Jeremy Corbyn to be elected Labour Leader?

[imposs1904]

This invective directed against us is solely as a consequence of the twitter account.Derek Wall is a bloke who has spoken at a past SPGB Summer School, who has debated with us and, whilst disagreeing with our politics, understands our core politics and why it is we oppose the left-wing of capitalism and all its manifestations.And yet, despite all that, we've coloured ourselves in such a fashion on twitter that he now thinks of us as the caricature spgb that we've always hated being portrayed as. People should chew that one over.Just because we're making 'noise' on twitter it doesn't by default make it a good thing.

[Young Master Smeet]

Alan,all I could find on coal in his policy document was:

Quote:

We must take action now to keep fossil fuels in the ground – end dirty energy handouts, ban fracking and set a target date to end new fossil fuel extraction, and begin to phase out high polluting coal power stations with support for workers to re-train.

https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/jeremyforlabour/pages/119/attachments/original/1438938988/ProtectingOurPlanet_JeremyCorbyn.pdf?1438938988

[Anonymous]

imposs1904 wrote:

And yet, despite all that, we've coloured ourselves in such a fashion on twitter that he now thinks of us as the caricature spgb that we've always hated being portrayed as. People should chew that one over.Just because we're making 'noise' on twitter it doesn't by default make it a good thing.

I have to say, I prefer 'The Small Party of Good Boys' to 'Hatefull Tossers'

[DJP]

Vin wrote:

When members make personal and hatefull attacks on people with anti-capitalist leanings it turns them away.This is the why we remain small and unsupported.

I don't think it's quite as simple as that…

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

"they are such hateful tossers"

That is a very disappointing observation and verdict. But it does return us to the question and issue…How can we be critical of those others find appealing? I am sure Derek Wall would not come to this judgement if our barbs were solely aimed at UKIP or the Tories. But we have to knock idols off their pedestals. How we do it deserves a Party debate and discussion? We have been pulled up for our aloof attitudes since i think Occupy and i'm not sure if we have learned any lessons. People ARE talking politics, and surprisingly Brand's initial "anarchistic" approach of no party politics is being rejected by people themselves.I don't have any answers but i know we aren't doing it right and so i am willing to try and experiment with different methods of trying to communicate…As i said previously…if people are rallyng to Corbyn because they view him as a progressive step forward, then we have to show how in fact he is conservative wih a small c …we need to use history and our collective knowledge of Labour from the past so show for all the claims, we have been here before and it is the same old story being re-told with a supposed new ending…and we know there can't be…We need to be clear on our core message…nothing changes without a socialist revolution and that means people understanding and wanting socialism…If Corbyn is Wilson's corpse warmed up …let us explain fully why we believe this…We are not going win over Corbyn supporters…but let try and make them listen to a reasoned disagreement that neither Corbyn or Sanders are solutions. We will be accused of the usual…sectarians…dogmatists…But in the end we will have the last word and ok its never popular…but we be saying  we told so.My greatest fear now is Corbyn being cheated out the Labour Party leadership or being double crossed by the Parliamentary Labour Party and losing a future election because we all know what will be said… the ruling class conspired to keep him out, as good asa coup d'etat… so lets dump parliamentarian road… and his policies will be said to remain valid because they have not been put to the test…Strange that we need someone we don't agree with to succeed and then fail bringing misery and disillusionment before we can garner an audience for our ideas and offer them up as the way forward…i think that might smack a little bit like Trot theory…The other strategy to employ is to place Corbyn in the context of the Big Picture, and say its all a side-show, not worthy of engaging in and right now the two most pressing issues for the working class and socialists are environment and nationalism, neither of which Corbyn can do much about particularly the former and can influence the latter marginally, and focus our attention on those. We can relegate Corbyn to non-importance and defend that attitude from the Big Scheme of things in the world going on…As i said, no firm fixed solutions to our Party tactics…just tossing a few things in to be shot down…Whatever we decide must be for the long haul and ignore any temporary turbulence that we might encounter …

[alanjjohnstone]

YMS, try this videoOn coal 6.30 mins in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LcVU52b-KMAs i suggested, as a skilled and astute politician he is not burning any of his bridges by100% opposition to any coal mining if circumstances change in the future.

[robbo203]

This shouldn't be such a difficult thing to resolve.  I just don't get why the point is being so belaboured and fretted over.  Why not just simply acknowledge those things about Corbyn that are at least positive and seem to be part of the reason for his mass appeal – his breaking of the political mould, his willingness to speak his mind rather than whatever opportunist sound byte will get him into power, his seemingly quite genuine concern for those who have had a raw deal out of capitalism.   And so on and so forth.  These are good qualities and should be automatically (compulsorily?) invoked or referenced alongside whatever criticism socialists may make of him.  The point in doing so is precisely to illustrate that he is going to fail and to inevitably disappoint his followers despite these qualities and not because of the absence of them as some people might be inclined to think we are saying.  They might think we are attacking Corbyn because his personal qualities are lacking which seems to be the line peddled by the Right wing gutterpress and we do ourselves no favours by appearing to align ourselves with these people. A carrot and stick policy is ALWAYS better and more effective than a purely negative policy of wielding the big stick.  Unfortunately some comrades in the SPGB –  I don't tar the whole organisation – have the habit of being unremittingly negative and hostile  towards anyone who has not "seen the light" when they should be encouraging people to abandon their illusions, not bashing them over the head with that big stick for holding such illusions.  It stems from this black-or-white view of the world which lies at the heart of the SPGB's malaise and goes a long way towards explaining why the Party is not making the sort of progress one might have expected at a time when capitalist politics is at an all time low in terms of its credibility So I can sort of understand Derek Wall frustrated and despairing  reaction even if it is rather over the top and frankly he should no better than to have come out with this silly comment of his on Twitter

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

This shouldn't be such a difficult thing to resolve.

I don't want to say i told you so (but, of course, i actually do) but some may well recall that after the election i was very much pushing for a special gathering (separated from ADM) to discuss and debate the lessons from our election campaign, something more substantial than the post-mortem we did have. Clearly the issue of Corbyn would not have figured at such a meeting since the leadership contest was not underway but i would say that many of the issues on our approach and attitudes being talked about now could have been settled and been getting applied today to the Corbyn situation,  for i am confident we would have reached agreement on how to present our image to the public and designed a general outlook to implement.We wouldn't have been caught short by whats happening now and struggling to reach a consensus on how to respond to peoples' political aspirations. We have to have a fundamental debate on what we are and how we want to be viewed and re-shape ourselves to match that ideal model we seek to be. Already, someone, somewhere (i think Rod Shaw) has raised the question of the use of our language…make more use of qualifier like "world socialism" is his view,  so i think we have to recognise we have to return to basics and begin at the roots of our problem. 

[alanjjohnstone]

The anti-Corbyn economists counter-attack in a letter in the FThttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/23076458-50d2-11e5-8642-453585f2cfcd.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3kacGBNjt

[Anonymous]

imposs1904 wrote:

Interesting Private Eye article currently doing the rounds on social media about how the media's deliberately distorting Corbyn's political positions;

 What Corbyn says:" I have never favoured the remote nationalised model that prevailed in the post-war era. Like a majority of the population and a majority of even Tory voters,"What the Socialist Standard headline says: "Forward to the 70s", Corbyn

[SocialistPunk]

I found this bit of interesting research into political advertising in the UK.

Quote:

British television in 2001 had very little direct effect on voters’ images of the threemain political parties. The likely reasons for this derive, inter alia, from the filteringeffects of partisanship and from the low levels of trust that most UK voters place inthe information provided by PEBs. Second, attack PEBs in the UK can have thecounterproductive of increasing relative support for the target of the attack. Ourspeculation is that this reflects widespread public disillusion in the UK with the sort ofconfrontational politics that characterises much of the broadcast proceedings of theHouse of Commons.

While it is far from conclusive proof, in the absence of any further research showing otherwise, it should be obvious to any political organisation that caution is required when considering what tactics to use against a political opponent.The paper can be found at the following link.http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/pnorris/Acrobat/PRQ%20Impact%20of%20Political%20Advertising%202001%20final.pdf

[SocialistPunk]

Something else of interest.http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/apr/28/uk.conservatives2

Quote:

At the same time, deep down Labour fears "going negative" may work. It is especially effective if it plays into a live issue, and resonates with what voters already feel about the person under attack.

So "going negative" may only resonate with those already against the intended target.  

Quote:

There is a large body of academic literature on negative advertising, with some of the leading authors arguing that the practice tends to depress voter turnout. They say political consultants know this, and use negative campaigning for this very purpose.As independent voters are driven away by all the negativity, the voting public is reduced to its partisan extremes.

It warrants the question. What is the hoped for outcome of waging a negative campaign against Corbyn?

[SocialistPunk]

In the interests of balance.

Quote:

Although early scholarly work on negative campaigning primarily spoke of its negative effects – it would make voters cynical about politics and stimulate voter withdrawal from the electoral process[5] – more recent work is less disapproving. The presumed negative effects of negative campaigning are often not found to exist at all, and some analysts even report positive effects. These scholars report that negative campaigning tends to be more informative than positive campaigning; that voters remember negative campaign messages better than positive campaign messages; and that negative campaigning has the potential to mobilize voters. Consequently, some of these scholars question the assumption that negative campaigning is damaging for democracy.

http://nottspolitics.org/2015/05/06/negative-campaigning-does-not-need-to-be-defended/

[Dave B]

I think the Corbyn thing is more of a reaction to the cynical ‘men in suits’ politicians that we have been suffering under for the last 30 years. I think many of the working class have realised that these people, in particular those in the labour party, are self serving careerists coached in expressive hand waving body language to create the illusion of sincerity and honesty etc. Epitomised by Tony Bliar himself. I think they realise that they have been ‘had’ and have rediscovered there ability to recognise and ‘appreciate’ sincerity and integrity. I don’t think you have to follow Corbyns political programme to believe that he is ‘sincere’ or ‘honest’. Rolling out 'men in suits’ people like Jack Straw, Tony himself and Gordon Brown for instance to dish him, in that respect, is probably having the opposite affect to the one intended. And it may be not much more than a poke in the eye and political revenge against the ‘men in suits’ who have duped you and made you look foolish. [It was even starting to ‘work’ on me at an emotive level.] Incredibly Gordon Brown recently ‘recalled’ the memory of  Keir Hardie to bring the Corbynites to their senses with his; "Labour, he said, had to become electable if it was to make any difference to people's lives. It is a lesson that some who see themselves as Hardie's heirs might do well to recall." http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13637711.Gordon_Brown__Keir_Hardie_was_Labour_s_greatest_hero/ The Brownite clause four mind boggles;  Keir Hardie Speech to the House of Commons 1901  We are rapidly approaching the point when the nation will be called upon to decide between an uncontrolled monopoly conducted for the benefit and in the interests of its principal shareholders, and a monopoly owned, controlled and manipulated by the state in the interests of the nation as a whole. I do not require to go far afield for arguments to support that part of my statement concerning the danger which the application of wealth in a few hands is bringing upon us. This House and the British nation know to their cost the danger which comes from allowing men to grow rich and permitting them to use their wealth to corrupt the press, to silence the pulpit, to degrade our national life, and to bring reproach and shame upon a great people, in order that a few unscrupulous scoundrels might be able to add to their ill-gotten gains. The war in South Africa is a millionaires' war. The troubles in China are due to the desire of the capitalists to exploit the people of that country, as they would fain exploit the people of South Africa. Much of the jealousy and bad blood existing between this country and France is traceable to the fact that we went to war in Egypt to suppress a popular uprising, seeking freedom for the people, in order that the interests of our bond-holders might be secured. Socialism, by placing the land and the instruments of production in the hands of the community, eliminates only the idle, useless class at both ends of the scale. Half a million of the people of this country benefit by the present system; the remaining millions of toilers and business men do not. The pursuit of wealth corrupts the manhood of men. We are called upon at the beginning of the 20th century to decide the question propounded in the Sermon on the Mount, as to whether we will worship God or Mammon. The present day is a Mammon worshipping age. Socialism proposes to dethrone the brute god Mammon and to lift humanity into its place. I beg to submit, in this very imperfect fashion, the resolution on the paper, merely promising that the last has not been heard the Socialist movement either in the country or on the floor of this House, but that, just as sure as radicalism democratised the system of government politically in the last century, so will socialism democratise the country industrially during this century upon which we just entered.  http://www.archive.8m.net/hardie.htm

[ALB]

Here is Derek Wall speaking only 3 years ago:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2P7zXktn3gSometimes we're our worst enemy.

[Author]

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