Why the Labour Party will not elect a woman

I agree that the way we do politics is ridiculous. The older I get, the more society seems to be crazy eager to polarize along any possible fault line. But I think it's really reductionist to attribute this to any one cause. Has the media played a part? Yes. Has the internet? Yes. Has austerity? Yes. Educational policy? Yes. Queer theory? Yes. Consumerist attitudes? Yes.

So how on earth do you fix all that? Simple answer, you can't, because humans are diverse, a jumbled bag of stupid, clever, blinkered, visionary, conservative and progressive.

All you can do is accept nuance, let people speak about their situation and views without shouting them down if you disagree with them, make your case in the public square, based on the best possible information available and persuade people fairly.

There is no utopia on the horizon, and there certainly isn't a socialist paradise coming any time soon. The world is going to change in the next ten years as enormously as it has in the last ten. If we cannot find a better way of communicating with each other, a lot of those changes are going to cause untold damage.

Blair did many things that were good, but the failure of centerists to acknowledge and take ownership of where the Blair administration failed are a massive part of the problem here.

But there’s also the failure of the left to acknowledge that Blair did anything good. They demonise him more than those posters ever did. I saw Angela Rayner post on twitter about how useful SureStart had been to her when she had her children and bloody hell the replies ripped her to shreds. She was a Blairite who should immediately resign from the party in disgrace.

So nobody discussed Labour in terms of their policies, and I think the comments about Brittain not being solialist just isn't true. The creation of the NHS and the housing policy after the war weren't about "resetting the country" it was about responding directly to the aspirations of those who fought and survived the war

Er yes it was responding directly to those aspirations but there is no logic to then say the UK is or wants to be a socialist country in the way Corbynism wants socialism.

There is far too much evidence that socialism does not work and far from supporting and encouraging aspirations works against them.

bold fail, strikethrough fail. gah.

@AriadneAufNaxos And then there were the attempts to dictate how a business owner should run their business- all that guff about 4 day weeks and employees being entitled to set the hours they want with little regard to business needs. .... I'm part of a partnership business. I take home well above average wage but I have time and money invested in that business and around 300 people rely on me and my and partners to make sound business and investment decisions to keep their jobs safe. Corbynism simply does not understand that. According to Corbynism I'm evil and oppressive and deserve to have half or more of my earnings taken from me..

(fewer staff but) Snap! completely agree with this.

I’m northern, very working class roots. Labour are no longer my party, not only do they not represent me, they would drive a truck over everything I’ve done to improve life for myself and my family.

Meanwhile, a friend who is a privately educated, childless, metropolitan socialist idealist and descendent of an Indian Viceroy who employs a couple of eastern europeans to clean and garden for him so considers himself egalitarian, who thinks everything should be nationalised and everything people have should go to the state when he dies (vast family assets in trusts so they don’t count as personal property, apparently), was Corbyn all the way.

Labour have lost the plot, they have nothing in common with their traditional voters, the working class who don’t want to be patronised and taxed to high heaven just in order to see Labour in power. That is borne out in the election map. Male or female leadership is irrelevant, they need someone who will put an end to —Militant— Momentum’s stranglehold.

We don't need a new Blair.

Blairs failings filtering through are why a significant part of the electorate drifted to the right.

Blair did many things that were good, but the failure of centerists to acknowledge and take ownership of where the Blair administration failed are a massive part of the problem here.

This is what let the far left and far right in because there was a void of critical self examination and taking responsibility for errors. It was a massive amount of arrogance.

It's centrist voters who do need to consider this and why they have not been able to address the issues of the last 5 years adequately. (clue its about proper understanding of democracy and its underlying foundations but equally not about this will of the people shite.).

The superficiality of politics combined with spin and arrogance of middle classes is at the heart of everything we are seeing now.

Earlier on in the thread I posted a comment and some thought for some reason I was attacking Starmer.

Not in the least I was trying to point out as others have now done party politics is no longer about the policy and aims of the party.

And this is to do with how news is reported in this country. It has become a personality contest. And most of the electorate go along with that. ie prefering a man who has been shown to lie, be incomptent, constantly changes his mind, and basically will do anything to be PM. ie Johnson who ran away from the difficultly created by Cameron stepping down let Theresa May take the fall. And he is happy to be the voter friendly face of the ERG .

So nobody discussed Labour in terms of their policies, and I think the comments about Brittain not being solialist just isn't true. The creation of the NHS and the housing policy after the war weren't about "resetting the country" it was about responding directly to the aspirations of those who fought and survived the war.

And yes the Tories got in after, but compared to now eg the MacMillan never had it so good government was left of what is not called central politics.

I grew up in a family of wishy washy liberals (not party) and the sort of opinions I heard then would now be categorised as left.

It isn't about the electorate being stupid but about the fact that once the media gets into a trend of demonising someone, unless you spend hours unpicking the relentless comments of the airheads who endlessly drone on on tv etc., you just get submerged in it. So many of the comments on here are directly quotes of tv punditry.

That's why I said party politics is now a joke. Personally once an election is called I would ban any part of the press from commenting or even reporting. There would be a sort of fact check panel to go through the manifestos. And we would have to decide on policies we thought would be best for the country not whether someone could muck about on a slip wire or cry in public on demand.

But most of us dont want to do the hard work of actually understanding what is going on, which just accept the slogans pumped out at us.

I am not saying that in every instance nationalised industries and services are better, but when you look back at the negative impact of bringing in private companies to run services, whether social service care provision, housing, prisons, etc.,etc., how can anyone think this was a good policy? And Labour under Blair bought in PPI and committed councils and NHS Trusts to be in debt. Servicing the debt to private companies has been far more onerous on us than paying of the debt to the Americans following WWII.

I am not a Labour Party supporter by the way, but I just think someone needs to stand back from the nasty bullying that in fact comes from the media so that every politician is game playing them, not bothered about us.

I cant undersand when so many highy sucessful european countries have semi if not totally nationalised railways that so many people seem to respond as though we are letting in some demons. The irony being of course, that as a country we aren't quite the business orientated one we think we are, and most of our railways are run be other european railway companies.

But the media never reports that. They just go with the reds under the beds nonsense. A media research department looked at the coverage during the elections and it turned out the Guardian had the highest number of inaccurate reports about Corbyn and anti semitism.

I am not blaming the electorate but I do think we seem to have lost our critical facilities. Just look at the sheer absurdity of tv news going out to interview people about Brexit and they get the reply, just get it done. What does that mean. You wouldn't say that about having an operation, or some building work.

There is something seriously wrong about how we think about and discuss politics. And in the mean time, actual parties are themselves made up of splits and vendettas, but the media only choosed to highlight the ones that suit the agenda of the publisher and editor.

The swing needed to win an election in 5 years is too big, the leader after this one needs to be electable. This one needs to lay the groundwork.

The next leader needs to be someone who can win an election in 5 years time. As much as I'd like that to be a woman, I can't help feeling Starmer is best placed to do it.

A Starmer/Cooper ticket would be ideal.

Starmer is very pro women as was evidenced by his time as DPP. Women stand to gain more by having Labour in power with the right leadership that by merely having a female leader.

I don't know, however, if he knows what a woman is but would be fab if he'd do a MNHQ webchat so we can find out.

I would like to see a left wing party get back into ascendancy who are defined more by a love of working class and poorer people as opposed to being more motivated by a hatred of the rich

Corbynism goes well beyond a hatred of the rich. It is antagonistic and antipathetic to business. The starting point for Corbynism is to assume the worst motivation- "screw the workers" is assumed to be the primary motivation.

And then there were the attempts to dictate how a business owner should run their business- all that guff about 4 day weeks and employees being entitled to set the hours they want with little regard to business needs.

This misdirected ire wasn't aimed just at the super rich.

I'm part of a partnership business. I take home well above average wage but I have time and money invested in that business and around 300 people rely on me and my and partners to make sound business and investment decisions to keep their jobs safe. Corbynism simply does not understand that. According to Corbynism I'm evil and oppressive and deserve to have half or more of my earnings taken from me.

@noblegiraffe the mess in the party needs to be sorted of course, BUT Labour can't just be inwardly focused while Brexit is happening - they need to be able to seize on all the issues that will erupt so that the 'sunlit uplands' story can be challenged. The Tories successfully established the 'Labour spent all the money' after 2010 in part because there was no real challenge to them blaming Labour for the financial crisis. Labour have to keep on pointing out that a) The Tories own Brexit now 100% and b) it's not going to go very well. That can't be allowed to slide onto the back burner. They're going to have to do that while also having a major party rethink. Not ideal but got to be done and currently Starmer is best placed to keep attacking the detail of what Johnson and Cummings come up with. The party review can't be all the work of one person anyway.

Also it highlights Johnson’s untrustworthiness and flakey behaviour

Blair is said to have charisma but he also had smarmy levelled at him so a flip side. He did well though of course

I don’t think picking Johnson apart in the Commons is that important compared to sorting out the mess of a party. They spent the last few years fighting each other and slating the only Labour leader to win elections in 50 years. Why would anyone vote for them when they wouldn’t even vote for each other?

I’ll take competence too, makes a welcome change

In the absence of sparkling charisma, I'll take competence and high level analytical ability any day.

100% yes.

@Tanith has nailed it on Starmer:

He doesn't need to be Tony Blair. He needs to be Neil Kinnock and do the ground work, the clearing and the preparation for the next leader to fight the General Election.

Starmer can pick Johnson apart in the Commons and has a good command of the Brexit brief so can analyse all the fuck ups as they happen and challenge the Johnson narrative. In the absence of sparkling charisma, I'll take competence and high level analytical ability any day.

I would like to see a left wing party get back into ascendancy who are defined more by a love of working class and poorer people as opposed to being more motivated by a hatred of the rich.

If that happens to be ushered in by a woman I’m all for it.

He doesn't need to be Tony Blair. He needs to be Neil Kinnock and do the ground work, the clearing and the preparation for the next leader to fight the General Election

Exactly. I'm not sure who the new "Blair" will be

it is interesting that Labour makes efforts to ensure candidates are female, and the Tories don't. But Labour ties itself in knots worrying why it can't choose a female leader. And the Tories don't give a shit, but somehow did, twice.

Thatcher got slated for a long list of actual things before she was slagged off for her appearance. I can only assume Thatcher is only a historical figure to the poster who made that observation.

I don't think the problem is with "a woman" pre se, but the misogyny vibes that Labour's left give off.

Thatcher and May did not become Prime Ministers because they were women, but because, when the chips were down, they were the candidates that were most acceptable to their Parliamentary parties. MP's may like to talk about diversity, but more than anything they want to keep their jobs.

Labour have three problems. First the system for choosing leaders is different, and many of those involved in the selection, will prioritise ideology, and the continuation of the Corbyn project, over electability. Second the women being touted by the left wing are inevitably tainted by their failure to stand up to some of the less attractive features of the current left including anti-semitism and misogyny. Third that the last election means that many Labour MPs who understood the world outside urban centres, are gone. The most remarkable swing to the Tories was from the lower paid and unemployed. (From memory about 13%) These are not natural Tory voters, and a sensible, non ideological, pragmatic Labour leader could win them back.

In another world, perhaps one which had the Tory approach to selecting leaders and before the recent rout in the northern constituencies, you might see someone like Yvette Cooper coming to the fore, with a good chance of then being elected PM. Not because she is a woman but because she would appeal to the centre ground. The voters targeted by Blair and Mandelson. RLB will not, and it is nothing to do with her sex.

I've talked about this for a while. There are three problems here with Labour.

1. It's institutionally sexist
2. it's too woke
3. it has a problem not with female voters but with male voters

Labours solution to its institutional sexism is not a desire to solve the problem but to want to make a pr statement about the next leader being female.

This is not a solution. It's spin and many people can see through it.

The same way they can see through the bullshit of gender identity being inheritely sexist. So it puts off sensible headed men and women.

The woke tokenism really doesn't play well with a large part of the electorate. It's not a right wing thing but an issue with not reflecting lived experiences and being classist against the working classes for whom this bullshit pr nonsense works against most. It undermines trust.

People know when it's a pile of shite.

Also woke identity politics is particularly undesirable to men ironically. If you look at voting patterns women are voting for Labour in increasing numbers whilst men are turning to more right wing parties.

Thus the idea that a woman leader will increase vote share is arguably bullshit. Particularly if she is seen to be leader because of woke bullshit pr rather than because she's a cracking good leader. And sadly many (but not all) of the potential female candidates in the mix are decidedly crap.

The party has to work out how to appeal more to older white males rather than younger women who already lean toward the party.

There is a problem within Labour and sexism but the entire idea that a female leader will magically change the party's fortunes is so far off the mark its crazy.

I couldn't care less if it's a woman or not, I want the best candidate for the job and someone electable

He doesn't need to be Tony Blair. He needs to be Neil Kinnock and do the ground work, the clearing and the preparation for the next leader to fight the General Election.

or right wing political views.