Will Labour members be able to refuse ALL leadership candidates?
Harriet Harman: Will the acting leader of the Labour Party listen to pleas from the grassroots to get Labour back on track?
Here’s a thought:
With the Labour Party putting up so many leadership candidates who simply aren’t up to the job, will rank-and-file members have the opportunity to reject them all and demand somebody who isn’t a plastic Tory?
Andy Burnham agrees with the Tory line that Labour overspent, would pander to big business, continue with austerity and cut social security.
Yvette Cooper claims Labour didn’t spend too much, but is otherwise more or less the same.
Liz Kendall is almost blatantly Conservative – pro-business, anti-taxation, she plans to reform public services by getting rid of them. She even wants to keep the money-haemorrhaging Free Schools!
And has anyone heard anything about Mary Creagh at all, lately?
None of them appear to oppose austerity, support working and working-class people, seek equitable sharing of company profits and reasonable prices for goods and services; none seem keen to return value to the public services that have been decimated under three-and-a-half decades of neoliberalism and none of them seem to have the guts to demand that the rich pay their way rather than expect handouts from the poor.
So will there be a box on our ballot papers saying, “None Of The Above”?
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my lecturing skills mike are not as they once were otherwise i would have stepped up for the challenge
my daughter who works in politics say’s i would be ideal but i have a habit of going slightly off topic to make a valid point before returning to the main topic and she says you cant do that at senior level
i don’t know why that’s such a big deal in the UK as most countries leaders stray from time time
my own view is it’s better to stray and be honest and transparent then like this government does which sounds coherent but underneath all lies and full of crud
It would be a good display of the strength of feelings out there and watching the televised spluttering of whoever wins would be a delight :-)
Harriet! she is a born Tory, I was a Dir. of SHAC when Nick and Harriet were doing their Housing bit in N. London, I think they got more poor families to Milton Keynes ( no work) than any other Reich Wing Gov. toadies.
You will get nothing from Harriet.
Mary Creagh says not one word about the working poor who cannot be unionised as in too precarious temporary, like zero hour contracted, nor about those who cannot work or about the state pension being wiped out for over half of people next year.
The reall challenge is not the leadership.
It is getting the Labour voter to not just sit on their hands and not vote for any party at all in elections or bothering to keep registered to vote.
That is what lost Labour this general election. Nothing else.
I could not vote Labour this election as Labour will not pay me a state pension, just like all parties in England in the UK government.
The Lib Dems MP who happily lost his job after his Webb of deceit over the flat rate pension, was unconcerned, he said, about what people thought they were going to get.
So why are Labour not widely sharing my petition, to show up the Tories in how they are betraying even their own loyal grey Tory vote between 2016 and the next general election. Long before the women who lost pay out from 2013 from 60 to 66 and older.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now
I think we should reject them.
Here’s an alternative suggestion. Change the rules of eligibility for election to public office to restrict it to people aged at least 40 (for example – certainly no less than 35). This would ensure that all candidates have experience of life in the ‘real world’, either in employment or on the dole – more likely both these days. Hopefully this will disabuse them of some of the sillier ideas (Free Schools for example) that many of them have, and also help focus their minds on matters that affect us all; food, shelter, protecting children etc. Rather than frivolities such as who sits where in the Commons. Wishful thinking, I know, but almost anything would be better than the shambles we have today.
When you see the White rabbit where you are Mike let us know. Wonderland wonderful.
You can do better than that, Chris.
Why not? Just don’t vote,why does a party need a leader anyway when its in opposition?Im sure there are competent MP’s able to cope with the stupidity of the House of Commons.
People will vote. Those who don’t will merely be denying themselves the chance to participate. Of course Labour needs a leader, whether it is in opposition or not (what a strange question)! Look at the way the party is falling apart at the moment – it needs someone at the top with the strength of character and will to put it back together again.
This is becoming a horror story, they should all be made to disclose the CV’s and their policy priorities to the electorate as it them they are there to serve, not major corporations.
They need regulators with teeth to control the banks and large companies avoiding tax liabilities, why take their warped views out on those least able to defend themselves.
Labour really need to sit down and discuss their failures amongst themselves as they are sending out some very distressing signals.
What is the best, most effective way to get across grassroots feelings?
Write, email, phone, text or what???
I know this excellent blog is read by many but it does seem there needs to be some sort of campaign for the candidates to focus their minds!
Publicity.
You go to the media – social, local, national, whatever. They’ll probably lap it up as it is critical of Labour.
Put together a group of local members because that will have more impact.