[Somebody's Fool]

Apologies if I came across as berating. Didn’t mean to.

No one has got it ‘right’ and no one has got it ‘wrong’. Everyone is coming at politics from their own unique viewpoint and circumstances.

But to say that ‘no one wants’ a policy platform that 40% voted for as recently as 2017, is overly dismissive in my opinion.

[Johnny Brown]

I don't see the centrist Dad thing, I see a load on the left and a load in the centre and not a lot from the right. Didn't come across as berating, more a moan that not everyone agrees with you. That's concomittant with 40% I suppose.

Very encouraged to see Starmer's support for political reform. Though it could be argued that with labour's marginalisation they haven't much choice.

[tomtom]

Well this centrist Dad is very happy to see the passing of JC’s regime.

It has (being kind) been a failed experiment that has led to another 10+ years of Tory government - and left the NHS in mess its picking up now. So - the Trotsky Uncles that led momentum’s charge are in my view culpable for our present government.

Quoting the second to last Labour Prime minister: - to affect change you have to be in power.

Edit: soz if that came across a bit arsey. Just glad of the change.

[BrutusTheBear]

Has anyone watched Sir Ks opening speech?  Can anyone who’s seen it draw any inspiration from it?  Seemed very flat and banal from my perspective... doesn’t bode well.

[Somebody's Fool]

I suppose if it was a moan, it’s not that everyone doesn’t agree with me, it’s based in a frustration there seems to be a gleefulness that Corbynomics is dead and buried, but without any constructive discussion of an alternative policy platform.

Also JB do you have a link to Starmer saying that? Has he mentioned PR specifically?

[Johnny Brown]

Three tweets I've seen in the last hour:

@paulwaugh
One startling statistic from the Labour leadership election results:
@Keir_Starmer today won the votes of nearly twice as many party members as @jeremycorbyn did in 2015.
Starmer 2020: 225,000 members
Corbyn 2015: 121,000 members
That's a hell of a grassroots mandate

@PeoplesMomentum
In this new era Momentum will play a new role. We’ll hold Keir to account and make sure he keeps his promises, champion big ideas like the Green New Deal, build the power of Labour members and do everything we can to get a Labour government elected.

FFS!

@CarolineLucas
Congratulations to new Labour leader @Keir_Starmer - look forward to working together to hold Government to account

Very much welcome his support for electoral reform - as he said,  “millions of people vote in safe seats & they feel their voice doesn’t count”.

[spidermonkey09]

I was and remain a supporter of Corbyns policies. I voted for Starmer because I like him and think he is respected by the population in a way that RLB and Nandy aren't. Today feels positive to me. I think Corbyn has shifted the overton window of the labour party to the left significantly and even if starmer does what is likely and shifts back to the right slightly, the oversll direction of travel is left compared to say Blair and represents a real alternative to the tories. This will not be enough for many who were really enthused by corbyn but personally i would urge the, to look at the bigger picture. I am 26 and have never voted in an election where my preferred outcome won. I am sick of it, want it to change and thats why i voted for Starmer. Not because i think he is the worlds most inspirational man or because the policies he will likely enact tick all my boxes but because i think when you weight everything up, he was the most likely to convince people to come back to Labour, and without that, we are fucked, along with the millions who need a labour government desperately. Apologies for the long post and numerous typos.

[TobyD]

Very glad to see Keir Starmer elected. I think that he has an opportunity to gain a good measure of respect in the country amongst the wider electorate. It's painfully obvious that Boris Johnson is underperforming at the moment, obviously right now because he's pretty ill, and I hope he makes a good recovery, but he wasn't appearing authoritative and in control up til he got it anyway.

I never understood how people found Corbyn inspirational, he always seemed petulant and to have a really poor grasp of facts and details in all the interviews I've ever seen. I might be centrist, whatever that means, but I'm not a Dad and didn't get a free university education, but I think Simon is totally correct. The country just won't vote in a PM who bangs on and on about socialism, any more than they were likely to vote for one of the old school negative Eurosceptic wing of the conservative party, witness IDS's comprehensive failure to lead the party effectively.

It'd be good to see Starmer bring back highly capable politicians like Rachel Reeves to the front of the party, and hopefully clear out people like Richard Burgon.

[BrutusTheBear]

‘Clear out’ unhelpful language there TD.  He’s an elected Labour MP, I’m sure his constituents don’t want him ‘cleared out’ and I am sure you don’t actually want to shut down the voices of MPs that are a part of a ‘democratic’ party?

[sdm]

I am 26 and have never voted in an election where my preferred outcome won. I am sick of it, want it to change

Amen.

I'm 33 and have voted in every general, local and European election and every referendum since I turned 18.

I think there have been two European elections where the party I voted for got a candidate elected. In every other election, the candidate / party / side I have voted for has come away with nothing.

My political opinion has zero value, purely because of where I live in the country. I am effectively disenfranchised by geography, meanwhile other people's votes have great value through living in marginal areas. This is not democratic.

If we retain FPTP, there is little prospect of my vote ever having any meaning unless I move to a new area.

[Oldmanmatt]

I am 26 and have never voted in an election where my preferred outcome won. I am sick of it, want it to change

Amen.

I'm 33 and have voted in every general, local and European election and every referendum since I turned 18.

I think there have been two European elections where the party I voted for got a candidate elected. In every other election, the candidate / party / side I have voted for has come away with nothing.

My political opinion has zero value, purely because of where I live in the country. I am effectively disenfranchised by geography, meanwhile other people's votes have great value through living in marginal areas. This is not democratic.

If we retain FPTP, there is little prospect of my vote ever having any meaning unless I move to a new area.

I’m 50 in a few months.
I voted Con in my first two elections (90’s). Went to work for Ashcroft (99),  didn’t vote again until 2010, because I lost all faith in everything. Never voted for a candidate who won, though. Both my early elections went to Liberals, then when I switched to Orange, my world turned Blue.

Bring on the PR.

[gme]

Surely it’s not too much of a leap of imagination to realise there is a huge, and ever growing, constituency in this country who are crying out for the policies proposed by Corbyn and McDonnell, and that they might be feeling a little despondent today.

There isn’t though is there or they would have voted for them only a few months ago. Or at least a few more of the hugE evergrowing number would have.
I think KS will improve things and hope he gets rid of all the momentum/ mcckluskey back room influence.

[mrjonathanr]

I do wonder when I hear opinions about whether a would be leader has the desired sort of politics. If they cannot get a mandate to enact their agenda the answer is always pretty much ‘no sort of politics’ for all the good they may do.

In this respect, Starmer represents the greatest gift the left could ever hope to receive: genuine competence, and with that a chance to reshape the country for the better.

[Will Hunt]

I'm with the thank fuckers. Honestly think that anybody still thinking that Corbyn was in any way effective and not a complete fucking failure must be deranged.

[ali k]

Has anyone watched Sir Ks opening speech?  Can anyone who’s seen it draw any inspiration from it?  Seemed very flat and banal from my perspective... doesn’t bode well.

I’ve watched it in full and thought it was pitched pretty well. It’s not the right time, given the current situation, to start banging on about new flashy policies or openly attacking Johnson. And remember it was for a wide audience - the media, general population, and importantly at this point in his leadership ALL factions of the party, to bring it together. So it had to be fairly light on substance. And he’s not the most charismatic guy, but I’d take sincerity and honesty over the bluster, lies and showbiz of Bojo and Trump any day, and hopefully the nation will tire of the clown act soon enough and look for someone competent even if they are a tad bland.

I’m firmly left of centre and agree with many of Corbyn/Mcdonnell’s policies but I’m also pragmatic enough to realise most voters don’t. And the 2017 result doesn’t mean they do. Also agree with Toby that Corbyn was just increasingly tetchy in interviews but maybe that’s because he knew what a hiding Labour was about to get at the election?

In summary - a good day! And now considering upping my donations to Labour. I was ready to cancel my membership if RLB won.

[Somebody's Fool]

I accept that Corbyn was ultimately the wrong salesman for the British people, but I still don’t believe the whole platform should be thrown out of the window because of the result of the 2019 election.

The conclusions that should be drawn from the election are way more complicated than an outright rejection of the mixed economy being proposed.

It was framed as a second referendum and run through first past the post, which had 400 odd leave seats. And Labour’s triangulation on the subject was disastrous.

I believe, rightly or wrongly, the 2017 result is more representative of where the country is at economically.

I hope Keir Starmer does continue in this vein, but it’s a big if at the moment.

Corbyn ultimately was a weak leader, insofar as he appeased the wreckers in his own party in a way Blair would never have tolerated, and he abandoned reforms of party democracy after 2017 because complacency set in.

However remembering the context of the leadership election in 2015, his ideas allowed a political expression for many who had written Labour off. Third way economics had spectacularly tanked in 2008 and Miliband’s abject failure to counter the austerity narrative left people who believe in a mixed economy with little choice. I still think the centrists in the party are devoid of any meaningful ideas, they just have a very strong idea of what they don’t like.

What I find particularly distasteful about some of the debate, and which has more than a whiff of divide-and-rule about it, is this notion that people who voted for him in these circumstances should apologise or ‘own’ the defeat just for supporting the democratically elected leader of a party, while letting off the hook entirely the people in the Labour right who spent their whole time working towards this loss.

[Nigel]

Three tweets I've seen in the last hour:

@paulwaugh
One startling statistic from the Labour leadership election results:
@Keir_Starmer today won the votes of nearly twice as many party members as @jeremycorbyn did in 2015.
Starmer 2020: 225,000 members
Corbyn 2015: 121,000 members
That's a hell of a grassroots mandate

Well, to some degree that is true, but it also just goes to show that if you are unscrupulous you can get statistics to prove anything!

Rule 1: compare apples and apples. Starmer received more members votes in absolute numbers simply because there were more members available. In 2015 Corbyn got 121,751 members votes of 245,520 who voted. In 2020 Starmer got 225,135 votes of 401,521 voters. The percentages are 49.6% Corbyn to 56.1% Starmer. So on *members* Starmer still wins on percentages but comparing absolute numbers is insane as the membership increased massively over the years 2015-2020. Asking who these people are and why they joined is much more interesting than quoting meaningless 6 figure numbers...

In addition if you add in all registered supporters and affiliates then Corbyn got 59.5% of *all* eligible voters (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Labour_Party_leadership_election_(UK)#Result and go to "result"), whereas Starmer got 56.2% of all eligible voters (see https://labour.org.uk/people/leadership-elections-hub-2020/leadership-elections-2020-results/). So actually Corbyn wins nur nur, nur nur nur!

I know this is completely irrelevant, and yes my second paragraph is totally tongue in cheek before anyone starts, but it really grates me when people like Paul Waugh (whoever he is) try to prove a point which is, frankly, spin. In terms of mandate it is broadly similar to Corbyn, so deserves a well done - why couldn't he just be happy with that?

I will try to think of something to say about the labour leadership now I have got that off my chest 

[Johnny Brown]

Is that like including the block club vote in BMC elections?

What did you think about the bold bits in the other tweets?

[Nigel]

Is that like including the block club vote in BMC elections?

I could answer that direct comparison better if I knew anything about BMC block club votes! Labour voting is one member one vote, including affiliates and registered supporters, so there are no block votes. So I would guess no, not the same.

What did you think about the bold bits in the other tweets?

By bits in bold do you mean the dichotomy between momentum wanting to hold Kier to account vs Lucas referring to holding government to account? No strong feeling to be honest. Momentum have a left-wing agenda within the labour party. I would expect them to fight for that. In the same way that Progress fight for a different agenda.

If you mean RE electoral reform, yes I am all for that. If he really wants that, then perhaps its a good thing to have someone holding him to account for his promises?

[tomtom]

Of the members who had to pay extra to vote (or supporters who had to do this - whatever it’s called). Less than 800 voted for RLB and more than 12000 for KS.

It’s a landslide. Also the centre candidates were elected as deputy and for the three national exec positions. A pretty convincing 👎 From the membership for how things had been I’d say...

[Nigel]

I'm not disputing its a landslide TomTom, just the misleading nature of that particular tweet. Like I say, a personal bugbear, nothing more.

[tomtom]

I'm not disputing its a landslide TomTom, just the misleading nature of that particular tweet. Like I say, a personal bugbear, nothing more.

Fair enough. Though I think there’s going to be quite a bit of people/members crowing though- as many have had to bite their tongue as the momentum wagon rolled into town...

[TobyD]

‘Clear out’ unhelpful language there TD.  He’s an elected Labour MP, I’m sure his constituents don’t want him ‘cleared out’ and I am sure you don’t actually want to shut down the voices of MPs that are a part of a ‘democratic’ party?

Accepted. I think you are right, but he massively underperformed in any interviews I've ever heard, there are many far more capable members of the labour party, but I'm sure he's a valuable back bencher.

[TobyD]

I accept that Corbyn was ultimately the wrong salesman for the British people, but I still don’t believe the whole platform should be thrown out of the window because of the result of the 2019 election.

The conclusions that should be drawn from the election are way more complicated than an outright rejection of the mixed economy being proposed.

It was framed as a second referendum and run through first past the post, which had 400 odd leave seats. And Labour’s triangulation on the subject was disastrous.

I believe, rightly or wrongly, the 2017 result is more representative of where the country is at economically.

I hope Keir Starmer does continue in this vein, but it’s a big if at the moment.

Corbyn ultimately was a weak leader, insofar as he appeased the wreckers in his own party in a way Blair would never have tolerated, and he abandoned reforms of party democracy after 2017 because complacency set in.

However remembering the context of the leadership election in 2015, his ideas allowed a political expression for many who had written Labour off. Third way economics had spectacularly tanked in 2008 and Miliband’s abject failure to counter the austerity narrative left people who believe in a mixed economy with little choice. I still think the centrists in the party are devoid of any meaningful ideas, they just have a very strong idea of what they don’t like.

What I find particularly distasteful about some of the debate, and which has more than a whiff of divide-and-rule about it, is this notion that people who voted for him in these circumstances should apologise or ‘own’ the defeat just for supporting the democratically elected leader of a party, while letting off the hook entirely the people in the Labour right who spent their whole time working towards this loss.

I think the fact that your post is largely about factional infighting in the labour party perfectly illustrates that to any voter who would happily vote for any party with broadly workable, believable and well intentioned policies to make the country better, Corbyns administration always seemed considerably more interested in their party reforms which appeared to be about retaining control by the further left elements.

It's been the tune of momentum and the left to blame Brexit and 'trianglulation' for the catastrophic failure to do well in the last election. But if you listened to any of the reports, indeed if you listened to many of the labour MPs all you heard was people saying that voters wouldn't vote for Corbyn. Not only is he insufficiently competent to be PM, but he's got a questionable political past, and managed to foster what became an enormous problem with anti-Semitism.
You could certainly argue that the first two apply equally to Boris Johnson, but he's good at persuading apathetic people to like him, which counts for a lot. Corbyn succeeded only in persuading apathetic people that he's a stroppy old Marxist.

[Somebody's Fool]

I’m sure lots of people who were canvassed probably did have a few choice words about Corbyn. And I don’t deny his personal ratings among key demographics was a big problem.

But I reckon if questioned further on specifically why, the answers would more likely have been along the lines of terrorist sympathiser, woolly on Brexit, antisemitism, weak leader, pacifist, stroppy etc than a criticism of the policies.

The policies when polled anonymously are popular and are much more in line with a mixed economy rather than being the sort of authoritarian socialism being bandied about by some critics.