The largest mandate that the Parliamentary Labour Party can possibly claim is the total number of people who voted Labour in the seats that Labour won, not the nine million who voted Labour in the country as whole.
But in claiming those nine million, the PLP is conceding the point that the votes were cast for the party, and that not a single one of them would have been elected without the words "The Labour Party Candidate" next to their names on the ballot paper.
Nor would they be elected in 2020.
These are the products of an extremely narrow pool. An entire generation of Labour MPs was lost under Tony Blair.
The only people allowed to stand for Parliament were those who assumed, as if it were self-evident, that politics, as such, had come to an end, leaving only a sort of management.
Although vaguely political noises still had to be made in order to keep the troops in line.
Mostly tribal, childish drivel about how much worse "the Tories" would have been, a proposition for which no evidence was ever produced.
That drivel was often delivered in highly exaggerated, or in downright affected, accents by people who were in reality upper-middle-class.
The present PLP is the result. It would never have existed if the pool of potential candidates had been wider. As, of course, it could have been.
So the cream of the crop is Owen Smith. Everything that Jeremy Corbyn says is echoed ever so faintly, but in an increasingly heavy Welsh accent.
No one is fooled. Nor should they be.
In any case, even were Smith to win, then there would be another Leadership Election next year.
Never mind the Reading and Leeds Festivals. Never mind the Notting Hill Carnival. The highlight of the Great British Summer would be the Annual Labour Leadership Election.
All with a view to installing David Miliband.
Yes, the Miliband who could not even beat the other Miliband. Yes, a man who has been on a different continent throughout the most tumultuous period in British politics in at least 30 years.
Corbyn's victory, however, combined with his supporters' storming of the National Executive Committee, will make it impossible for Miliband to secure a Labour nomination at a by-election.
A by-election that, no matter where it was, he would in any case certainly lose.
As yet, despite Labour's triumph at every by-election under Corbyn, no candidate has been elected whom it would be impossible to depict as anything other than a full-blown Corbyn supporter.
That needs to change and Batley and Spen.
By then, it will be able to do so.
These are the products of an extremely narrow pool. An entire generation of Labour MPs was lost under Tony Blair.
The only people allowed to stand for Parliament were those who assumed, as if it were self-evident, that politics, as such, had come to an end, leaving only a sort of management.
Although vaguely political noises still had to be made in order to keep the troops in line.
Mostly tribal, childish drivel about how much worse "the Tories" would have been, a proposition for which no evidence was ever produced.
That drivel was often delivered in highly exaggerated, or in downright affected, accents by people who were in reality upper-middle-class.
The present PLP is the result. It would never have existed if the pool of potential candidates had been wider. As, of course, it could have been.
So the cream of the crop is Owen Smith. Everything that Jeremy Corbyn says is echoed ever so faintly, but in an increasingly heavy Welsh accent.
No one is fooled. Nor should they be.
In any case, even were Smith to win, then there would be another Leadership Election next year.
Never mind the Reading and Leeds Festivals. Never mind the Notting Hill Carnival. The highlight of the Great British Summer would be the Annual Labour Leadership Election.
All with a view to installing David Miliband.
Yes, the Miliband who could not even beat the other Miliband. Yes, a man who has been on a different continent throughout the most tumultuous period in British politics in at least 30 years.
Corbyn's victory, however, combined with his supporters' storming of the National Executive Committee, will make it impossible for Miliband to secure a Labour nomination at a by-election.
A by-election that, no matter where it was, he would in any case certainly lose.
As yet, despite Labour's triumph at every by-election under Corbyn, no candidate has been elected whom it would be impossible to depict as anything other than a full-blown Corbyn supporter.
That needs to change and Batley and Spen.
By then, it will be able to do so.
A lost generation indeed, Mr. L. With you at the head of it. No exaggerated or affected accents for you. As posh as your clothes, and that's just that, now let's get on with politics.
ReplyDeleteYes. Let's.
Delete"As yet, despite Labour's triumph at every by-election under Corbyn, no candidate has been elected whom it would be impossible to depict as anything other than a full-blown Corbyn supporter..."
ReplyDeleteIs there another way of phrasing this? Your columns/essays are extremely good but on occasion (as noted above) they become opaque.
I can't see the problem with that sentence, I have to say.
DeleteOh well, you are probably right. The problem is that election after election has been won by candidates, such as Khan in London, who have enjoyed Corbyn's support and then turned on him. They weren't parliamentary by-elections but...
ReplyDeleteWe shall see what happens in the next be-election if Ian McNichol hasn't wound up the party by then.