Could somebody explain why Corbyn shouldn't be voted for as Labour party leader?

[Myturnnow4]

I've listened to people argue this, but haven't heard a reasoned argument yet. The main criticism appears to be, "he's on the left" but don't go on to explain why that in itself is a bad thing.

'Corbyn's 10/1, 11/1 if you shop around, to be next Prime Minister '

But Corbyn was 100-1 to be Labour leader and now look what has happened. The betting companies will lose miliions. They are nearly as out of touch as our metropolitan elite political class.

'One could argue that they in fact voted for more Blair, in the shape of David Cameron.'

Apart from the 4 million UKIP voters, 1 million Green voters and SNP voters. There has been no powerful credible enough alternative to Tory and Tory lite (Miliband).

Corbyn is that alternative.

Freedland and the majority of the Guardian team represent the old-style metropolitan thinking. They are out of touch. Yes Osborne was better than Balls, but he won't be better than Corbyn and Ken Livingstone. Corbyn offers radical change that only Farage can get anywhere near matching. The elite just can't go there, the Guardian just can't go here, they are not allowed.

Jonathan Freedland is a PPE from Wadham College, Oxford. That's old school, old thinking, old Establishment ways. We are in a new era of the people vs the metropolitan elites, of Farage and Corbyn vs the PPEs Blair, Balls, Cooper, Cameron and Osborne.

It will be a landslide for Corbyn because the people, including the middle class, will switch to him and abandon the old Establishment types.

The Tories and the Establishment are painting Corbyn as a left wing idiot who will wreck prudent finance and destroy the living stamdards of ordinary people. But no one outside of the Guardian editorial team, the Labour MPs and the metropolitan elite believe that.

People will vote for Corbyn because they think they will be better off under him, will enjoy better services and have a better life under him. Only the Guardian editorial team, big business and the metropolitan elite will have to pay more taxes and be worse off under him.

Pneumometer, the problem with the theory that Osborne's Tory party will be the party of the workers is just how many workers are low paid, and that applies to the private sector as well as the public.

One could argue that they in fact voted for more Blair, in the shape of David Cameron.

So the big plan for labour would be to field somebody just like Cameron at the next election? I think Tory voters are quite happy to vote Tory.

I'm voting for him,so,no I can't help.

I don't think it's so much the last labour government as the last labour opposition that is the problem.

Bedroom taxes, Michael Gove, benefit cuts, economic policy - all seemingly met with a shrug by the Labour Party.

You can put whatever you want in a manifesto. In practice it's difficult to remember any strong opposition to the Tories during the last government - and that was when they didn't even have a majority.

Kvetch, Labour lost the election under Brown. People had enough of them. Miliband pretended to go left, but the people weren't fooled, it was just more Tory lite.

Now all they have got left is to repackage old policies and talk about Sure Start and Yvette Cooper has to read from a script instead of speaking from the heart. It is truly pathetic and she talks about Corbyn letting Labour voters down, but is her lack of vision and courage along with the other robots that has let Labour voters down.. Even Osborne has offered a larger minimum wage than Miliband. It is not good enough. They will never win again with their current ruling elite because the SNP are here to stay and so are UKIP.

Corbyn will take back lots of Scottish seats and Corbyn will make UKIP irrelevant. Corbyn will enthuse the public. Corbyn and Farage will force the Tories left to keep up, but they will never be allowed to match Corbyn and that is why he will win the public's vote.

'The opposition has no power.'

The opposition has the power to win over the public if they are a real opposition and of course they weren't which is why they lost. They did not offer a better, different, radical vision, so people stuck with the best of a bad bunch and turned to the SNP and UKIP instead.

Ofcourse, by its nature, the opposition can't block the government - that is how democracy works.

They aren't rendered mute though. It is still possible to criticise the government and communicate that you can offer a clear and viable alternative. This is what labour failed to do. Until they can find somebody who can fill this role, people will vote for somebody like Corbyn, even if they don't think he is electable.

And I agree with Craig's last post (!)

Claig!

Bedroom taxes, Michael Gove, benefit cuts, economic policy - all seemingly met with a shrug by the Labour Party.

Respectively electorally insignificant outside Labour safe seats, electorally insignificant outside the already Labour-voting teaching world, electorally beneficial overall to the Tories, electorally Tory safe territory.

Oh, were you saying that Labour should have made more noise about these? They would have lost more heavily. Again, you're falling into AV/ScotlandYes world, where hashtags and Guardian editorials are mistaken for votes in swing constituencies.

I find myself agreeing with claig - now there's a first.

Interestingly enough, the polls didn't show a Yes vote to be likely (bar one or 2..), so lets leave the hashtags to one side. The polls (as opposed to Twitter) are showing Corbyn to be on track to win - I believe he will. He's offering a real alternative to the bland London-centric left which doesn't represent the average person in the UK and he seems to present the largest threat to the SNP up here. He's getting my vote.

Corbyn is right that the election is not about personalities, it is about policies. Nobody votes Corbyn for his sense of humour or witty one-liners or sharp suits and ties, because he isn't like that.

Corbyn's team are billing him as a Farage style "straight-talking honest politics" type which is so different to the Labour robots who read off pre-prepared scripts rather than talk from the heart.

Only Andy Bunham has realised what is going on and has said that voters have had enough of the old style politics of the Westminster bubble and the Westminster elite and he says he will be different. But no one believes him and his one policy of unified health and social care is nowhere near as attractive as Corbyn's policies on education, nationalisation, a people's QE etc. which is why even some of the unions who initially backed him have jumped ship, along with everyone else, to Corbyn.

His foreign policy is nuts if he supports Hamas and the holocaust deniers as claimed. Criticising NATO plays into the hands of Putin. Prevaricating over his support for the EU is too dangerous. The SNP will find another way of being popular/retaining credibility in Scotland to keep power (because they are but have a single aim) so the Labour seats there are lost forever, I fear. That makes convincing the English electorate, the majority of whom voted Conservative or UKIP - some 10 million of those - an uphill struggle, and it won't happen from the left.

But most of all he's not a leader, he's disloyal and he doesn't have the support of the PLP. I like his housing and tax policies, I really do. But funding investment through QE will get savaged.

He's a nice guy but he can't be filling all the shadow cabinet jobs or question time spots himself, and the division within the parliamentary will make them even less credible an opposition than they really, really need to be.

And though Yvette Cooper perhaps shouldn't have made the point herself (having a vested interest), a Corbyn/Cooper leadership team means more white middle aged men in power. Backed by George Galloway and Len McCluskey with support from Dave Nellist and TUSC? OMG

Pnenometer is helpfully reminding me of the 1980s. I too thought we were modern and past that. I spent about three days being convinced by Corbyn on the wave of fuzzy warm Guardian articles but I thought it over and saw the negatives. Now I'm just terrified.

Some 15 million Tories/Ukippers I mean.

I disagree - the SNP will always have a core set of voters who want independence at any cost and who would happily live in caves eating bracken if it meant an independent Scotland. There are others who believe that the SNP are the only left leaning party who are looking out for them and have the kind of socialist policies that Labour appear to have abandoned. If Labour can reclaim that territory, while challenging the SNPs multiple failings in other policy areas then I believe (hope to the various gods) that the many right minded Scots will move back to them.

Oh, were you saying that Labour should have made more noise about these? They would have lost more heavily. Again, you're falling into AV/ScotlandYes world, where hashtags and Guardian editorials are mistaken for votes in swing constituencies.

If labour is failing to oppose the government because they want the votes of people who agree with the Tories, they need to understand that those people are quite capable of cutting out the middle man and just voting Tory. They did so at the last election.

I'm not sure whether the idea is that labour should agree with the bedroom tax because it is a vote winner, or just disagree with it very quietly and hope nobody notices. Maybe they could also go for a more purply bluish colour way on their branding, make the rose a bit more tree like and call themselves something like the 'traditional' party. That could be a vote winner?