About Labour's next leader

I think it's a shame Andy Burnham can't stand, he would be a good leader. He understands both the different factions within the party and also the electorate, and I think he could unify them.

I very much hope it won't be Rebecca Long Bailey, she's too closely associated with Corbyn, and, frankly, she's not very likeable. I know personality shouldn't be a factor but sadly it is, and she doesn't seem to have what it takes to appeal to people.

Stephen Kinnock impressed me in interviews.

If you’ve read much about how McCluskey runs unite, this R L-B and KM news doesn’t seem that surprising, albeit worrying.

What about Andy Burnham?

Please not! He's doing a good job as Manchester Mayor and knocking lots of heads together to get improvements made in the North, taking no hostages at times.

Whilst I think he'd make a good Labour leader, he's far too valuable for Manchester to lose.

And more, 'Of course':

From Twitter:

Jim Packard (Financial Times)
@PickardJE

"a similar rumour out there is that both Karie Murphy and Seumas Milne would keep their jobs under a RLB leadership"

OK, this is serious:

From Twitter:

Kevin Scofield
@kevinschofield

"

Strong rumour doing the rounds in Labour that Karie Murphy is planning to quit her party post to help run Becky Long-Bailey's leadership campaign. Would further boost her credentials as the continuity Corbyn candidate."

Now - Katie Murphy was in charge of the election campaign, she was one of the '4Ms' around Corbyn - so I'm sure that will elicit an immediate response of 'Of Course' or 'Oh dear'

But there's more.

Murphy's campaign was 'people power', and that involved £5 million spent on 'community organisers' and their campaign.

In reality, it involved mobilising masses of activists (big Momentum cross-over) to go out canvassing.

Lots of co-ordination by digital means (whatsapps, spreadsheets).

That's a lot of data.

Obviously, it would be illegal to use/access that data when Murphy resigns from her current role & becomes campaign co-ordinaries for the announced one.

But she is currently still in her former role.

And I wonder what is going on with all that data and those digital tools right now?

Talking to a Labour friend today, I was shocked that she blamed the whole defeat on the media. Plus (lowered voice) ' the Labour-voting areas had more graduates and were therefore more intelligent'. No awareness whatsoever of why they lost

Really interesting discussion. Published today is a survey of Labour Party members conducted by LabourList. Gives an idea of who the respondents want to be leader and deputy leader. How representative this is of the wider party/movement I can't say, but here it is anyhow:

labourlist.org/2019/12/long-bailey-and-rayner-picked-for-top-jobs-by-labourlist-readers/

It's ... 🤷‍♀️

I left it alone but the lack of grace in abject defeat amongst the current labour team has been striking.

The Labour Party at the top are in complete denial about the reasons they failed.

BBC bias against them......looked far more biased again the Tories to me
Corbyn being a lovely man but slated by the media........of course IRA connections etc were invented
The print media being against them.....7 million newspapers sold daily vs 100 million or so voters
And so on with the excuses.

The truth is the policies of renationalisation, higher taxes, unrealistic, impossible promises and Marxoid style government was a big turn off.

Looks to me they are going to repeat the above with their new leader

Brighter note:

Seems some of the unions are fighting back on the coronation of Rebecca Long-Bailey:

From Twitter:

RachelWearmouth (HuffPost)
@REWearmouth

"Union source: "The thing with RLB is she isn’t even the best leadership candidate in her own flat, never mind among the PLP."

I wonder if that's Unison or Someone fighting back against (the dead hand of) Unite?

Anyway, good luck to them.

Angela Rayner is far, far preferable to R L-B.
By a million country miles, frankly.

😳😯😮@reallychristmasaaagain

I ... I have no words.

Yes my momentum supporting friends are posting charts showing they were over 50 percent for people under 45, and saying they’ll win someday just based on these people ageing.

I didn’t reply as you can’t debate with that level of idiocy - as if people never change their vote over the course of their lives!

Being anti expert is a problem if you have an economic (and other) credibility deficit - rubbishing the media and experts is only going to get you so far and only with some voters. The SNP is smarter in this regard, most economists think Scotland’s deficit is a huge problem (and the structural issues causing the deficit) but the SNP wheel out their own growth commission experts to control their message when they have to talk about the pesky deficit.

I’m not convinced the media is any worse these days than under Blair.

pmk

I agree with you, BubblesBuddy. On all your points.

I'm actually despairing right now.

A key point in all this is just how awfully, incredibly incompetent the current group in charge of Labour are.

Incompetent at anything beyond seizing power within Labour, that is.

It's as though they have spent 20 years doing very little except studying 'How to seize power in the Labour Party' as a special interest / and nothing else.

So they now have power - and are hit with the very real-world problem of how to win an election against a Hard Right coalition.

And look what happened: Murphy and co. Having all the polling and research telling them a GE was a disastrous idea - but in they go, anyway; Murphy & Butler shouting down MPs who give feedback from their constituencies that a GE will be a disaster / but see above; Murphy having polling showing the unpopularity of Corbyn & responding with it don't read the polls; a GE strategy that focuses on winning seats from Cons & ignores all reports of trouble in 'heartlands' ...

I could go on, but what's the point?

It's not just that this group is wedded to an ideology that appears not to be backed by the electorate, it's also that there are extraordinary levels of incompetence.

Bear in mind, we went out to fight an election knowing antisemitism was an issue, knowing that the EHRC report was coming, knowing how unpopular Corbyn was, knowing that there were aspects of Corbyn's history that would not play well with the general public.

But there was no serious attempt to manage that, message-wise. We were left with, 'Don't trust MSM.'

That isn't good enough.

I know it was Gove who said, 'we've had enough of experts' - but it is the Labour Party executive who seem to be completely anti-expert.

It's a massive, massive problem to keep going with this team when it comes to the next a Leader.

It's a problem that isn't just about ideology - it's also about competence (which appears to now be an ideologically suspect word) & a bit of praxis and pragmatism.

Since when did being competent become ideologically impure?

It's just crazy.

It depends what you call elite. Having a grandfather who was an MP and went into the Lords is the political elite! It’s not starting from scratch.

However I don’t think it matters that she’s not got s whippet and worked in a mine! People from all sectors of society should be welcome and even ones who come from London!

There are reports of a dream ticket being forged between Long-Bailey and Raynor. If so, labour won’t be winning elections any time soon as it’s Momentum and groomed for stardom politicians and more of the same but just without Jezza and MacD.

@thecatfromjapan I'm not sure how Lisa Nandy can be described as elite? Her grandfather was a liberal MP who went into the Lords, but she herself grew up in Manchester, went to state schools, and worked in the charity sector, and she's mixed race.

This is interesting from Neil Coyle MP, on Twitter:

Neil Coyle
@neilcoyle

"Shadow Cabinet all knew too. Any standing to be next leader must explain lack of political nous in backing early election; ignoring evidence of voters' views on Corbyn; & failure to tackle antisemitism at top table. More of the same would let down the people who need us in Govt."

Those are incredibly relevant questions.
To be honest, those questions alone should actually finish off Rebecca Long-Bailey and Keir Starmer.

It was verging on somewhere between delusion and duping the membership to go into the GE knowing what they knew. And the EHRC report is going to be bad.

I don’t think the policy direction of travel was the issue either, more they had too many polices they lost credibility and needed to demonstrate super competence to turnaround years of underfunding.

You could de-prioritise things like renationalising and rationalise sone policies without changing direction and give more detail on how key ones are achievable

I know a lot of Corbyn people loathe Nandy because of her support of Owen Smith when he opposed Corbyn - but I think she really gets that we need to go forwards together.

Just that her background is pretty elite - and ...

But, as I said, I think what matters is how she wears that, and what she does.

I don't think voters like posh Lefties who appear to be LARPing, so none of that, please.

I really want someone competent - and they are going to have to be. Realistically, we will lose the next GE, and possibly the one after that. So this Leader needs to focus on repairing the house (of the Labour Party).

I like the fact she's been using Twitter to make moves towards Momentum, making it clear she liked the direction of travel policy-wise (& isn't planning a sudden swerve to the right).

That shows she has sense, and understands what needs to be done, with regard to Labour's voter and member base.

And I'm particularly impressed she's doing it now, when people aren't being so gracious to many of the Corbyn-supporting members and voters. It would have been way easier to join in with the recrimination - and she isn't doing that.

Whoever is Leader really, really needs to build and extend Labour.

And, after the GE result we had, we can't afford to lose and alienate members.

They have a real task, though. The GE result is a massive, massive wound. ☹️

@thecatfromjapan what do you mean by "born to rule" re Nandy?

I'm not sure KS will be tainted too much - Brexit flip flopping was more a problem than having an ideal and sticking to it.

Now that Brexit's going to happen someone like KS who is all over the detail might be a huge asset.

I can't really see public warming to RLB.

Maybe there is an interesting wildcard out there!