howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Courtesy of the Sunday Times
Britain’s political parties are defined more than ever by their leaders. Whatever the outcome, Theresa May owns this Brexit — red lines, Chequers agreement and all. Labour is now the cult of Jeremy Corbyn and his Soviet-era prejudices. Vince Cable became Liberal Democrat leader in 2017 without a contest or challenger. Nicola Sturgeon epitomises the Scottish National Party’s hegemony north of the border as the chosen heir of Alex Salmond, the prime mover of the push for independence. Yet neither May nor Corbyn, Cable nor Sturgeon are in command of their parties this week, as parliamentary wrangling resumes with just 208 days to go until the UK leaves the EU. Net disapproval ratings of all four leaders have risen during the summer break. The Tories and Lib Dems talk of when, not if, their leader will be replaced. Corbyn’s inflexibility has made Labour brittle to resignations and possible splits. Sturgeon’s closeness to her predecessor has become a liability as Salmond sues her faltering government over leaked allegations against him of sexual misconduct.
All the current leaders could be gone by the next election, due on May 5, 2022. Yet none has an obvious successor. Deliverance via the ballot box is unlikely, since at least politicians and people agree that they don’t want an early election. If there were one, opinion polls suggest the result would be the same: inconclusive, with the Tories the largest party in a hung parliament. Which leader will fall first — perhaps even this autumn? In the next few days, Cable will voluntarily place his head on the block with a speech proposing that the next Lib Dem leader should not have to be an MP. There’s logic here, because the party is down to just a dozen in the Commons. Sadly, the most-tipped parliamentary outsider, Gina Miller, the forceful and photogenic pro-EU campaigner, has already said “very flattering, but no”. Officials insist Cable is not standing down “any time soon”, but things could go sour by the seaside in Brighton when the leadership rules are debated later this month at his party’s conference. Cable will be 79 in 2022. An election would be a formidable challenge for a man who admits that he was exhausted as a cabinet minister in the coalition government back before 2015.
Vince the Knife was a deadly participant in the bloodletting that brought down Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell. Party elders are realising that the leadership is not their real problem, however. Britain’s fourth-largest party is drowning, but nobody sees it waving because of its low profile. It has tried youth and enthusiasm with Nick Clegg and Tim Farron, sandwiched between the age and experience of Campbell and Cable, and none of it has worked since Clegg won the right to be subsumed in coalition with the Tories. The party’s brand is tainted. Wiser Lib Dems, including Cable, believe their best chance would be to relaunch again, joining other pro-European centrists in a wider realignment of political parties.
Both Labour and the Conservatives are broken as coherent political forces. The ideological chasms opening up between Corbyn and Hilary Benn, say, or between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nicky Morgan, render it close to impossible that these parties can come together constructively for a generation at least. But activists on both left and right are fighting viciously for total victory over their centrist colleagues because the historical associations of the Tory and Labour parties are invaluable electoral assets.
Corbyn is not threatened directly by Labour’s factional infighting; he thinks he’s the general of the winning side. He is vulnerable because of the deficiencies of his character. Whatever their private views, more pragmatically ambitious voices, ranging from John McDonnell to Jon Lansman of Momentum, would have shut down the anti-semitism row long ago by pasting the internationally accepted definition into the party rule book. It is too late now. A summer of campaigning has been lost, and when new policies are noticed they will be cast in a sinister light. Corbyn is mounting an equally stubborn resistance to a more pro-EU stance, though many allies argue there are votes in backing a second referendum and continued trade ties to the EU. Many of his young supporters will disagree with him openly on both issues at conference in Liverpool.
Frank Field is his own man, a Brexiteer with the demeanour of a holy martyr, who has never got on well with any Labour leadership. Yet his resignation letter to the chief whip spoke for many Labour MPs when it condemned “a culture of intolerance, nastiness and intimidation” that has grown up under Corbyn. Field and fellow MP John Woodcock have broken officially with Corbyn’s Labour. Mike Gapes says he will follow. Other MPs, from deputy leader Tom Watson down, are in talks as to how to dissociate themselves further. The Stalinist left has a long history of dispensing with comrades who outlive their usefulness. Corbyn will be 73 in May 2022.
Theresa May can look forward to her conference in Birmingham with the least enthusiasm of all. Another cough and collapsing-scenery climax and she’ll be out as quickly as Iain Duncan Smith after Blackpool 2003. Boris Johnson is set to stir up insurrection on the fringe. If May survives into October, she must reach a deal with Brussels and get MPs and Lords to back it. Difficult, but not impossible. At every step, her own MPs could knock her over by asking for a confidence vote, but to what end? They do not want Rees-Mogg or Johnson and might deny the mass membership the chance to vote for either. Ruth Davidson, the charismatic Scottish Tory leader, is unavailable for national service and on maternity leave, although her forthcoming book will be a timely reminder of her bright prospects.
Sturgeon was the golden girl of Scottish politics until Davidson’s rise. The first minister’s feminism is now clashing with Salmond’s paternalism. But her continuing closeness to her “mentor and friend” means she also faces uncomfortable questions about their three private meetings before the allegations became public. Party unity is crumbling. A dark cloud hangs over Sturgeon’s plans for the remainder of the year: the annual “plan for government”, for presentation on Tuesday, and a big push for indyref2 at next month’s conference in Glasgow. The SNP’s 11 years in power are due to be tested at the Holyrood elections in 2021. The most secure party leader in the UK is the least active: Arlene Foster of the Democratic Unionist Party. She said “no” to meeting the Pope last week. She doesn’t have a seat at Westminster, though her party props up the government at a price. She won’t take up the post of first minister because of disagreement with Sinn Fein. Northern Ireland holds the European record for 595 days without a government. Negativity, uncertainty and division rule in Britain today. Political leaders, parties and people have no idea in which direction they are heading and whose hands will be on the helm tomorrow.
@AdamBoultonSky
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Jan Higgins likes this
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
A fair appraisal of the situation from Labour List
Party infighting once again dominated the weekend’s news, and bitter rows look set to intensify further in the run-up to party conferences. Parliamentary activity is thin on the ground: without many notable legislative offerings in the chamber, both Labour and Tory MPs are apparently keen to dig in their heels before the expected September showdowns in Liverpool and Birmingham respectively.
The Conservatives are fighting over the Chequers deal, and members of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s European Research Group (ERG) are delighted to tell the media just how much they hate it. At the centre of it all is, as ever, Boris Johnson, who decided to brand Theresa May’s Brexit proposal a “suicide vest” while his divorce was already making the front pages of most papers. Johnson’s allies are accusing No10 of briefing against him, but the truth is that many Tory MPs are more than happy to express their less-than-approving views on the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip unprompted. The current situation according to the ERG’s Steve Baker is that the Tories will split if the Prime Minister sticks to her guns on Brexit - as many as 80 MPs would quit. And according to other Conservatives, a dozen MPs would quit if Johnson became leader.
But Labour won’t let those Tories have all the fun. The opposition party’s own civil war continued unabated and Chuka Umunna stoked the fire by infuriating Corbynites. First, the backbench MP advised Jeremy Corbyn to “call off the dogs”, which elicited a firm response from John McDonnell. “Our party members are not dogs,” the Shadow Chancellor said. Whether you think that’s an overly literal interpretation or not, it’s clear that talking about party members in such a disparaging way - as Joan Ryan did after losing a no confidence vote last week - is deeply unhelpful. (If the aim is to avoid airing dirty laundry and detracting from Tory woes, which seems isn’t the case.) Then the Corbynsceptic MP for Streatham told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge that Labour had become an institutionally racist organisation. This time, it was Labour’s equalities spokesperson Dawn Butler who reacted: “UK Labour is NOT institutionally racist,” she tweeted. This is set to be a remarkably compelling, if fatally wounding, party conference season.
Sienna @siennamarla
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Impeccable timing from the Mayor of London, just a week before conference. This will push Jezza over the edge and change his stance on a second vote which also please most of the delegates.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/15/sadiq-khan-new-referendum-peoples-vote-labour-corbynPablo- Registered: 21 Mar 2018
- Posts: 614
More tribal spear-rattling.
Jan Higgins likes this
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,875
Conference time is when the faithful sheep praise their leader, the renegades make their bid for power, the media fill their spaces with the afore mentioned waffle, and Joe public wishes there was something really important happening.
Pablo likes this
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
The Lib Dems have had their one and next up is Labour where the leadership will be under intense to support a "people's vote. There is also a debate on bringing back clause 4 which was dumped early in the Tony Blair era.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
UkIP conference in Birmingham tomorrow and Saturday, the leader's speech will be broadcast live on BBC news 24 and Sky News at 11. 55 am on the morrow.
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
Whatever your view on party allegiances or not, this conference season is worthy of wall to wall media coverage as the BREXIT deadline looms. *Reaches for popcorn.*
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Just been listening to a bit from the Conference in Liverpool in which Angela Rayner(someone who has usually something sensible to say in my opinion) demand the close down of anonymous social media accounts because of vile abuse and death threats that politicos face. Strangely enough I had a discussion with our Chas in town more than 5 years ago on this very subject and he was campaigning for the same but getting nowhere so he simply blocks people from reading or commenting on anything he wrote.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
It's not all about stodgy meetings at a Labour Conference, there is a positive plethora of public performances promulgated. Failing that there a few decent pubs around but don't leave your fags and lighter on the bar, I know from experience.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Could be a lively debate tomorrow.
Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,070
From the fringe:_
Meanwhile Ms Cornell, the Labour PPC, is off on one!
Obviously 'too soon' after the 1833 Abolition Act to make jokes about slavery?
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
If Charlotte gets upset with something as tame as that she won't like the House of Commons very much.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
is some one taking the pith here.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,875
howard mcsweeney1 likes this
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I see that Dawn Butler MP is mentioned there. Never heard of her until a few days ago when she ranted about so many young men being acquitted of rape by juries. It has come to light in recent times that the complainant has to believed by the police and prosecution has to take place.
Nowadays the mobile phone and computer/s owned by the alleged perpetrator are a great help to our boys and girls in blue but many choose to ignore evidence and worst of all don't pass that on to the DPP. In one case the defendant was at the other end of the country at the time he committed this crime and another one was where the complainant had sent umpteen texts and e mails demanding violent sex.
There are plenty more but I remember those two because their careers have been ruined and they have no way of paying their legal bills.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,875
When the case is so obviously wrong, as it those cases, those who obviously lied should end up in court charged with wasting police time and deformation of character.
Those wrongfully accused costs should be met by the police and prosecution service if the accuser can not pay them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
