Does Jeremy need to write an AIBU?

[RebeccaNoodles]

This is not a leading question, I genuinely don't know and my brain is fried as the time of this post will indicate.

I feel like Jeremy's AIBU would be 'I was elected by 251,417 people in 2015 and that's my Mandate and I will represent them forever. I know there were 9 million plus people who voted for Some Kind of Functioning Labour Party but that's democracy for you. And, drip feed, some 16 million people voted for something else again, separate issue, don't want to get into it [please please let's not - ed] but I was only ever 7 out of 10 on that. AIBU?'

But honestly, I'm so confused now, maybe that's unfair? Is he really our best hope?

I feel like the left, whatever that even means now, has been so traumatised post Iraq, and by the shoddiness as well as the success of the Blair era, that we really, really need to feel that someone still has integrity. And he does. Doesn't he? Maybe he's just ineffectual. Or is he? There is a definite media bias against him. But is it all media bias? Actually, don't answer that: I don't think it is, really.

I used to love him. But now I feel despair as I watch the party implode under his peaceful gaze, while he tends his allotment in which all his supporting MPs could easily fit.

Jeremy will I think win the leadership election. But then what? How does he form a proper opposition party with 30 or 40 actual MPs that want to work with him? Does he deselect 172 people and how does that even work without leading to a wipe-out in a general election? I used to believe in the 'Progressive Alliance' but if Labour can't form an alliance with itself, how on earth will they do it with anyone else? How will the country manage without an actual opposition? Won't the Conservatives even find it weird?

I guess it would help if anyone had a good successor in place. Why doesn't he anoint someone like Clive Lewis? He's quite good, I think. He seems better than Owen Whatsit but again, I don't know!

Either way, the party is now separated, separate bedrooms, and we're heading for a horrible divorce. Both people will want everything: funds, supporters, the soul of the party. The legal battle will ... I can't even. I think I almost want Jeremy to keep the house, ie Labour, and Everyone Else goes off, spends a few years in the wilderness, getting their shit together and practising some radical humility, and comes back as the Equality Party to start again and make everything better.

But equally, I don't know anything any more. Help! Thoughts?

[EnthusiasmDisturbed]

Threats ...

[LowDudgeon]

[[http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/angela-eagle-cancels-advice-surgeries-11646109 The comments under the Liverpool
Echo report are illuminating]]

& the headline says "on advice from police" - in quotes - ie that's what she says, not what the police say

[Overthinker2016]

I don't get the "man of integrity" bollocks either.

A man of integrity would actually want Labour to have a chance of winning the next election rather than being a protest party.

Also there are rumours of anti-semitism. And he took money off the Iranian regime for TV appearances apparently.

I see him as a middle class aged hipster.

[LowDudgeon]

There are "rumours" of all sorts of things

[Overthinker2016]

LowDungeon - ok then, I do not think he is a man of principle, any more than anyone else out there. In fact I think he keeps some very questionable company. It's like the Cult of Jeremy FFS...

[Overthinker2016]

Also what is the point of your comment and emoji? Are you making a point?

[GiddyOnZackHunt]

Why is Corbyn's every action and so called association being picked over like this? I genuinely don't see why every minor thing is such an issue when you consider the amoral shits that have been in power in recent years.
Corbyn's wife is invisible? George Osborne was a fuck sight closer to power than Corbyn. Where's his wife? Corbyn may or may not have said something that's anti Semitic. I would assume he has an issue with the actions of the state of Israel. But Cameron who said Mandela was a terrorist gets away with larging it up at Mandela's funeral, taking selfies and having a laugh?
Just at a time when the Tories have realised the public mood has had enough of PR and Theresa May promises a serious politics, Labour decide to have a contest between serious and PR boy.
Fucking awesome.
How many 'great' politicians would have stood up to this level of scrutiny?
Churchill? Sent in the troops in Tonypandy and was a functioning alcoholic and a chequered pre Parliament career.
The Tories have lost a PR man who didn't want to do the hard shit when he lost a public vote and have brought in a replacement who didn't win the vote either. Meanwhile the PLP have decided they didn't win that vote so they're turning on their leader who is apparently unelectable and simultaneously responsible for failing to secure the same vote that the old and new PM couldn't.
None of this shit makes any sense.

[Overthinker2016]

I think you are mistaken if you think other politicians aren't "picked over". Other politicians are picked over.

However generally, people don't like hypocrites. Someone who accepts cash from Iran (!!) is not really as 'right on' as he makes out. So that is why it is picked over.

Cameron basically is what he seems - a privileged, Eton old boy with a shit load of cash and connections. You may not like him but he's not pretending to be something he's not.

[GiddyOnZackHunt]

Oh utter bollocks, sorry. He absolutely did pretend all sorts.
The man who promised to help families with disabled children? Who had tea with a MNer? Who promised to help? Who cut their benefits and support to the bone?

[EnthusiasmDisturbed]

If you are going to be promoted as a man of principle and then your actions show that you are not you are going to be called out

but let's all pretend it only happens to poor Jeremy

[condaleeza]

To quote Janice Turner in an article in The Times:

'The Labour Party now emits not just the stench of decay but the sour reek of misogyny. If, like me, you were in left student politics you've known messianic men such as Corbyn, Livingstone and McDonnell. They never sought equals, only acolytes. Compare David Cameron's manifest pride in Samantha's talents with Mrs Corbyn III scuttling six paces behind into the NEC ignored or giggling to Vice News "he's not very good at housework" like a surrendered wife. When Ken Clarke spoke of "bloody difficult women" it was with amused admiration. When one of Labour's own BDW stood to speak recently John McDonnell was seen making a "yak-yak-yak" hand gesture. Just a joke he said slyly, as he always does.

Corbyn and McDonell's generation reluctantly grafted sexual politics on to their crude class critique. It didn't take well. Corbyn was puzzled by the outrage after he filled the top four shadow offices of state with men. His 100 percent ideological purity made him a better feminist than any actual woman. And lately, as he clings to power, he has done nothing to quell Momentum's misogyny, which supporters justify as being in a righteous socialist cause.

After his challenger Angela Eagle's constituency office was bricked and her staff abused Corbyn condemned it briefly before noting no one had suffered more abuse than St Jeremy. But the rape and death threats, those calling Ms Eagle a "treacherous lesbian", come in his name. When tearful women NEC members begged for a secret ballot - the one thing that might save them further harassment - he voted against.'

Jeremy Corbyn is a disaster for the Labour party and a disaster for women.

[eatsleephockeyrepeat]

Christ alive, what a load of drivel that is from the Times.

I'm a feminist. I'm a Labour Party member. I'm not a Momentum member but many of my CLP are, and let me be clear, in our area they are overwhelmingly female. It is not a fundamentally misogynistic group, in my experience it is quite the opposite! Corbyn's feminist credentials should well be scrutinised, as any prominent leader's should be, but making him out to be the devil for women is ludicrous.

[RebeccaNoodles]

Thanks everyone, this has been really interesting. I feel slightly less addled. Tiggytape thanks for the explanation re deselection, I just couldn't picture what that would even mean.

The more I think about it, that pricing of the vote at £25 was the dumbest move ever. An absolute PR gift for Corbyn as well as being genuinely unfair. I imagine it was a few stressed people in a room trying to figure shit out. But the way it looks from the outside ... Evil Blairite plotters snatching the franchise from poor students and pensioners ... unbelievably disastrous. Same goes for the new Labour members. People queuing up to participate in your party, and you won't let them. Jeez. I actually am a new joiner and would have voted non-Corbyn at this stage, but I can't.

If I were in charge of Saving Labour I'd grab that moral high ground and roll it right back. I'd say 'we've listened to concerns, we want to reach out', and have a new 48 hour window of enrolment charging £3. AND refund people who want it their £22. With an apology. Otherwise it looks like they're saying: Jeremy was elected by £3 people but we want £25 people. Plus, make the membership cutoff more recent - I think the Tories was early June because I remember checking in a panic around the time of Leadsome. The Tories are good at this kind of thing.

Thanks everyone, keep enlightening me

[Treats]

I'm a by-stander here. Don't support either Labour or Tory.

My frustration with Corbyn is that he's so INEFFECTIVE. He's been campaigning against nuclear weapons for 40 years. He finally got his opportunity on Monday to lead a vote against the renewal on Trident, and it was a complete disaster. He's had his chance since last September, to win the PLP round to his views on nuclear weapons, to bring in the SNP and LibDems (not hard because they all voted against anyway). He would also have needed to bring on board some soft Tories - but I think that would have been possible.

As it is, the vote became just a tactical opportunity for the Tories to exploit Labour divisions, and he just sat and sulked. He's been speechifying and placard-waving for so long, he's never got to grips with how to actually get anything done.

[Abraiid2]

George Osborne's wife is pretty visible, she is a well-regarded author and frequently appears at literary events, Giddy.

[Underparmummy]

Totally agree that the labour party feels appears very sexist at the moment (maybe I can't forget JC's separate carriages for women idea...). Tory party with 2 female pas under its belt feels more progressive for women which is surely odd given the left wing vs right wing stance...

[Abraiid2]

www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jun/29/park-lane-frances-osborne-review

themanbookerprize.com/author/frances-osborne

[GiddyOnZackHunt]

Good Lord. I had no idea that was his wife. I've read one too. But until just now I could have walked past her in the street and not recognised her as his wife. I haven't seen them together afaik though so as much as she's visible in her own right I am not sure how visible she was as Mrs Chancellor.

[Abraiid2]

I quite like the fact that she gets on with her own life, actually makes me feel more positively towards GO.

[BumbleNova]

the problem with Corbyn is that he has no idea to how to speak to people who do not agree with him. he has no skills to persuade, reason or compromise on his "principles".

If labour are going to win a general election, then he needs to start doing that. yes he is very popular with certain sections of the membership, but that is nowhere near enough support.

he just comes across like someone who hasnt updated their ideas in 20 years and has spent a career among like minded people who never challenged his ideas. totally useless.

[crazyhead]

I can't forgive him for Brexit - his failure to share a platform with Cameron, his half hearted endorsements of Remain. For me, he is a nightmare and younger voters may like him but his behaviour during the campaign has done them a huge disservice. Each to her views though.

[LowDudgeon]

I don't understand why he, apparently alone, gets so much flak for the failure of the Remain campaign, when Cameron & Osborne should have stayed neutral & not campaigned at all (let alone as poorly as they did )

[GiddyOnZackHunt]

Yes Low . I was astonished that they did that.