Well, there we have it: Jeremy Corbyn has just been announced the next Labour Leader - Part 2

[Donotknowhownottomind]

Just opening the continuation of the last thread...

Misti - there's a difference between "imposing" policy and talking to the press. He needs to tell voters his vision - what he wants for the country, why middle england can trust him. He doesn't need hard policy just now, just to reassure people. The longer he stays silent, the longer he allows the right wing press to define him.

Itsall - is JC popular with the british public? We don't know yet, because most of them have no idea who on earth he is. Because he's not doing any press appearances!

I don't think they stand a chance of winning a GE. They need someone charismatic and there is no-one of this nature, in either major party.

Looks like Labour have fallen into the same trap as the Tories did in the IDS, William Hague and Michael Howard years. A candidate who appeals to the party faithful is not the best person to attract the floating voters that you need in our FTP system.

I'm sure the activists/ politicos/ media/ chattering classes on all sides are going to have lots of fun and excitement over the coming months. Whether he is actually electable is another question

ItsAll But he wasn't popular with the voters... Jeremy Corbyn is...

You mean with the 1/2 of 1% of the electorate that voted for him in the Labour party leadership election.

At the moment the impression I get is the Labour party members want a return to traditional labour values. Those that voted the tories in, don't care about Labour because they didn't vote for them when they were near liberals and are terrified of voting for them when they've stepped further to the left.

A candidate who appeals to the party faithful is not the best person to attract the floating voters that you need in our FTP system.

^ this

anybody 45 would have been a child in the 70s - so protected from the reality.
misti why do you imply I am lying when I say I remember the 70s and the 80s - indeed I remember the 60s
so I can therefore imply that the few people you know who are JC supporters (who are not young) are the exception and already died in the wool socialists.
incidentally by 'starry eyed' young I mean the under 45s who had not witnessed the mess that was the socialism in that era and which explained why the labour party was in the wilderness for so many years

I assumed all Corbyn voters were kids as it's baffling to me that anyone who remembers the sheer pain and wilderness years of Foot and Kinnock could be so bloody stupid as you want to send the Labour Party back there again.

I am assuming that these people have good safe jobs and are comfortable off so just 'chat socialist politics' and don't really care that Corbyn will never get into power and so condemn us to years more Tory policies.

He won't last a year as leader as he has no credible costed and sensible policies. Just like poor old Ed.

Hello - I know. It's deeply upsetting. The Tories will win a majority of 200+ at this rate, and will be able to do whatever they want with the country.

We need a credible opposition...

It's patronising to say younger people wouldn't hold the views they do if they'd been around in the 70s. Whatever "mess" existed wasn't Socialism, nor was it entirely the making of the then Labour party. There was a post war consensus on many issues, such as the NHS, but it extended way beyond that.

can anyone on MN find any other job that Jeremy Corbyn has done in the past other than being a councillor in London or an MP? if so can you post the link here please.

I have just re- read this and the previous thread whilst on my break. Absolutely spot on to those who said this is Student Union politics. that's exactly what he reminds me of.

I don't need to wait a few months to see what he is like because I worked in London Boroughs and know the answer already.

I completely agree that he is like IDS - beloved by the party faithful but the country will see him as completely unelectable.

You have to talk to the media if you are in a public position. you have to make them listen to what your saying and deliver it in such a way that they cannot ignore you. behaving like a petulant child will only make the media dislike you. its a fact of life. Make the media work for you.

as for this idea that he is something "fresh and new". no he isn't. Michael foot - terribly clever thoughtful and principled man but never electable in a million years.

I run my own business and I wouldn't turn up to a client dressed this scruffy. it shows a complete lack of respect to your audience. Looking like the bloody History Man isn't acceptable if you want people to take you seriously.

I am in my late 50's (just) so I do remember the power cuts and the freezing cold and the coal strikes and having to take extra stew round to the neighbours who had no money. They weren't called food banks, they were called neighbours and its only now I realise that my mum had a "bit extra meat pie" on purpose so that she could help our neighbours out.

the 1970's are the Labour Jeremy Corbyn wants back. he has made that abundantly clear. renationalise the railways? what utter bloody unachievable nonsense.

The past is a foreign country. I was a carefree child in the 70s when we had proper summers. I do remember the miners and teachers' strikes, the poll tax, the decimation of car making and steel, the sell off of social housing stock, 15% interest rates, denationalisation of natural monopolies and more under Thatcher. I quite liked John Major and even at the time of the election he lost I considered him to the Left of Tony Blair.

I am in my late 40s. I know the Conservatives consider anyone under 50 irrelevant but I think there is now an opportunity for the Labour party to start speaking for the middle aged and below. Pity it takes the old guard who are past playing the patronage game to do it.

I thought Blunkett was being pretty reasonable when he pointed out JC needs to frame his policy in terms of the damage "austerity" will have inflicted by 2020 rather than in terms of today.

Actually renationalising the railways is the only bit that makes sense. National Rail is state owned anyway, and the government subsidy is increasing. It's only the train line firms that are private companies, and they just lease the lines and charge extortionate fares to make a profit. They are on fixed term contracts (10 years or so IIRC) and they can just be allowed to expire with the government taking over.

No wasonthelist it isn't patronising. it is a fact. the mess in the 70's was down to far left wing ideologies which look great on paper and are rubbish in practice and the power of the unions and people who wanted to crush the rich. forgetting of course that it is the people who earn the money, who pay the taxes which pay for the public sector wages and everything else. 90%+ supertax rates were incredibly damaging.

as for a maximum wage. oh really Jeremy why don't you just do one on that! where would you set it? how would you apply it?

and would it apply to his cabinet colleagues like Seema Malhotra and her consultant banker husband?

Just had a really good look at the whole cabinet. To describe it as light on experience belies just how bad it is. so many of the postholders have only ever worked in politics with no real work experience.

so tell me all the Jeremy lovers, how is that a new brand of politics then?

The railway question is trivial. In the very recent past, the East Coast line returned to public ownership for a period of time, after the private operator backed out of the contract. It operated with fewer subsidies than other lines during that period.

I'm not dead set on the idea that railways should be run privately, but it should not be possible to simultaneously claim subsidies from the state while paying dividends to private investors.

'It was read out, far too fast, and phrases were stumbled over. It didn't make much of an impact, orally.'

I agree, MamaMary, but it was real and above all the content was real. It wasn't the speech of a polished, pre-trained politician delivering a pile of spin together with planned pregnant pauses and thumb-pointing hand gestures.

Claig - it wasn't "real" corbyn is an actor like all politicians. it was delivered in this way to make you think it was real.

still no one can tell me what jobs Jeremy did before he became a politician? No one from the Labour party on here this afternoon then to help me out with this one.

Ok Mummymeister under which "socialist" government did we have a 3 day working week? If the 70s were all awful and the fault of wicked Labour why didn't the Ted Heath Conservative government come along and mend everything?

It's extremely patronising to tell people they aren't entitled to believe something based on a partisan dogmatic view of history.

wasonthelist - were you there in the 60's and 70's then?

... catching up ... :)

mummymeister the job experience argument is a dangerous one for Tories, surely? Because either Osborne is unfitted to be chancellor due to his previous, brief career as a towel-folder - or it doesn't really matter and you judge people on their performance in the job. You can't have it both ways.

Mummeister I can't tell you what jobs JC had but then I am not "from the Labour" party. Perhaps the answer is none - it doesn't necessarily disqualify him from being a decent leader, any more than Cameron going to Eton automatically makes him unfit to rule over those of us who didn't.

Agree mummy and Alyosha

mummy of course she wasn't there thats clear. I don't blame the kids for that as they don't know any better and are excited by the idealistic policies of Corbyn.

But people over 50 who are still spouting bollocks well really.

Our Labour Party that spent years getting electable after the disaster of foot and kinnock is right back in the wilderness now.

Well done those Corbyn supporters well done.

He was a union organiser as it happens, with at least two unions. Which for his generation was a typical route into Labour politics, just as for Cameron's and Osbourne's generation, a typical route to selection as a Conservative candidate was via research jobs at Conservatice Central Office. There is no real difference.

Yes I was there in the 60s and 70s

MIstigri _ I am not a tory so what I have said applies equally across the whole political spectrum. Politicians should have had real jobs in the real world not lived in the westminister/local govt bubble all of their lives.

wasonthelist - no it doesn't disqualify him as a leader. just in my experience and opinion people who have actually worked in a real job for a living rather than the artificial world of politics have a better understanding of my life and my challenges. were you there in 60's and 70's then wasonthelist or aren't you going to answer that.