Labour leadership contest is Corbyn v Smith

[BungoWomble]

Angela Eagle has dropped out of the Labour leadership contest, leaving Owen Smith to contest with Jeremy Corbyn.

Sooo... what do y'all think of Owen Smith? He's fairly new, ex-journalist, I know little more of him than that. I'd guess capable of some back-room schemings with a late entry and then Eagle standing down. His voting record is at www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24797/owen_smith/pontypridd/votes

is he the person to unite the squabbles, push the left forward and deal with the media?

What does Labour offer?
The party of the poor.. but one that has a record of poor people staying poor but getting handouts.
It does not create wealth, just takes money from one person and gives it to another.

You could say the same (not creating wealth) about the whole economy really if you got down to it. Certainly the Tories have nothing better to show, and the pace of taking from the poor and giving to the rich has demonstrably increased. By massive amounts. That's what happens, after all, when you favour vested interests and higher incomes for the rich while destroying redistribution systems.

Labour under Blair was not my cup of tea, it was as neoliberalist as the Tories. The whole point about Corbyn was that he shifted back to the abandoned left and challenged the, again demonstrably wrong, myths about the necessity and good effects of austerity. The question of the leadership is a question about the future direction of the party. I don't know much about Owen Smith, but I want to see the left return, the right wing myths challenged further in practice, and this appallingsocioeconomic path back to the Victorian Age stopped.

Smith is a Neoliberal member of "Progress" the small group of New Labour Blairites financed by capitalist J. Sainsbury.

Whilst working for pharmaceutical firm Pfizer, Smith's job was to lobby the government into privatising parts of the NHS to benefit financiers of the pharmaceutical industry. He is pro privatisation and a corporate stooge.

His ethics are on par with none. His personality is on par with hateable. His face is a bit weird. He is a right winger and does not stand a chance against Corbyn.

The only real question is which Blairite will fuck off first and when.

He onc e tried to set up a media interview with a police force or something by dialling 999. What a bellend.

I saw him being interviewed on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday. He came across OK except for ending with 'Andrew' a lot when answering questions. As if to appease or ingratiate himself. Hope he stops doing that.

TBH I think the Labour party is fucked no matter who wins. If Corbyn wins Labour won't win a general election, the split between Labour voters is too wide. There are the Corbyn supporters, more urban, younger, educated and liberal etc... and the working class, lower on the socio economic scale voters. Labour lost a bunch of working class voters over to Ukip, mostly on the immigration issue. Corbyn still believes in open immigration though. The Labour leadership faces the problem that they can't be all things to all Labour voters. Then there's the loss of labour voters over to the SNP in Scotland and that's not going to change. The SNP have a primary purpose - to gain Scottish Independence so they will be here to stay until they achieve that, and they are dominant in Scotland.

Then there's the fact that while the Labour party is fighting itself, Theresa May has declared a mandate in her opening speech that could have could have come out of the mouths of the Lib Dems or Labour - she has cleverly appropriated their platforms to an extent. Of course words are cheap but if she even goes a little way into introducing measures that appear to back up her words she will have won an ongoing Tory government... unless a significant and almost revolutionary new opposition appears (who???)

I don't think Eagle or Smith could be the leaders the Labour party needs, I actually think Corbyn has the best shot out of them all to get Labour votes in an election but I think under him labour will come nowhere close to winning.

The Tories have come out with those sort of speeches before. And then they carry on with the same actions that produce inequality, elitism, oligarchy, nepotism, the opposite of what they claim to want. All of those problems are provably and demonstrably increasing as a result of their actions yet they refuse to believe that they are in the wrong. Presumably they also don't want to claim that their actions are irrelevant either. Yet people still believe both that they mean what they say, and that the actions they take will improve matters. Why ffs?

Rainbunny, do you not think that you last sentence is contradictory? He can get votes, but he can't?

"Oily" Smith to my mind is just as unelectable as JC. A former PR man just like Cameron - he even mimiced Cameron- talking directly (without podium and notes) sleeves rolled up when making his leadership pitch. I think he believes in nothing but his own self aggrandisement. To me he is a son of Blair

His involvement in Pfizer as a PR and an offshoot in America that were fined $372 million for nefarious practices with cancer drugs will come back to plague his repuation.

Lots already in the media about his past career. Thought this summary of his voting philosophy was interesting
order-order.com/2016/07/13/241581/

Yes 'oily' fits what I observed on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday.

Bungo - no not at all. I think Corbyn would get more votes in a national election as Labour leader than either Eagle or Smith but there is simply no way Labour will win a general election with Corbyn. Corbyn preaches to the converted but he'll need to convert others to get the votes Labour needs and he is simply too far to the left I think. In a general election he'll be hit on his positions on immigration and national security, not to mention his poor performance leading up to the referendum (and the shenanigans of his inner circle to suppress campaigning on the remain side).

"Corbyn is unelectable" a phrase that has officially lost all meaning in it's repetition

I found these first hand accounts from Labour MPs who write about their reasons to vote no confidence in Corbyn to be very interesting. Anecdotal experiences of course but illuminating as to the inner working of Labour leadership since Corbyn has been the leader. I have have seen many other MPs with similar experiences of his leadership recount similar experiences on tv as well.

THANGAM DEBBONAIRE
www.debbonaire.co.uk/why_i_have_no_confidence_in_mr_corbyn_s_leadership

LILLIAN GREENWOOD
www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/07/lilian-greenwood-mp-jeremy-corbyn-continually-undermined-me-job-i-loved

I urge people to read these accounts. Many are disgusted with the disloyalty of the PLP towards Corbyn but having read these accounts I can only respect the difficult and sad situation these MPs found themselves in and I completely understand their actions.

I've come across those accounts and yes I can't entirely believe that it's all just a conspiracy. Some, yes, but not all. Doesn't look like Owen Smith is a good alternative though. Doesn't look hopeful does it . We are so in need of change and alternatives.

I'm finding myself wistfully thinking the name "David Miliband"... I wanted him over his brother last time too :(

It's an interesting turn of events when Blairites are pretending to be left wing to get votes.

That's what they've always done Flora. Even the Tories do it. They lie and scheme all the time.

I'm beginning to really dislike Owen Smith. The amount of made up shit they're throwing around with these allegations of abuse is just untrue. ""After all, we didn't have this kind of abuse, intolerance, misogyny and anti-Semitism in the party before Jeremy Corbyn became leader." Yeah, right, of course not, never any of that in the Labour Party before. I may be mushroom coloured, but it's not green.

AS I mentioned on another thread, it is well worth watching the Youtube interview of Lisa Nandy at www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Aoh1_UnpA

Simply dismissing all those opposed to Jeremy Corbyn as Blairites is rubbish (even Corbyn says that)- Nandy was a strong Corbyn supporter who has come to realise that his small clique approach to running the party is as divisive as how Blair ran it.

Owen Smith might only be a short term prospect but what he represents is a recognition that the Labour Party was always and should be a broad and pragmatic church of left and centre left wing opinion rather than a narrow, purest groupthink.

Dismissing the legitimate serious concerns about Corbyn's competence that voters like me (who have never voted Tory in our lives) have as being "Red Tories", just alienates us. It is clear that Corbyn and his supporters have no interest in listening to the wider electorate, outside his narrow frame of reference. It smacks of cult rather than grown up, inclusive politics.

With regard to the abuse, the airy and disingenuous distancing of Corbyn from any responsibility to address the continued gendered abuse of female MPs like Angela Eagle demonstrates again that he does not take the responsibility of being leader of the Party seriously.

I'm not a Labour voter - although I have voted for them in the past during the Blair era.

They don't appear to see that they're ripping themselves apart with this, one one side you have the Unions and the far left along with Corbyn, on the other the slightly left of centre people. There appears to be very little common ground between the two.

Labour has lost a lot of support here in Scotland to the SNP, will those voters ever go back? And with a lurch to the far left with Corbyn, the floating voters will never vote for them.

I wouldn't be surprised if the party split totally into a hard left party and one with more moderate policies.

Why dont the 80% of MP's who dont support JC just form their own party and become the official opposition with a proper leader and sensible policies. What are they all afraid of? At the next election momentum wont get a single MP elected (well, maybe one) and everyone can move on.

"Why dont the 80% of MP's who dont support JC just form their own party and become the official opposition with a proper leader and sensible policies. What are they all afraid of? At the next election momentum wont get a single MP elected (well, maybe one) and everyone can move on."

And then the Labour party would be dead. Many of these MPs members of the party since they were old enough to join. It will take a lot for them to abandon and destroy the party.

Gendered abuse of females is not just a problem in the LP under Corbyn though justice. It was famous at one time for being essentially a working men's club. Nor is it even just a problem for the LP. I wonder if, (some people may find this is in poor taste) if Jo Cox's murder had happened now, there would be links drawn to Corbyn.

I also wonder about how quickly his first shadow cabinet and the inclusion of people from all sides of the party has been forgotten.

BingoWomble I will overlook your Jo Cox comment as is in bad taste.

With regard to the suggestion of inclusion of all sides of the party, the clear evidence is that Corbyn and his tiny clique (primarily white males) sidelined his shadow colleagues, did not consult on policy, and made up "policy" on the hoof (hence all the rubbish re triggering of timing of art 50, the pharmaceutical comments had to be withdrawn etc).

As someone said on twitter "Never in the history of class struggle have so many lefties been telling people to put up with someone they think a bad boss."