It's a circular argument. She's basically arguing that you can't change things without power and you won't get power if you say you want to change things. So by that logic the only way to get power is to lie. But people aren't that stupid, they'll take an honest man whose arguing with them over a liar who is agreeing with them any day, because they know the liar will betray them in the end.


No, it isn't. The PLP has very much given off the message that "what we are about is purely getting into power and will do or say whatever it takes to achieve that. We have no principles too precious to abandon and will tell you whatever we think will get you to vote for us, just don't rely on us actually doing any of it later".

Any political party that is essentially without a distinct character (in general, not as in one charismatic person) is doomed, especially in today's hyper charged media landscape where you either stand out or get drowned in the flood. It kind of doesn't matter what you stand for, you just have to look like you've got conviction and something to say - it worked for Nigel Farage and it's working for Jeremy Corbyn. As the saying goes "If you can fake sincerity..". Most of the labour leadership candidates can't even do that. The fact the PLP can't see any of this says a lot about them.

A circular argument is one in which the premise is derived from the conclusion. What you are pointing to there is a Paradox of sorts.

You've also got it wrong. In a democracy there is a necessary skill called compromise. Puritanical sorts hate compromise because they are entirely convinced that all right thinking people agree with all their views already. You believe that somebody who says what you think will automatically persuade everyone because of the sheer awesome obvious superiority of your viewpoint.

But the other idealogues in the Tory right; the BNP and UKIP; the Communists and the Greens, all think the same way you do, so you largely cancel each other out.

Harriet Harman: ‘I’ve carried a lot on my shoulders. I think I’ve done my bit’ | Politics | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... one-my-bit

I'm still reading this, but it's already funny.

The phrase involving pissups and breweries always entered my head whenever I heard Harman speak, but bloody hell.Anybody with half a brain has already gone over the side, haven't they?

Just shows that there's nothing new in politics

Liz Kendall v Andy Burnham: whose Labour leadership video is worse? | Politics | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/sho ... ideo-worst

They'll be on Strictly next.
...

Choose anyone but Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader, says Alastair Campbell | Politics | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... r-campbell



Yeah, sounds awful. D1ckhead. You can hardly complain about the so-called hard left when your good pal Tony could have been a real life Bond villain. And still could! Same for bloody Mandy.

It's interesting that there's this 'don't repeat the mistakes of 30 years ago' line, yet all the people saying it seem to be the people of 20 years ago...

Has anyone (press etc) bothered to ask the people who are joining the labour party NOW what they want? If they want a centrist party with a largely Blairist policy set, fine. If they want Corbyn and a more European social democratic model, also fine. But there seem to be a lot of people telling them what to do, without having bothered to ask what they want.

Corbyn at 53% of vote, according to poll

Given the usual caveat that polls can be about as accurate as playing darts blindfold, if that's anywhere near true second preference votes won't even come into it. He'll win it on the first round of voting.

i hope JC does win in the first round, it will be something totally different in politics
it may even make me rejoin the labour party which i was a member of for 20+ years ...

The starkest warning yet.

Just seen a piece on the BBC 10 O'clock news where they went to a marginal labour seat and had a meet of four Corbyn supporters and four people adovcating voting for, well, anyone else. It was.. amusing. I have to assume they carefully selected the members of the panel. On the 'for Corbyn' side were four what you'd describe as traditional labour voters - working class people who by the looks of their clothes worked in manual jobs. On the 'against Corby' side were four SpAds in waiting - four late twenties blokes, patently not of working class upbringing, all wearing smart white shirts and ties and with fashionable spectacles. They looked like they came off a production line. You wouldn't have been in the least surprised if you'd been told they were tory/lib dem activists because they had no politically distinguishing features about them at all.

Old school working class vs obvious career politico. It HAS to be fixed. \

Not as funny as Tony Blair though, who is now sending out 'advisers' to tell the press that voting for Corbyn will give you cancer and his first act as labour leader would be to eat every member's first born child. It's getting increasingly less credible as it gets more and more shrill.

The Nu-Labour lot are truly desperate, aren’t they?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33921047

There was a chunk about this on the news last night - they all seem to be running scared. I know more about Corbyn’s ideas than I know about the other three, who all seem to be putting out the message that in their minds, he’s bad in some way. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen (if he gets elected).

As I noticed someone on Twitter commenting today: it’s not Labour that’s in trouble, it’s New Labour that is.

What gets me is that the three more centrist candidates, and indeed the party establishment as a whole seem to be either missing or refusing to hear, is that Corbyn is clearly appealing to a large number of not just party members but also people who have previously left the Labour party as well as what appear to be young, new voters.
They are obsessed with trying to win back the people who deserted the party at the election for the Tories, UKIP whereas Crobyns campaign seems to be appealing more to people who think politicians are all the same so it doesn't matter who you vote for.

If, and I accept it's a massive if, Labour under Corbyn appeals to the 30 - 40% of people in the country who didn't bother to vote last time they don't need to win back anyone who defected to UKIP or the Tories. There also appears to be some evidence that Corbyn's campaign is appealing to voters in Scotland who deserted Labour for the SNP.

Another thing the party establishment don't seem to be grasping is that all the talk of trying to oust Corbyn if he does win is sending a spectacularly bad message to the partys supporters whether they are members, affiliates or whatever. You can't purport to be a democratic organisation (you know, outside of places like Russian and North Korea) if you are saying to the members and whatever that if you don't vote the right way we'll ignore or try to undo the result.
On of the reasons I think Corbyn is proving popular with constituency Labour groups is because a central plank of his campaign is getting control of the party back to party members/CLP's and not concentrating it in a group of evidently out of touch MP's and party grandees sitting in London (which is another reason the party hierarchy is so set against him).

+1!

I find it immensely odd the PLP is basically assuming people who didn't vote last time won't vote next time and there's no point trying to appeal to them to do so. It's a very strange position for a political party.

Also, this