Wednesday 15 July 2015

Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Favourite to Win

A number of possibilities arise from a Jeremy Corbyn leadership. The first is that, far from Harriet Harman rolling over and asking the vicious Tories to tickle her tummy, the leadership will be opposing the government on its attack on the least capable of resisting. Secondly there can be an effective alliance with the SNP in terms of putting up a more effective bloc against the government (and a Corbyn leadership is more likely, in and of itself, to win back Scottish sympathy that went to the SNP).

It is said that Corbyn is in the lead, including second preference votes. Whether this is so, or not, we shall see. But it is possible. The notion of 'anyone join to vote, let's moderate the electorate beyond the party' seems to have backfired.

The notion was Miliband lost because he was too left wing. He wasn't - he lost because he didn't have an economic analysis. He didn't spell out an alternative to savage cuts, to more deflation. He might have indicated what Obama had done, for example: the growth way to reduce the deficit. People thought Miliband would spend, and spend better, but was not up to it regarding economic management.

With Corbyn we might even renationalise the railways. Whoopee! And even if not, there could well be a state owned Transport for London type approach, where private firms are contracted to provide and that's it, they get paid but the ticket moneys go to the payer and the payer decides all strategies.

And there will be a reassignment of spending priorities, helping those who need it the most, and returning to society.

But there's another outcome too. It has already been said that the big growth in the Labour Party won't get past the leadership election. No matter who wins, people will leave. If Liz Kendall were to win, then whole groups of supporters will fade away and many go elsewhere. There was a little socialist party up and down the country at the last election, with Dave Nellist at the helm. But as a Blairite Mark II, she was never going to win.

With Jeremy Corbyn winning, watch out for a Labour Party split, because there will be some resurrection the 'suicide note' period of Michael Foot and all that.

The Liberal Democrats are inviting members of Progress to their conference. Oh they like to dally with the right wings of politics. This time it is to try and (again) redefine the broad left and if it's Nice Tim doing it (and it is), we might have that attempt. If the Labour Part splits, it could well be yet another SDP coming about.

Of course we can't afford another SDP. We can't afford legs up to the Tories. We want the Tories to self-destruct over Europe, not have Labour self-destruct before they do it.

I foresaw a Labour Party tacking to the right and the Liberal Democrats recovering by tacking back to the left, and having to give guarantees that they would never again give the Tories a wooden leg.  It is that wooden leg that allowed the Tories to win this time (by a nationalist scare fluke and Labour bad tactics) and has unleashed all this misery on to the young and the poor and even the average people.

With a Corbyn leadership, the Lib Dems will go after the centre ground and attempt to pick up the splitters.

If Corbyn wins, he will need to appoint carefully to minimise the splitters. We know the noise will be immense. We know also how the press will respond, and we know TV will go into tabloid journalism, but that's the least of the problems in the Internet age. Of course it might just be the best thing that's happens. Might.

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