Why Are Labour So Scared, When Their Opponents Seem Permanently Terrified? | TheCritique Archives
The modern Tory Party is as mediocre as it has ever been, not only intellectually, but also in terms of moral fibre. With the odd exception here and there, today’s Tories are neither intelligent, nor ethical, nor courageous. Defeating them therefore, for anyone with a half-decent brain, really should just be a matter of holding one’s nerve.
What really bothers me is comparing the way the ‘Blue Labour’ faction, from which most of the leadership candidates have emerged, reacts to something that is genuinely disastrous for millions of people, with the way it has reacted to the emergence of a leadership candidate who just happens to be some way to their left…. There have been loud, bitter, angry, spiteful objections from the Blairites to Corbyn’s candidacy, some of which have sounded almost childish and petulant (typical of right-wingers of a different hue), and, above all, with hardly a note of restraint.
Even though the evidence suggests that it is absolutely correct that Corbyn is standing, as he is giving an outlet to the views and frustrations of a very large and otherwise-voiceless majority in the party, he does not embody what the Blue Labour-ites want, and so they throw tantrums, possibly to an anti-democratic extent.
But when the Tories are putting forward proposals to throw potentially millions of people on the scrapheap, the objections that the Blairites present are cautious, half-hearted, and never supported by action at the moment that it really counts.
It is when fighting the Conservatives, one of the primary purposes for which the Labour Party was founded in the first place, that Labour’s ‘big-wigs’ seem to lose their nerve. It is when fighting members of their own party that they seem to lose their inhibitions.
Surely, it should be the other way around?
Source: Why Are Labour So Scared, When Their Opponents Seem Permanently Terrified? | TheCritique Archives
Er, I think you have missed the point slightly, it is precisely because they are Tory Lite and no longer represent traditional Labour that so many people have rallied to Jeremy Corbyn. I find it rather insulting that the likes of Chuka Ummuna describe themselves as representative of Labour – the party for the working class. The truth is, he isn’t. Too few Labour Party members truly represent the bottom of the food chain – the rank and file that make up the original people that Labour were meant to represent, not the middle class folk who feel they have climbed up a peg from the commoners. You might be amazed at how many suburbans feel superior to the dustcart operatives and toilet cleaners, I’m not, I’ve met enough of them who consider low paid workers in receipt of “benefits” as lesser mortals because all they claim are child tax credits which is entirely different from “welfare”. Witness the Tory voters who felt betrayed at having their child credit (benefit) cut, who assumed Osborne would only penalize the “benefit scroungers” like the out of work and disabled and low paid workers. Many of those in receipt of child credit or allowance do not realize that they are “on benefits”. My taxes went to child credit and child allowance, schools, school meals, even though I have no children, should I resent all the taxes I paid to help other people bring kids into the world? I don’t and didn’t – but it is time for them to come down off their high horses and realize that we, the workers, including them “are all in it together”.
More frightening is the fact that Corbyn is the ‘EXCEPTION” in this so-called Labour Party, the ‘norm’ beggers belief, ‘petit maitre’ disguised to imitate their betters, a vile ferment of stupidity and corruption. ..
It is time to clean out the Augean Stables and get rid of the lot of them.
“Disguised to imitate their betters”?
its simple really …create a climate of fear …then people are most likely stick with the status quo ….worked in #indyref & #GE2015 …it’ll work for Labour Party members too …& if at first you don’t get the “right (sic)” result …change the rules & hold the vote again
Perhaps Labour know something we don`t, and cannot fix it.
“We” the Joe Blogs public do not know what goes on behind closed doors, we only have the gutter press, ego filled interviews and if we are lucky a whistle blower. Oh and some issue filled old git dressed in a pink bra and black jacket with more money than sense.
Scared and Terrified?
Yep, I think they all are, very single one off them.
Do I have a solution!!! Nope.
All the psychotherapists in the world cannot sort this lot out.
More and more people are becoming aware that there is something ” not quite right” going on in terms of government assuring everyone that everything is returning to normal whilst many young faces seem to populate doorways, desperate for money to make the rents asked of them whilst they are still looking for work, fresh out of college or university.
If Jeremy Corbyn gets elected leader I can see Labour splitting, either that or certain members will cry foul and try to have another leadership election.
The Tories must be feeling like Labour in the early 2000’s, watching a so called opposition tear itself apart.
Labour needs to sort itself and come clean on what the party as a whole stands for.
Going on recent votes and manifestos, they need to do it rapidly, or we will certainly be destined for a generation of Tory rule.
Your comparison with the Tories in the early 2000s is a hopeful one; they did all right in the end.
Not really, don’t forget they had to go into a coalition in 2010, that was when Brown was thought by some to be unpopular, also just after the financial crisis.
If they had really sorted themselves, they really should have won with a workable majority.
They (IMHO) only won this time round due to dodgy promises (Northern Powerhouse, rail electrification) have a look who The Tories unseated in the marginal seats where this would benefit. You also have the rise (and now fall) of UKIP, Scotland and the collapse of the Lib Dems.
Also, to some, on the back of a cigarette packet, the economy appears to be doing well, especially if you have property.
I predict a Tory fall out around its old enemy, Europe.
Also, interest rates are yet to rise.
Interesting times ahead.
In twenty ten the oppositions silence was deafening.That is when the ConDems kept repeating the Propaganda that Labour almost bankrupted the country.Without much of a rebuttal.The Propaganda fermented into the Lyam Byrne letter,which Cameron waved uncontrollably before the press just before the G.E.
History is repeating itself,to many in Labour are worried more about their careers than their constituents.They are to timid to show the Tories for the charlatans that they are.To worried about the Mondeo man.Not enough bothered about those that don’t or won’t vote.If they gained courage and tapped into the don’t/won’t voters.Things could seriously change.But I expect they will continue chasing Mondeo man,even though the Mondeo is past its prime.
I don’t think they’re losing their nerve; it seems they don’t fight the Conservatives because they fundamentally agree with them on most things.
I have mentioned this before but the clearest example I can remember of this was Tristram Hunt on Question Time with the odious Gove. Hunt was agreeing with everything Gove said whilst trying to disagree. He either agreed with Gove or triangulated himself right into his own backside. Truly laughable. Labour MPs agree – mostly – on austerity economics, they even agree they caused the worldwide financial collapse, or did until recently. They were incredibly mealy-mouthed on the benefits bill, again triangulating themselves into a black hole of irrelevance.
Lord knows what will happen now that the fix is in against Jeremy Corbyn being allowed to win the leadership. I predict unpleasantness.
Well, Labour *did* disagree with the Welfare Bill, it’s why they proposed amendments to it. It’s just when the moment arrived that they could make their verbal opposition official, they decided not to. That implies more about their courage than it does about their opinions.
They agreed that benefits spending needs to be lower but these are the same people who were in government when the spending supposedly was too high. They want spending to be lower then fake shock that spending cuts means less money for people.
Labour is full of craven, desperate, pointless cretins. I personally hope Corbyn wins and has them all deselected in time for 2020. It cannot happen soon enough.
If Tony Blair managed to pack the party with his mini-mes and acolytes, maybe Corbyn could do the same.
infant school playground squabbles. where is this democracy i keep hearing about? never in my life (and its longer than a lot right now) have i known such carrying’s on from people we are supposed to look up to. our representatives..oh sorry. forgot 3 of them only represent themselves only 1 seems to have what the constituents want, at heart.those 3 disgust me with their get at Corbyn attitude. yes its a fight for leadership. but it does not need this nasty vindictive attitude thats getting worse by the day. haven’t seen this with the candidates for deputy leader. unless ive missed something but did read and saw video too that Angela Eagle was condemning the things being said about Corbyn.They do themselves no favours. what happens if Andy Burnham loses and its between the 2 women???? cat fights on studio floors and conference platforms? makes you wonder don’t you think?
New Labour are denying future Labour voters, by denying us the chance to join the Labour party as supporters / members and vote for the Labour leadership, by constantly saying we are not registered to vote on the electoral roll, despite all formal information to the contrary.
Even sending poll cards received for the May elections, which just result in yet another email saying not registered to vote on the electoral roll.
I’ve formally replied to my council’s formal phone automated system to continue registration to vote, when there is no political elections in my county. My council ensured that we are registered on the electoral roll.
No mention has been made of any checks of my membership of an affiliated trade union to Labour, despite my ensuring that membership formally with the regional head office.
As a woman only gained the vote in society since my grandmother’s day, from which time my family voted Labour, this is even more insulting, than all the insults hurled at us new membership, and future Labour voters (as well as from long in the past).
And with the first time in my life having the one person one vote for Labour leadership, even more insulting that New Labour already hatches a plot to depose by a coup the leadership win by Jeremy Corbyn by December.
You accept this back-stabbing between politicians, but not from politicians to the voters.
The other three claim to be our peoples champion except when it really comes down to it they always appear to be on the wrong side of the argument, unlike Jeremy that always seems to get it right:
https://theworldturnedupsidedownne.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/15-times-jeremy-corbyn-was-on-the-right-side-of-history/
We need a leader not a bunch of followers. But then Jeremy even gets that right he is trying to build a democratic mass movement.
The other three stooges are Blairites, i.e. light blue tories, Corbyn is the only one who’s true Labour and that is why all three of them, others like them and the tories and the tory press are worried about him because he is the real deal and so fear him whereas the other three dopes aren’t!
The three stooges who are running against and are afraid of Corbyn are Blairite Labour, i.e. light blue Tory Labour, they fear him, like the others of their ilk, the Tories and the Tory press, because he is the real deal, he is Labour and what it use to stand for and because of that, he is proving popular because he is Labour whereas the other three dopes are not!