The Coming of the New Messiah

kabayiri

Blair's problem is that he firmly leaves "brand Blair" is still consistent and coherent.

It's a problem when the Labour party has tried to move on from this brand, and Corbyn is pushing for a new direction.

Yes, he could try to entice swing voters, but does he really have enough of a public platform?

chris_m

kabayiri wrote: »

Blair's problem is that he firmly leaves "brand Blair" is still consistent and coherent.

I suspect you meant "believes" and an autocorrect miscorrected it for you

However, his belief is almost correct - "brand Blair" is still consistent and coherent, just not in the way that he believes. It is consistently and coherently despised by many people

vivatifosi

As nobody has set it yet, I will.

He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.

Literally.

westernpromise

Blair is widely regarded as a liar with blood on his hands. I think the first part of that is a bit more nuanced. He asserted as fact something that he was only pretty sure of, without much regard for the consequences, and it turned out not to be true at all. But he is delusional if he thinks he is coming back.

The question is at what point Labour splits. It's often said that they won't because they remember what happened to the SDP. But this is not a rerun of the early 80s when the SDP split off and then fizzled. Then, they fizzled for three reasons. One was that the Falklands took a huge slice of their support away - they were in the 40s in the polls and the Tories and Labour were on about 30 (though the Tories were starting to recover). Post-Falklands they fell behind Labour, with the Tories gaining.

Another was that Healey beat Wedgwood-Benn for the deputy leadership. That persuaded a lot of key figures, including one Tony Blair, that Labour would eventually fight off the left-wing infection, and was worth sticking with. Finally, when Foot resigned he was succeeded by Kinnochio, who was allowed an election defeat in 1987 and thus had 9 years to get the loony left out of his party.

We can't rule out another Falklands-type game changer, but the latter two points don't apply today. It is as though Wedgwood-Benn won not just the deputy leadership, but the leadership as well. So the prospects of a Kinnock coming along and getting two full opposition terms to clean out the Augean stable is just not very likely. 60% of the party members are now Corbyn-supporting nutters, so they'd never elect such a figure. And even if Corbyn quits after losing the election (which I rather doubt) the MPs who still have seats will probably include enough Corbyn-supporting nutters to nominate another nutter, who will cruise to leadership election victory off the same votes that elected Jezzer.

If that happens, I think the sensible end of the Labour party actually will write the party off and jump ship. The early signs that this is happening are the numbers who are quitting politics altogether at this GE. It's not like they're out of sight of power for decades; they're not in sight of power ever, full stop. Those left are the most optimistic.

The thing is I just don't see the rump PLP joining the LibDems though. Their very name reminds us of what happened to the SDP, and of course they have just eight MPs, which even post-GE won't change much (and could even be less). Some sort of British En Marche movement seems likelier, where the centre-left coalesces around a brand new party. Although of course the risk there is that if Labour withers, and this new party prospers, the Momentum loonies will switch to infiltrating that one instead.

Conrad

No, but I can see him cobbling together a new political party of the so called centre, inspired by Macrons miraculous achievement.


Labour will be wiped out in the GE.

Moby

Sapphire wrote: »

I am not proud of anything. It's a term used by many people. Blair is a proven liar – one who inflicted great damage to Britain as well as other countries – hence the acronym, in case you are not aware of this. That's all. :T

Name me a politician that isn't a liar. Didn't May tell us about 20 times an election was not going to happen?

StevieJ

Moby wrote: »

Name me a politician that isn't a liar. Didn't May tell us about 20 times an election was not going to happen?

Oh! and what about those Brexit whoppers? :-)

westernpromise

Moby wrote: »

Name me a politician that isn't a liar. Didn't May tell us about 20 times an election was not going to happen?

No, she didn't.

StevieJ

westernpromise wrote: »

No, she didn't.

Maybe slight exaggeration and not specific, but I am sure you know what they meant, in essence, yes she did.

Before becoming PM and throughout her tenure, May had repeatedly ruled out an early election under her leadership..

Just before she assumed the role of prime minister, she said there would be no early election under her leadership. On 30 June, in the speech that launched her bid, she explicitly ruled it out.

She said: “I’m not going to be calling a snap election. I’ve been very clear that I think we need that period of time, that stability, to be able to deal with the issues that the country is facing and have that election in 2020.”

As recently as last month, Downing Street said an early election was “not going to happen”.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/18/the-many-times-theresa-may-ruled-out-an-early-election

Thrugelmir

StevieJ wrote: »

Maybe slight exaggeration and not specific, but I am sure you know what they meant, in essence, yes she did.

Time moves on though. To harp back to something said nearly a year ago is irrelevant. Sometimes needs must. Nicola Sturgeon, Gina Miller, UKIP, another exit referendum, rebellious Tory Mp's etc all need putting to bed. As there's serious business ahead. That needs to be addressed with clarity and full thought.

The consumer led economy boom is going to fizzle out at some point in the future. At least Mrs May is giving her herself a clear 5 years. To demonstrate her competence. Unlike Brown who was passed the baton yet should never have been.