Will the real left candidate please stand up?
Meacher vs. McDonnell. Like two bald men fighting over a comb.
I am increasingly of the view that all mainstream opinion in the party should rally in behind Brown.
Let's have a clear left-right choice - whichever of those 2 jokers can muster 44 nominations vs. Gordon - and settle the argument about whether the party goes forward and builds on the successful strategy of the last ten years or back into the wilderness.
posted by Luke Akehurst at 9:23 am
12 Comments:
Interesting that the BBC avoid using Peter Hain's first name - or don't know it - and have omitted Hazel Blears completely from their list of Deputy Leadership contenders.
The combination of sneering at the two more lefterly candidates, who are nonetheless reformist social democrats, while wishing one onto the ballot paper to get a good tonking is a great trick.
Supposing we pushed you Luke and you had to name the really and truly best candidate from the left and centre left of our great united party who would you finger?
Assume for some reason GB is out of the picture and you cannot be doing with the idea of Reid or Miliband given your many professed socialist perspectives. Who would you champion that is demonstrably to the left of Brown?
10:28 am, February 22, 2007
PS Another of your false dichotomies Luke. More of the same - i.e. rightwards drift under the heat and clamour of triangulation - or Militantesque oblivion. Please credit your readers with more sense than to buy that one.
Polls are showing a collapse of mass core vote behind the marginal wins of triangulation.
10:32 am, February 22, 2007
Robin Cook was the last credible leader the Labour left had. Sadly he is no longer available to stand. I wouldn't champion anyone to the left of Brown under any circumstances I can visualise. If Brown fell under the proverbial bus Reid is the obvious other credible Labour leader.
11:13 am, February 22, 2007
Reid? So you'd rather have a Stalinist than a socialist?
12:29 pm, February 22, 2007
Meacher is wrong.
But - next time the left really must find a way of chosing a candidate through a democratic forum.
Otherwise there is bound to be a clash of egos. Most people don't become MPs without an ego.
Alan Simpson's behaviour - split the parliamentary left and then bail - is a disgrace.
He must be suffering from stress.
12:58 pm, February 22, 2007
Ian Gibson - who chaired Meacher's press conference - has gone round telling journalists that he only agreed to act as chair because Alan Simpson pulled out at the last minute, and that he's backing McDonnell all the way.
4:36 pm, February 22, 2007
On Robin Cook we can most certainly agree.
"Like two bald men fighting over a comb" - very good :-)
12:40 am, February 23, 2007
I'd quite like a centre choice.
Oh well, what can you do. I'm hardly going to start an 'Angela Eagle for leader' campaign...
1:52 am, February 23, 2007
"Robin Cook was the last credible leader the Labour left had"
Robin Cook? Labour left? You mean he opposed Iraq? That's like calling John Denham a Blairite.
None of this stops Robin Cook being about as close as one can get to being a hero to me.
Not that I've ever liked gingers. ;o)
1:54 am, February 23, 2007
Stroke 'Blairite', replace with Bennite. Oh how easily the two are mixed up.
1:55 am, February 23, 2007
I'm pretty sure I once read in a book of Labour in the 80s that Denham was actually at one point regarded as a member of the hard left. Could have been John Golding's book. Funny that, El Tom.
8:10 am, February 23, 2007
El Tosser, if Robin Cook is your hero, you need to get out more.
Never has the term "minging ginger midget" been more appropriate.
As for his probity? Just ask his first wife whether he's a lying, scheming little shit. Sorry, mustn't speak ill of the dead!
1:20 pm, February 23, 2007
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