. I previously thought he was quite good leadership material but gone off him somewhat over the years.

Emily Thornberry - She's quite good & could probably hold her own against Boris, but she wouldn't win back the Northern seats due to her Remainery credentials & perceived sneery snobbery.

Angela Rayner - on the ticket to be deputy if RLB goes for Leadership, personally I think they've got it the wrong way around because Rayner is more human than RLB & has a more inspiring backstory of "uneducated single mum comes good", however her likeness to a Catherine Tate character would be her pitfall which the media would exploit.

Barry Gardiner - he hasn't thrown his hat in the ring but is my own personal favour because he cuts the party divide having served in Blair/Brown & Corbyn cabinets. Unlike Corbyn he's a good media performer who won't take shit from the MSM. He also consistently argued for a Norway+ style Brexit instead of whining for a 2nd Referendum all the time. Some of the uber-left don't like him because he's in Friends of Israel and has cosied up to Modi, but if that deflects the media from their "anti-semite" & "hinduphobic" smears that they leveled at Corbyn then that's a plus point. Doubt he'll get it though.

Ian Lavery - Good strong Union man, could win back some northern seats but will exert a Stalinesque grip on the party. I'd say he'd be better as Deputy myself doing the job Tom Watson was utterly useless at. He'll endure the smears about Union funds from the media 24/7 however. He also requires subtitles for those not acquainted with strong geordie-speak too. He'll definitely keep the petulant Blairites in order from the complete shambles they made the party under Corbyn.

To be honest, after Corbyn none of them are particularly inspiring.

I'm hoping the Postal Vote fraud evidence will come forward to topple Johnson, but after the way Cameron got away with cheating the 2010 General Election & the complete disinterest shown by the media when evidence came to light it seems unlikely.

I never thought I would envy the Scottish as much as I do at the moment.

Depressing times, the only crumb of comfort being that the Tories have inherited the poisoned chalice of Brexit which will come to bite them on the arse sooner rather than later. It's going to be funny to see how they cope when the transition period is over, quite frankly I can't see how they'll do it with the no-deal/hard Brexit they're going for.

Perhaps it's for the best because had Corbyn actually achieved the impossible and actually won I doubt it wouldn't have been long before secret services had arranged a David Kelly type "little accident" waiting in the wings for him.

It would've been a question of who got to him first between MI5, CIA or Mossad? The bounty Murdoch would've raised I imagine would've been quite significant.  

At least this way he still gets to potter around on his allotment & do speeches at demos whilst we can all call him "the best Prime Minister we never had" like we did with Tony Benn.

The Tories can't really do a lot after Labour's cack-handed approach to things caused another great depression. The recent recession is down to Corbyn and Corbyn alone. Boris will suceed, of course he will, but I fear it will take a long time.

Ken Grubshaw wrote:The recent recession is down to Corbyn and Corbyn alone.

Eh? How do you make that one out?

Corbyn's never been PM.

If you mean the bankers crash which fucked the economy up when Labour were last in power, it was a Worldwide recession. I don't think the last Labour Govt as fucking awful as they were had quite the influence to cause that.

The Tories are just as shit as managing the economy, in the last 9 years they've more than doubled the National Debt to £2.3 trillion despite the punishing austerity cuts.

Where the fucks the money gone?

Rob Filth wrote:
Where the fucks the money gone?

How should I know? I'm not even a real person.

Ken Grubshaw wrote:

Rob Filth wrote:
Where the fucks the money gone?

How should I know? I'm not even a real person.

Fair enough.

Jess has officially entered the race.

Oh no.

Tanmann wrote:Jess has officially entered the race.

Oh no.    

The ghastly gobshites got some brass neck.

She shouldn't be running for leadership, she should be expelled from the party along with Blair, Mandelson & every other press briefing bastard who did their damnedest to ensure that Tory victory in the General Election by sabotaging the Labour Party by smearing the Leadership and Membership.

Jess Phillips says party could campaign to rejoin EU

Brilliant. Double down on the strategy that's just delivered your worst election defeat since 1935. This is why the party is doomed. Even if someone like Nandy were to win, she'd likely be just as hamstrung by the membership as Corbyn. The hardcore remainers are never going to back down, even if it means driving Labour into the gutter and turning Britain into a hard-right one-party state.

ClockworkOcean wrote:Jess Phillips says party could campaign to rejoin EU

Brilliant. Double down on the strategy that's just delivered your worst election defeat since 1935. This is why the party is doomed. Even if someone like Nandy were to win, she'd likely be just as hamstrung by the membership as Corbyn. The hardcore remainers are never going to back down, even if it means driving Labour into the gutter and turning Britain into a hard-right one-party state.

A lot of the membership are getting really fucked off with the hardcore no-compromise Remainers.

I voted Remain myself, but the fbpe brigade have done themselves no favours with their "all of nothing" extremist strategy which had largely been encouraged by the mainstream media in order to split the Remain vote. They encouraged it by deliberately obfuscating Labour's Brexit policy immediately after the 2017 General Election.

The fpbe brigade continually undermined the leadership, prevented a Government of National Unity and forced the party into the strategically disastrous 2nd Ref vote under the threat of subsequently ripping the Labour Party apart by planning a mass defection to the Lib Dems.

Well I hope they're fucking happy now because instead of the Norwayplus deal and continued close relationship with Europe we could have got, we're now looking at the subservient poodle relationship with Uncle Sam and Iraq being repeated all over again under a harsh ultra-right wing no-deal Brexit.

Jess Phillips thinks jumping into bed and sucking Murdoch's wrinkly cock will secure her a Labour victory - she's fucking deluded.

Even Murdoch's got some standards.

ClockworkOcean wrote:This is why the party is doomed. Even if someone like Nandy were to win, she'd likely be just as hamstrung by the membership as Corbyn.

Nandy definitely seems like a hopeful prospect to me so far. I think currently it'd be either her or Rebecca Long-Bailey I'd wager my vote toward. Probably more likely Nandy since I'm a bit less confident about Bailey's credibility among the electorate.

Trouble is, whoever becomes leader, they'll probably have to resign themselves to the reality that their job will merely be to keep the party going and hold it together like mad, with winning the next election being simply off the table until further notice (unless Boris seriously screws up). I wish it wasn't so. I wish just one more push could turn things around, but it looks like the best Labour can hope for next election is a more reasonable margin of defeat.

For Jess Philips fans:
We can dislike a contender without going for the woman hate....
She is not getting my vote.
Her CV is a carefully drafted fiction.
She's more concerned with publicity and noise, than functional action for the good.
Employed by Ashton and You Gov
Works with Jacob Rees Mogg
No interest in anything that doesn't push her profile.
Her apparent experience with Domestic Violence was as a Parliamentary lobbyist. She was schmoozing for money not opening the doors to broken women and children in the middle of the night.
She pretends to be working class. She's not.
Her mum made a fortune as CEO to a number of private companies that profited from NHS funding, where she employed her family at our cost.
So when she describes her as 'working for the NHS', it's in so much as they all profited from it, but didn't protect it from PFI, or NHS and SC 2012.
She's likely to say whatever wins her a position,
Don't trust her to stay in the battle if it looks like damaging her profile.

Keir Starmer for me. Is David Lammy running? he could be interesting but Rebecca Long-Bailey is just Corbyn in a skirt

I think Lammy has pulled out.
According to Huffington post.

Rawkuss wrote:Rebecca Long-Bailey is just Corbyn in a skirt

Well, she's Corbyn if Corbyn wasn't stupid on national defence. She at least seemed to get that ISIS needed to be shown no mercy.

I can't help think Labour wouldn't have lost 2019 quite so catastrophically if she'd been leader instead. Patriots who could never vote for Corbyn might've been slightly more likely to vote for her.

stengos wrote:I think Lammy has pulled out.
According to Huffington post.

Good riddance.
I like fruitcakes but I couldn't eat a whole one.

Rawkuss wrote:For Jess Philips fans:
We can dislike a contender without going for the woman hate....

...

Keir Starmer for me. Is David Lammy running? he could be interesting but Rebecca Long-Bailey is just Corbyn in a skirt

Fair enough. I don't know much about her. Just she's a candidate and she seems one of the more intelligent and clear spoken - and she gets double plus points for telling the incompetent Abbot to "fuck off" once. However, if Jess is as divisive as some here say then maybe her as leader would be a mistake

Starmer - i can see that. Okay he was pro-remain which could be a bit of liability but it depends where he goers from here. He seems to be distancing himself from remain now and taking a stance of acceptance of Brexit.

RLB just comes across as an inexperienced sixth form student to me. Just the other day I watched an interview she did with Owen - "Yes that wanker" - Jones in 2016 on You Tube and her grasp of issues seemed poor. It could have been a real disaster if the interviewer were not so obviously on her side. Nandy has always seemed more robust.

Ian Lavery just announced his intention to decline throwing his hat in the ring despite huge membership pressure for him to do so, I guess the idea of being locked in half a dozen libel cases for years with the billionaire media oligarchs painting him as a thuggish football hooligan who embezzled Union money just didn't appeal to him at the end of the day.

So Starmer it will be then and the farewell to at least 150,000 of the membership fees along with unelectability for at least the next 2 General Elections.

There's absolutely no way he'll win back the disaffected Leave seats or hold on to the bulk of the Corbyn influx.

I predict the turnout for General Election 2014 to be crushingly low due to voter apathy setting in once again.

I see Lisa Nandy's 1 of the 5 candidates, surprised they could get her out of Peston's studio for long enough to submit her application!

I've never seen an MP so terrified of her own constituents, tho I suppose that's understandable.

Mott1 wrote:I see Lisa Nandy's 1 of the 5 candidates, surprised they could get her out of Peston's studio for long enough to submit her application!

I've never seen an MP so terrified of her own constituents, tho I suppose that's understandable.

She's a "cry wolf" MP like Angela Eagle and Margaret Hodge and all those twats who formed the "Funny Tinge" group like Chuka Twatface.

She also instigated much of the chicken coup after the referendum which probably lost Labour the 2017 Election & campaigned for that fucking clueless prick Owen Smith in the forced Leadership Election.

I think she's duplicitous and two-faced, not many of the membership like her either, she's probably marginally better regarded than ghastly gobshit Jess Phillips.

I dunno what the hell Labour are playing at, the token "left" candidate being the incredibly wooden Long-Bailey. Considering Ian Lavery has sadly bottled it after giving it the big 'un, Angela Rayner would've been far better going for Leadership than Deputy. At least she has a bit of personality.

I'm starting to think wishy-washy Clive Lewis the best candidate, but his pitch was the most vague bollocks ever, even Starmers pitch was better.

Problem with Starmer is, once Murdoch's attack dogs have finished with him, he'll be the Bent Brief who let every single Terrorist and Paedophile off the hook scot-free as well as being a "traitor to democracy" and against "the voice of the people".

Perhaps that's why he permanently wears that haunted look?

He does indeed look like a man who's permanently stuck in a Hammer horror film. One can almost hear the eerie music playing in the background when he appears...

Saw an interview with Long-Bailey on the itv news. She got onto Jezza's unpleasant treatment by the Murdoch press - whilst she was undoubtedly correct she just managed to take the target off his back and put it on her own.