10 September 2012
Labour Leadership Notes
by Don Urquhart
A few thoughts from the left as the Labour leadership election approaches a final reckoning.
Easy as ABC
Alastair Campbell has coined the acronym ABC (Anyone But Corbyn) to summarise his advice to the Labour leadership electorate. The ABC crew flood the internet with self-congratulatory emails. Do they think the undecided will suddenly see the light because some lowly acolyte has sent them a Dear {first name of voter} email? They send out the results of polls proving that their candidates are the best. Generally speaking the poll details cannot be found on the polling firms’ websites. They show all the signs of people with campaign money to burn and plenty of ways of wasting it.
Jeremy Corbyn is in the contest because several MP’s thought a left wing voice should be heard. Not for a moment did they think he would have a serious chance. When it became clear that the electorate were favouring him, Margaret Beckett, for one, said she had been foolish to nominate him. She might have felt it was a good thing that people’s views were being represented by Jeremy Corbyn. Instead she was aghast that the status quo was under threat.
New Labour cosied up to the City and secured party funding by making it clear that they would not rock the establishment boat. Jeremy Corbyn’s success indicates that many people want to see the establishment’s boat capsize, hence the visceral nature of the campaign against this most gentle and civilised of men. ABC Labour has teamed up with virtually all of the newspapers, even including the Guardian and the Independent. Vested interests are seriously threatened.
Here’s where the Labour grandees and the mainstream media got it so wrong. They assumed that the election disaster in May was due to people not trusting Labour with the economy. In fact it was because the party presented a watered down version of Tory policy, commonly described as Tory Lite. It appeared that they did not know what they stood for and the Edstone banged in the final nail.
Channel 4 Hustings
It was painful to watch the Channel 4 “hustings.” Yvette Cooper, articulate as ever, condemned Corbyn’s espousal of QE for infrastructure projects as fiscally irresponsible. Her thrust was that the Labour Party’s economic policy has to come across as credible if it is to form a government in 2020. Sadly for her, the Labour Leadership electorate gives not a fig for fiscal credibility. During the General Election campaign it was astonishing how many times people like Chris Leslie and Andy Burnham would try to interest electors in the concept of a fully-costed offering. There was never any chance of this micro-accounting impressing anyone. They would have done better just to ignore their own past peccadilloes and focus on future glories, rather as Corbyn is doing now.
Sky News Hustings
The Sky News hustings programme was extraordinary. The 3 ABC candidates and Jeremy were at lecterns. There were some bizarre visual aids. There was the line running along the bottom showing whether a “panel” agreed or disagreed with what was being said. It was just a squiggly line at the end of the day. Then there were the poll bar charts. The first one asked who you wanted to win or, towards the end, who had won, the debate. JC’s column started out at 66% and as the evening wore on went through the roof, peaking at 84%. Was this Gateshead or Pyongyang?
There were questions voted for by a “panel” and there were questions from the audience. Mostly it was going over old ground. The bits I enjoyed most:
Liz asking Jeremy a question then interrupting him 5 seconds in. What is it about Liz Kendall? She has an earnest style but none of it seems coherent or relevant.
Yvette accusing Jeremy of dishonestly raising the hopes of voters by suggesting that QE might be used for infrastructure investment. Her brows were knitted and eyes were crossed as she returned again and again to the attack, halted only by a thunderous ovation for one of Jeremy’s straight bat answers which went on long enough for her to realise that she had better button it.
Andy Burnham speaking vigorously but without arousing much enthusiasm. He insisted on explaining yet again that he had abstained on the welfare vote out of party loyalty and had been the only one in cabinet opposed to the “wave it through” strategy. Never complain, never explain Andy. Why was he wasting his big opportunity talking about his most recent failure of leadership and conviction?
Sky News kept coming up with polls, all unambiguously Corbyn-led. I think even the most hardened ABC commentator would have just conceded the election to Corbyn there and then, so the reaction of the people called in by Sky to analyse the event was surreal. One of the 4 was Owen Jones, a dyed in the wool Lefty who was strangely and perhaps cleverly subdued. The other 3 were completely new to me:
Scarlett MccGwire, a public relations consultant who had done work for leading Labour MP’s at the time of the expenses scandal. At the end of the debate she declared that Yvette had won the debate but, when challenged, muttered that Jeremy would win the election.
Atul Atwal, a journalist who had supported Liz Kendall, explicitly ABC, declared at the end that Yvette would win.
Someone called Owen Bennett said that Yvette had put Jeremy to the sword over economic policy and when asked the question, he also averred that Yvette would win. The final poll had her receiving only 2.9% of votes as debate winner against Jeremy’s 84%.
Yvette’s Last Stand
In the Sky News debate, Yvette majored on her proposal to take in 10,000 refugees by getting 1,000 towns and cities to take 10 each. It was an attempt to demonstrate her leadership credentials but came across as a typical Westminster Bubble gimmick that would only impress the truly gullible.
In the Commons, at the end of a 2 hour emergency debate on the refugee crisis, John Bercow allowed Yvette to take centre stage to request 2 further debates on the same issue. These would be scheduled for the last two days of the Labour Leadership election. Her rationale was that the British people found Cameron’s plan inadequate and wished to throw the borders open for many more refugees to enter. Indeed the debate had been dominated by members on both sides commending the generosity of their constituents.
Here’s the thing. Many people welcome the chance to hang their emotions out in public à la People’s Princess. Cameron was pretty surefooted but was there a trace of irritation in his commendation of an SNP member who “wanted to be very generous with other people’s money”? The Conservative member for Aldershot’s only contribution was to clarify that there was no housing available in his constituency. If there is a silent majority they are pretty much on this man’s team. It is the honesty that dare not speak its name right now. Pretty soon Labour supporters will be asking Yvette why she didn’t get as hot and bothered about the government cuts destroying the lives of the poor and vulnerable people already living in these islands.
Jeremy’s Friends
The Panorama programme three days before the close of the election majored on Corbyn’s closeness with union leaders. There was much footage of Len McCluskey and dire warnings by Tristram Hunt and David Blunkett of Corbyn’s unelectability. Panorama exposed the soft Corbyn underbelly that has him calling Hamas and Hezbollah leaders his friends. His supporters buy the line that you have to talk to people you disagree with. ABC adherents point to the dangers of being publicly associated with the wrong sorts thus presenting an open goal to opponents.
Jeremy Corbyn appears happy to embrace Britain’s new position in the world, i.e:.
We are a relatively small nation with an oversized defence budget.
We are not the world’s policeman.
We are not helped one iota by having nuclear weapons.
That is anathema to the Establishment. Many top politicians feel the need for a big swinging defence budget that enables them to bestride the world’s stage. Jeremy Corbyn thinks the money could be better spent.
