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Jan 2020
9:56am, 8 Jan 2020
6,076 posts
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jda
Good news is, surely that has sunk her campaign? (Well, that along with the rest of the vacuous airhead stuff.) The "progressive patriotism" aka "how can we get the thick bigots to vote for us again like they always used to" didn't exactly win plaudits either. Though what the members think, who knows...
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Jan 2020
11:36am, 8 Jan 2020
1,017 posts
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Brighouse Boy
I heard Long-Bailey saying that she thought the Labour policies were fine but that they didn't "sell" them properly to the public. Now, if you really wanted to get elected and taken seriously by the majority of people, wouldn't you want to listen and understand exactly what they want and what most affects their lives, then base your policies on that? She will only ever exist in a side lined hard left socialist bubble that most people have already rejected.
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Jan 2020
12:02pm, 8 Jan 2020
9,910 posts
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larkim
I think there has to be scope for a new leader doing a positive advocacy job for policies that aren't currently mainstream thinking, and I don't criticise RLB for saying she still stands behind the manifesto policies - but if she is elected, she needs to do a very effective job of moving the debate along and establishing the LP manifesto as the default position for voters.
Personally, I don't think that that is achievable, certainly not in 1 or 2 parliaments. Which is why I she's not the candidate for me.
There'd be no point at all in being a political leader if you can't bring the public with you in the "right" policy direction, and all you do is follow the mainstream.
But equally in the short term you need to be realistic; unless you get power, you can't put into practice those policies which do sit in the mainstream, but are also parts of your agenda. You then build from there a new consensus, if you are successful.
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Jan 2020
12:19pm, 8 Jan 2020
2,508 posts
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J2R
The only times in the last 50 years that Labour has achieved anything at all for the people it sees itself as representing have been when they have been prepared to get their hands dirty with compromise and do the best that's possible under the circumstances. The purity-at-all-costs approach of Corbyn et al has condemned us to years of far right government instead. It has been worse than useless - it has been positively harmful.
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Jan 2020
12:35pm, 8 Jan 2020
7,027 posts
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Too Much Water
The thing is it doesn’t matter how good or worthy the policies are. Britain’s electorate doesn’t vote for them by and large
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Jan 2020
12:36pm, 8 Jan 2020
9,911 posts
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larkim
That's a fair critique and I'm not far away from sharing that view. All I was suggesting was that there is at least some merit in a candidate attempting to get elected as Labour leader on the basis of their beliefs and policies, and if they happen to be aligned with the existing manifesto then the tactic of putting herself forward on that basis isn't "wrong".
It's for the electoral college of the Labour party to weigh up whether a) on balance they agree with that policy framework and b) whether the candidate demonstrates the capability of putting Labour in with a chance of winning the next election on the basis of those policies.
I have a view which is that even a master tactician such as we saw with Blair / Campbell / Brown couldn't get elected on the current manifesto, and I have less faith in RLB to be as competent as them as election machines. Hence I want a Labour leader with a more moderate policy agenda, backed up by electability. But having an election where the choices are available to us is at least acceptable to me - even if I have to accept that the consequence might be that someone like RLB gets elected and my fears about her policy direction and capability are realised.
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Jan 2020
12:41pm, 8 Jan 2020
178 posts
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Stander
The Labour party need to have policies that the voting public want, rather than what the Labour party think the public should have. Until they change that way of thinking, they will remain in opposition.
In a unicorn world where the government has shit tons of money available, we might have been able to afford everything they wanted to give us. But the public really isn't that stupid. They know who ultimately has to pay for all that expenditure and they decided it wasn't going to be them.
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Jan 2020
12:57pm, 8 Jan 2020
15,723 posts
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Bazoaxe
..or persuade the voting public that they want them along the lines of the way we have ended up with Brexit which initially no one thought had support
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Jan 2020
1:03pm, 8 Jan 2020
9,912 posts
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larkim
I fundamentally disagree with that Stander. If a political party isn't the right body to advocate for persuading the public that their policies are correct, then I don't know what political dialogue is for.
Yes, they need to be responsive, but they also need to lead, especially if the current political direction and consensus is believed by that party to be fundamentally wrong and harmful.
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Jan 2020
1:08pm, 8 Jan 2020
1,591 posts
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Surelynot
I do think that there's a role for politicians, political parties institutions and the like to engage with the public to convince them of their policies.
The end of the post-war consensus didn't happen because everyone woke up one day and realised they wanted monetarism. It was as a result of a sustained effort to change 'what the voting public want'.
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Fantasy General Election
Jul 2024
