next labour leader

[Ubik]

Seems fairly clear from all the immediate post mortems that whoever gets the job will be taking the party rightwards back to the old Blair ground or thereabouts. Likely won't go down well in Scotland.

 

[sun_tzu]

Seems fairly clear from all the immediate post mortems that whoever gets the job will be taking the party rightwards back to the old Blair ground or thereabouts. Likely won't go down well in Scotland.

Scotland likely won't be voting in the next UK elections (if the SNP get their way) so perhaps it's best not to be too concerned about them?

 

[Silva]

Seems fairly clear from all the immediate post mortems that whoever gets the job will be taking the party rightwards back to the old Blair ground or thereabouts. Likely won't go down well in Scotland.

It's England they need to win.

 

[Ubik]

Yeah wasn't a criticism, just an observation. The problem may still remain that they find it difficult to form a majority without their previous Scottish MPs so the line of attack regarding the SNP may still be open to the Tories (if independence hasn't already been gained). Tricky path to tread.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Seems fairly clear from all the immediate post mortems that whoever gets the job will be taking the party rightwards back to the old Blair ground or thereabouts. Likely won't go down well in Scotland.

Labour should definitely consider spinning off Scottish Labour as a separate party.

 

[devilish]

Chukka will run and win.

He's also a headling writers dream. "Chukka Can", etc.

Also imagine when he is disapproving someone

Chukka chups

To be fair Labor are magnificent with finding people with the right names. Ed Balls constantly reminded of Liverpool FC.

 

[The Mitcher]

I thought he was, but it doesn't really matter.

I said his age and the fact that he is not white make it unlikely. He is 36, that would make him two years younger than Blair in 97 at his first chance to be Prime Minister. Blair was the youngest since 1812! UKIP were third in terms of the popular vote too. I think 10% of the electorate? He is Christian anyway but I think religion would be a problem if he was a Muslim.



He is suave alright and I like him but I think at this point he would be a very bold appointment. Maybe Labour need that but I question if they have the balls or even the foresight in the first place.

I think he's done nothing of note to even be prime minister he's just a name at the moment, at least OBama had been a senator.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

@The Mitcher

Dan Jarvis might be a little too inexperienced too but his military background would definitely appeal to the right leaning electorate. The guy has commanded a special forces regiment, a lot of people will respect that.

I think Andy Burnham seems most likely, a working class hero with a northern accent. He is more authentic than Tony, Gordon and Ed.

 

[Ubik]

Labour should definitely consider spinning off Scottish Labour as a separate party.

Agreed, though I imagine there'll be difficulty in forming their own message up there that doesn't then turn off voters in England when it's known they'd certainly work together in government. I also hope Douglas Alexander follows Murphy into the Scottish parliament, vitally important that top talent can fight the SNP full time.

 

[SalfordRed18]

Seems fairly clear from all the immediate post mortems that whoever gets the job will be taking the party rightwards back to the old Blair ground or thereabouts. Likely won't go down well in Scotland.

feck the scottish.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

@The Mitcher

Dan Jarvis might be a little too inexperienced too but his military background would definitely appeal to the right leaning electorate. The guy has commanded a special forces regiment, a lot of people will respect that.

I think Andy Burnham seems most likely, a working class hero with a northern accent. He is more authentic than Tony, Gordon and Ed.

I'd like to know more about Dan Jarvis' political opinions and instincts. He speaks well, is from the north, ex-army officer, raised two kids after his wife died of cancer... I think people could probably relate to him. I know nothing about his politics though which is the key thing.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Decent overview of the challenge Labour face...

David Cameron may have returned to Downing Street with a thin majority, but Labour must not kid itself. Coming back from this defeat will be very hard. The road to recovery will be far tougher than the route Labour has just tried and failed to plot.

After 2010 the party chose a simple strategy – to unite the forces of the left – and had it not been for the Scottish referendum it might well have worked. Ed Miliband’s detractors were never convinced, but he had had a fair chance of making it to Number 10, before the wipe-out in Scotland and the Conservatives’ brilliant exploitation of the SNP bogeyman.

Even without the Scotland factor, though, success was never guaranteed because the execution of the plan revealed severe limitations in Labour’s electoral reach. In particular, the route to Downing Street relied on Miliband solidifying and growing the party’s support among white working-class voters. Labour manifestly failed to do that, as the millions of votes cast for UKIP prove.

The plan didn’t work, but it was plausible even with hindsight. Look ahead, by contrast, and it is hard to even see what the roadmap might be. Labour’s problem is that it has lost ground in many different directions, to different types of voters, for different sorts of reasons.

To win again Labour will need to earn back the support of three separate groups. First there are the Scots who voted SNP, and may only drift back slowly if at all. Second come white working-class voters, who would have been the main beneficiaries of Labour’s manifesto, but sensed that the party had turned its back on them. And third, there are the more aspirational Blair-type voters, who value competence and leadership not ideology, and chose David Cameron as a result.

Alongside all this, Labour must not take for granted the core of its current support – liberal professionals, public sector workers, and ethnic minorities – the growing coalition of voters who delivered London for Labour. Unless Labour stays true to these groups they could well peel off to Greens, Liberal Democrats or Boris Johnson.

The scale of progress the party will have to make with all these demographic constituencies is huge. To win in 2020, against a Tory party with a fresh new leader, Labour will either need to win almost 100 English and Welsh marginals, or stage an unprecedented recovery against the SNP.

And it gets worse, because this December the postponed boundary review begins and the 2020 election will feature new seats that will give an added advantage to the Tories. Some of the changes will reflect shifting demographics, but Labour will also be penalised in a way that is unfair: the review will be tasked with equalising the number of electors in each seat; but it will come just after the introduction of a new system of individual voter registration which will under-record the number of voters in Labour constituencies. So the review could cost the party another 10 seats or more.

The challenge then is how to unite and grow such diverse groups of potential supporters. Ed Miliband’s answer was to tack left on economic issues and champion public services. But he never found a convincing way to both prove his fiscal credibility and to offer an alternative for the anti-cuts left. He spilt votes in both directions as a consequence.

The real problem, however, was that, for many, questions of identity and culture took precedence and on these issues people felt deeply alienated from Labour. These themes are sources of division not unity among Labour’s potential voters, so it will be a huge task for the party to forge a sense of common purpose amongst non-Conservative Britain. And the job will become even harder in a parliament that is set to be dominated by immigration, Britain’s place in Europe and Scotland’s place in Britain.

The search for an answer should not start with policy, but with how Labour looks, sounds and feels, at both local and national level. Its leaders need to resemble the diversity of its supporters and the party needs to rebuild the two-way emotional connections that have been severed. Locally, that means recruiting supporters and activists from within each community and organising to achieve change that people care about.

Nationally, it means that the new leader and shadow ministers must be able to tell stories that chime with people’s lives, and speak and listen with an unrehearsed authenticity. To bring together supporters from such a diverse range of backgrounds the next leader will need to live and breath ‘one nation‘, big-tent politics.

The party should ask itself who is best placed to rebuild those frayed relationships, rather than test the purity of the candidates in terms of their Blairite or left credentials. For looking back in history, the success of Harold Wilson or Tony Blair in opposition was down to their personal styles, which gave them broad appeal, and not the fine detail of their policy programmes.

The new leader must also promise to address themselves to the vital questions which were at the heart of Miliband’s leadership. Because authenticity means being true to your party’s values and beliefs, not trimming with the wind. Labour must still stand for a more equal economy, good opportunities for all young people, the new homes the nation needs, preventing dangerous climate change, and a government that decentralises power, rejuvenates public services and nurtures strong communities.

Ed’s diagnosis of the UK’s challenges was spot-on but Labour’s defeat is proof that his analysis did not translate into everyday life and that his solutions were not sufficiently convincing. He was an admirable leader, but was never the complete package. Labour’s priority must be to find a story-teller, but one who agrees with the party about the change that Britain needs. That is the task of the leadership contest, rather than to squabble over small differences of policy.

Labour faces a long path back to government. Some of the current problems will lessen with time: the memories of the financial crash will fade, and the next leader will not be fatally wounded by the manner of his coronation. But plenty more problems are queuing up. Labour needs to pause and reflect on the magnitude of its task, starting from the relationships it must rebuild. If the months ahead bring just a new leader and a few quick fixes, the party will face disaster again.

http://www.fabians.org.uk/labours-fightback-will-be-harder-than-we-can-yet-imagine/

 

[Ubik]

Gaining 50 seats off the Tories just to level peg is going to be a monumental task. One positive is that they may have bled the Lib Dems for all they're worth so shouldn't be able to take more and in the South UKIP didn't damage their seat winning ability at all, contrary to expectations. You'd hope that unless they take more from Labour, this is their peak. But masses of work for Labour to do over five years, particularly with the boundary reviews coming in and them being likely to have a fresh leader in place for 2020.

Also, been doing some reading up on Dan Jarvis as really I hadn't seen him since his winning speech after the 2011 by-election. A few articles:

http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...ster-labours-dan-jarvis-future-prime-minister - Big one with the New Statesman
http://www.theguardian.com/politics...-language-westminster-public-trust-dan-jarvis
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/dec/28/rising-stars-2015-dan-jarvis-politician
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/7764333/is-dan-the-man/ - Spectator so gives an idea of why the Tories would worry about him
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/gen...ely-Dan-Jarvis-be-the-next-Labour-leader.html

Last one's interesting as it's from Dan Hodges, aka anti-Ed Miliband cheerleader number 1 and pro-David. It essentially predicts the exact narrative that took off after the defeat and also says he's likely to be a spoiler rather than a genuine challenger. We'll see though I suppose.

 

[sun_tzu]

Gaining 50 seats off the Tories just to level peg is going to be a monumental task. One positive is that they may have bled the Lib Dems for all they're worth so shouldn't be able to take more and in the South UKIP didn't damage their seat winning ability at all, contrary to expectations. You'd hope that unless they take more from Labour, this is their peak. But masses of work for Labour to do over five years, particularly with the boundary reviews coming in and them being likely to have a fresh leader in place for 2020.

Also, been doing some reading up on Dan Jarvis as really I hadn't seen him since his winning speech after the 2011 by-election. A few articles:

http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...ster-labours-dan-jarvis-future-prime-minister - Big one with the New Statesman
http://www.theguardian.com/politics...-language-westminster-public-trust-dan-jarvis
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/dec/28/rising-stars-2015-dan-jarvis-politician
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/7764333/is-dan-the-man/ - Spectator so gives an idea of why the Tories would worry about him
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/gen...ely-Dan-Jarvis-be-the-next-Labour-leader.html

Last one's interesting as it's from Dan Hodges, aka anti-Ed Miliband cheerleader number 1 and pro-David. It essentially predicts the exact narrative that took off after the defeat and also says he's likely to be a spoiler rather than a genuine challenger. We'll see though I suppose.

If I remember correctly Cameron was a massive outsider to David Davis, Ken Clarke and Liam fox in the Conservative leadership race so as they say you have to be in it to win it and if you perform well whilst others have underperformed then anythings possible

I personally think a woman leader would pose a massive problem for Cameron who is always very dismissive and quite argumentative (ok a bully) in pmq's
I think if he acted like that to Cooper, kendal, or Reeves it would look terrible for him as most observers would suggest it's sexist, outdated and rude...and I'm not sure how he would cope with it without looking as if they had bested him and made him change.

 

[Ubik]

If I remember correctly Cameron was a massive outsider to David Davis, Ken Clarke and Liam fox in the Conservative leadership race so as they say you have to be in it to win it and if you perform well whilst others have underperformed then anythings possible

Agreed, more than possible he'd come in and look more impressive than Umunna for instance and get the narrative going behind him. Also possible the reverse could happen of course. He's certainly got the credentials in candidate terms, we'll just have to see what he's like on policy and in communicating himself.

 

[peterstorey]

That idiot Tristan Hunt is a front runner!


*inappropriate insult removed by moderator*

Appropriate insult. The man's a total tool.

 

[Untied]

I'd like to know more about Dan Jarvis' political opinions and instincts. He speaks well, is from the north, ex-army officer, raised two kids after his wife died of cancer... I think people could probably relate to him. I know nothing about his politics though which is the key thing.

His voting history is basically with the party, but from what I've read he seems pretty centre left. Importantly he is much more in touch with voters and the grassroots of the party than someone like Umunna.

 

[sun_tzu]

Rachel Reeves on paper at least is a strong candidate
Economics at Oxford at lse
Worked at Bank of England and foreign office (Washington)
A speech writer for Gordon Brown
Plus only 36 and perhaps being a woman could be seen as an advantage?
I think she would need to have a good campaign but like ed milliband may end up being somebody neither the left or right of the party dislike and becoming a compromise candidate?

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Rachel Reeves on paper at least is a strong candidate
Economics at Oxford at lse
Worked at Bank of England and foreign office (Washington)
A speech writer for Gordon Brown
Plus only 36 and perhaps being a woman could be seen as an advantage?
I think she would need to have a good campaign but like ed milliband may end up being somebody neither the left or right of the party dislike and becoming a compromise candidate?

Sounds like a potential Shadow Chancellor to me. We surely have to have a female Chancellor at some point?

 

[sun_tzu]

Sounds like a potential Shadow Chancellor to me. We surely have to have a female Chancellor at some point?

Possibly... could see her alongside chuka actually

 

[Ubik]

Yup I see her as favourite for shadow chancellor (pretty sure it'll be one of her, Cooper and Umunna anyway). Tory press would also go on about her voice if she was leader. Such are the depths we have to sink in our considerations these days.

Speaking of shadow chancellor, Labour currently don't have one. Wonder when *******'s reshuffle will occur.

 

[sun_tzu]

Yup I see her as favourite for shadow chancellor (pretty sure it'll be one of her, Cooper and Umunna anyway). Tory press would also go on about her voice if she was leader. Such are the depths we have to sink in our considerations these days.

Speaking of shadow chancellor, Labour currently don't have one. Wonder when *******'s reshuffle will occur.

Can't see Cooper doing it... Just too close to balls and they probably want a clean slate.
I think chuka will win the top job so Reeves is a decent bet

Again on paper Reeves as shadow chancellor, jarvis in defence, Cooper state, Burnham health would seem to make a lot of sense based on experience

 

[FromTheBench]

David Lammy considers Labour leadership bid

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32654262

 

[sun_tzu]

David Lammy considers Labour leadership bid

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32654262

Bit of publicity ready for a shot at London mayor?
Candidates have to get 15% of the Parliamentary party to nominate them so once you have
Chuka, Burnham, jarvis who seem almost certain to run plus at least one woman (Cooper, Reeves, Nicholls) as I'm certain they wouldn't want to be seen to not have a female candidate there is not much room left on the ballot Paper.

 

[Lu Tze]

Dan Jarvis would win if he ran. He's a leftie with an impeccable personal background. Decorated soldier, served with the special forces, no scandals, no association with New Labour or Blair, supported dying wife, works hard in his local community. The right wing press would have a fit trying to smear him.

Burnham's a pretty good egg too though.

 

[Scrumpet]

Jarvis looks like someone you'd cast as PM in a tv show, he can't lose.

 

[Ubik]

Dan Jarvis would win if he ran. He's a leftie with an impeccable personal background. Decorated soldier, served with the special forces, no scandals, no association with New Labour or Blair, supported dying wife, works hard in his local community. The right wing press would have a fit trying to smear him.

From what I've read he's more on the Blair side of things than a lefty.

 

[Sweet Square]

From what I've read he's more on the Blair side of things than a lefty.

Links ?

 

[Ubik]

Links ?

Check post #133 above.

 

[Jippy]

David Lammy considers Labour leadership bid

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32654262

The interviews on the news made me chuckle- 'well I wouldn't rule myself out if people asked'. Sounded desperate, no-one is asking. Kind of reminded me of ex-England players who haven't been picked for three years then dramatically 'retire from international football', a la Heskey. Just has meh written all over it.

 

[Lu Tze]

From what I've read he's more on the Blair side of things than a lefty.

Hmm, I read different, but after looking into it I suppose he is a bit Blairite. Less so than Chuka Ummuna though. There will have to be compromises to middle England if Labour ever want to get elected again though, so I still think Jarvis is the best option.

His voting record seem lefty and pro-taxation, the only thing I take exception to is the support for military action and spending but I suppose that comes with ex-soldier territory.

 

[Ubik]

Hmm, I read different, but after looking into it I suppose he is a bit Blairite. Less so than Chuka Ummuna though. There will have to be compromises to middle England if Labour ever want to get elected again though, so I still think Jarvis is the best option.

His voting record seem lefty and pro-taxation, the only thing I take exception to is the support for military action and spending but I suppose that comes with ex-soldier territory.

I'm sure that site used to have a measure that said how often they'd voted against the party, but looking at the record they all seem to be in line with what the leadership would've done, so not sure we can discover much about him other than he followed the party line. Umunna would be much the same and he's clearly positioning himself bang in the centre.

 

[soap]

Appropriate insult. The man's a total tool.

I like you much more in this forum!

 

[Ubik]

Liz Kendall looks like she got a very positive response to her appearance on the Sunday Politics and also confirmed she was running. Another to watch.

 

[Jippy]

They're all getting their faces on TV, jockeying for position. All slating Ed's campaign too.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Dan Jarvis has apparently ruled himself out.

 

[Ubik]

That's fairly disappointing. Between Kendall and Umunna now then I think.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

That's fairly disappointing. Between Kendall and Umunna now then I think.

If I were Chuka, I think I'd take a run at being the new Mayor of London next year. He's much more likely to win and the Labour leadership is probably a hiding to nothing right now.

 

[Sweet Square]

Dan Jarvis has apparently ruled himself out.

Disappointing but really looking at the situation it's too soon for him.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Disappointing but really looking at the situation it's too soon for him.

Yeah, he has three young kids after his wife died of cancer. I know he has since remarried, but still a lot to juggle.