The Labour Party Leadership Contest

[canveyshrimper]

Contain your excitement, as this afternoon we'll know which one of the Moribund brothers will be Leader of HM Oposition. You can rule out Abbott, Balls and Burnham, and if the latest odds from the bookies I've seen today then it's Ed that will be the winner.

 

[Dick Bate's Protege]

Word on the street is Ed has won it. The Tories will be pleased by this I reckon, I think he'll be unelectable as PM and will give them at least another term in power. My prediction for what its worth is that Labour will see a short term rise in the polls before the papers get stuck into them, followed by a strong Tory surge and a General Election within 2 years as they will want to shake the Lib Dems off and get on with the business of Right Wing Government. Of course I'll probably be proved hideously wrong.

 

[OldBlueLady]

Bound to have been more scared facing David as leader so if Ed does get in then DC should be able to ease back into the role completely, and probably cast the Lib Dems adrift at some point.

 

[canveyshrimper]

I agree in part Ed Miliband will see Labour take a lurch to the left, I'll also be interested to see his stance on the Unions (his powerbase) if and when they carry out their threats of strikes based upon as yet unannounced cuts. If he tacitly supports them he'll be in trouble with the vast majority who will not support strikes, and also he'll be viewed as wanting to see the country going to the dogs. I disagree about the coalition as I think it could well last the course of this Parliament. I'm waiting to be proved wrong on that.

 

[Dick Bate's Protege]

I agree in part Ed Miliband will see Labour take a lurch to the left, I'll also be interested to see his stance on the Unions (his powerbase) if and when they carry out their threats of strikes based upon as yet unannounced cuts. If he tacitly supports them he'll be in trouble with the vast majority who will not support strikes, and also he'll be viewed as wanting to see the country going to the dogs. I disagree about the coalition as I think it could well last the course of this Parliament. I'm waiting to be proved wrong on that.

I really hope you're right about this, because I think they've made an impressive start as a coalition especially as it seems to be nullifying the extremists in both parties. But if they build up a serious poll lead at any point I think they'll drop the Lib Dems like a bad habit.

 

[Uncle Leo]

We've seen a decent run of money for Ed; if money talks, then he's got it. He was as big as 10/1 as recently as June!

 

[canveyshrimper]

I really hope you're right about this, because I think they've made an impressive start as a coalition especially as it seems to be nullifying the extremists in both parties. But if they build up a serious poll lead at any point I think they'll drop the Lib Dems like a bad habit.

Agreed. If the current polls are to be believed the Conservatives & Labour are neck and neck on 40% with the Lib Dems back on12%.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

I would agree that EM will probably win it but I think the other Ed has fought the best leadership campaign.Balls for Shadow Chancellor.:clap:
Also pleased to hear that 30,000 new members have apparently joined the Labour Party since the last election.

 

[OldBlueLady]

I bloody hate Ed Balls, worst Education Minister in history, he doesn't have a clue what goes on in schools.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

I bloody hate Ed Balls, worst Education Minister in history, he doesn't have a clue what goes on in schools.

Ah, but he'd make a good Chancellor though.Brown should have given him the job.And he's been giving Michael Gove a hard time recently as his shadow.
BTW the worst Education Minister in history was surely Mrs T. ;)

 

[canveyshrimper]

So it's the younger brother, with his major backing coming from the unions. How soon will he have to pay the piper?

 

[Dick Bate's Protege]

The lefties on here must be jumping with joy. For me they've made a mistake rejecting Miliband Snr.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

So it's the younger brother, with his major backing coming from the unions. How soon will he have to pay the piper?

As Ralph Miliband wrote in Parliamentary Socialism:- "The Labour party has always owed more to Methodism than Marxism".
Thatcher changed the face of Trade Unionism in GB for good.
In the ballot for the Labour leadership the unions had 1/3 of the votes along with 1/3 for CLP's and 1/3 for MPs.

 

[canveyshrimper]

As Ralph Miliband wrote in Parliamentary Socialism:- "The Labour party has always owed more to Methodism than Marxism".
Thatcher changed the face of Trade Unionism in GB for good.
In the ballot for the Labour leadership the unions had 1/3 of the votes along with 1/3 for CLP's and 1/3 for MPs.

You are right that the Thatcher government did introduce laws which effectively stopped Union leaders like Scargill, Scanlon, Jones, Robinson etc calling strikes which proved largely to the detriment of the employer as it did the employee. They thought that the Nationalised industries or such agreements as the NDLB was a licence to print money and also to guarantee jobs. Her government was elected to reduce quite rightly the powers of the Unions in the wake of the 1978 Winter of Discontent. If these laws were so evil and draconian then why in the 13 years Labour were in power did they not move to repeal them?

Currently the Unions are becoming increasingly chippy and their rhetoric is increasingly bombastic, particularly the dinosaur Crowe. Harman did nothing to distance Labour from any potential strikes and has even tacitly said that Unions should strike to "safeguard" jobs. If Miliband does lend any support or does not speak out about potential Union wreckers he may find that the electorate have long memories and Labour could find themselves in opposition for many years.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

You are right that the Thatcher government did introduce laws which effectively stopped Union leaders like Scargill, Scanlon, Jones, Robinson etc calling strikes which proved largely to the detriment of the employer as it did the employee. They thought that the Nationalised industries or such agreements as the NDLB was a licence to print money and also to guarantee jobs. Her government was elected to reduce quite rightly the powers of the Unions in the wake of the 1978 Winter of Discontent. If these laws were so evil and draconian then why in the 13 years Labour were in power did they not move to repeal them?

Currently the Unions are becoming increasingly chippy and their rhetoric is increasingly bombastic, particularly the dinosaur Crowe. Harman did nothing to distance Labour from any potential strikes and has even tacitly said that Unions should strike to "safeguard" jobs. If Miliband does lend any support or does not speak out about potential Union wreckers he may find that the electorate have long memories and Labour could find themselves in opposition for many years.

Because, as I suggested,Thatcher shifted the paradigm.
As far as EM is concerned, the Tory press and a few of the more dim-witted Tory MP's will certainy try and beat him with the union support stick for as long as they can.IMO his election owes more to the fact that (like Cameron) he represents change and, perhaps of almost equal imortance, he's not tainted with any responsibility for Iraq either.
Wilson was a past master at playing off different sections of the party in order to lead it from the centre while appearing to pay lip service to the Left.Let's give EM a chance to show what he can do.At least the Labour party now has the chance to unite behind a new leader and provide a credible opposition .

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

You are right that the Thatcher government did introduce laws which effectively stopped Union leaders like Scargill, Scanlon, Jones, Robinson etc calling strikes which proved largely to the detriment of the employer as it did the employee. They thought that the Nationalised industries or such agreements as the NDLB was a licence to print money and also to guarantee jobs. Her government was elected to reduce quite rightly the powers of the Unions in the wake of the 1978 Winter of Discontent. If these laws were so evil and draconian then why in the 13 years Labour were in power did they not move to repeal them?

Currently the Unions are becoming increasingly chippy and their rhetoric is increasingly bombastic, particularly the dinosaur Crowe. Harman did nothing to distance Labour from any potential strikes and has even tacitly said that Unions should strike to "safeguard" jobs. If Miliband does lend any support or does not speak out about potential Union wreckers he may find that the electorate have long memories and Labour could find themselves in opposition for many years.

Because, as I suggested,Thatcher shifted the paradigm.
As far as EM is concerned, the Tory press and a few of the more dim-witted Tory MP's will certainy try and beat him with the union support stick for as long as they can.IMO his election owes more to the fact that (like Cameron) he represents change and perhaps even more importantly he's not tainted with any responsibility for Iraq either.

 

[canveyshrimper]

Because, as I suggested,Thatcher shifted the paradigm.
As far as EM is concerned, the Tory press and a few of the more dim-witted Tory MP's will certainy try and beat him with the union support stick for as long as they can.IMO his election owes more to the fact that (like Cameron) he represents change and, perhaps of almost equal imortance, he's not tainted with any responsibility for Iraq either.
Wilson was a past master at playing off different sections of the party in order to lead it from the centre while appearing to pay lip service to the Left.Let's give EM a chance to show what he can do.At least the Labour party now has the chance to unite behind a new leader and provide a credible opposition .

While Ed Miliband may not be tainted by Iraq because he wasn't a MP at the time of the invasion, but he's been involved in a lot of Labour's strategic planning for many years prior to him entering Parliament, also he has had a hand in more than one of Labour's manifesto's in 2005 and being responsible for writing their failed effort in 2010. He obviously needs the chance to see if he can unite the party behind him as he has a difficult job ahead. I see that his first problem may be close to home, I'm not convinced that DM wants a job in the shadow cabinet, he may take a job initially to save rocking the boat, but IMO he'll leave the Commons at the end of this Parliament. He'll leave with the regret that he bottled out of knifing Brown, not once but twice, because if he had I think he'd be the leader of HM's Opposition today.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

While Ed Miliband may not be tainted by Iraq because he wasn't a MP at the time of the invasion, but he's been involved in a lot of Labour's strategic planning for many years prior to him entering Parliament, also he has had a hand in more than one of Labour's manifesto's in 2005 and being responsible for writing their failed effort in 2010. He obviously needs the chance to see if he can unite the party behind him as he has a difficult job ahead. I see that his first problem may be close to home, I'm not convinced that DM wants a job in the shadow cabinet, he may take a job initially to save rocking the boat, but IMO he'll leave the Commons at the end of this Parliament. He'll leave with the regret that he bottled out of knifing Brown, not once but twice, because if he had I think he'd be the leader of HM's Opposition today.

I agree with your comments about DM.It'll be interesting to see if he's offered the Shadow Chancellorship in order to spike(so to speak)Ball's guns.

 

[canveyshrimper]

I agree with your comments about DM.It'll be interesting to see if he's offered the Shadow Chancellorship in order to spike(so to speak)Ball's guns.

He may be a safer pair of hands than that swivel eyed pillock Balls.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

He may be a safer pair of hands than that swivel eyed pillock Balls.

You don't like Ed then? ;)
I see him as a(considerably)posher,smoother and more intelligent version of that other (alleged)working class warrior,John Prescott.