SARTORIAL ELEGANCE WILL NOT BE LOST TO LABOUR IF MR CORBYN WINS

Scotland's one and only Labour MP, and the party's Scottish spokesman, Ian Murray, who said a few weeks ago that he didn't know if he would be able to serve under Jeremy Corbyn, has decided (now that Corbyn looks like winning), that he CAN indeed serve under the man.

Bless him, he says it's because he feels that the need a strong Scottish voice in the Labour shadow cabinet. Not that Corbyn would have a massive choice of Scottish representation. I can't help thinking it's more likely that he wants to hold on to his job!

If Mr Murray had decided to stick with his doubts, Corbyn might have be obliged to do what Farron on the Liberals has done, and invite his Scottish leader, Kez Dugdale, to serve in his shadow team as spokeswoman on Scotland.

The leadership race has now been run, controversies and all, but the results are still not known. Mr Murray wants Yvette Cooper to win, and while that's not impossible, it is looking less and less likely by the day, as this betting information shows.

To Be Next Labour Leader Odds

Jeremy Corbyn	1/7	1/7	1/6	1/6	1/6	1/7	1/7	1/6	1/7	1/6
Yvette Cooper	15/2	13/2	7/1	6/1	7/1	13/2	7/1	6/1	7/1	13/2
Andy Burnham	9/1	9/1	9/1	8/1	10/1	9/1	10/1	9/1	10/1	8/1
Liz Kendall	150/1	150/1	100/1	100/1	150/1	125/1	100/1	100/1	200/1	100/1

For your information, the details of how the voting works and the timetable is as follows. We'll know at 11.30 on Saturday.

• Candidates: Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, Jeremy Corbyn, Liz Kendall
• Voting deadline was midday on Thursday, 10 September
• When will the winner be announced? At a special conference on Saturday 12 September
• Conference timings: It begins at 11:00 BST, with the result of Labour's deputy leadership election announced first. At 11:30, the winner of the leadership contest will be unveiled; they will then make a short acceptance speech. In both cases, round-by-round details of voting will be made available to show how each winner emerged
• How does the voting system work? Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate wins more than 50% of the votes in the first round, the person in last place drops out and their supporters' second preference votes are reallocated to the other candidates. This process continues until the candidate with the most accumulated votes wins.

  

  They dragged out some frightful old relics to warn that Corbyn would make the Labour party into a socialist party, appealing to the working classes... OMG what a nightmare scenario.
  
  

THERE IS SOMEONE EVEN LESS POPULAR THAN GORDON BROWN!

It's interesting that, according to an article in the Independent tomorrow, the two big guns that have been wheeled out to put Corbyn down are far less popular than Corbyn himself.

Corbyn would decrease Labour's chance of winning an election by 10%, but Blair would decrease their chances by 43% and Brown by 45%! Horrific results by comparison. 

Of course the real horror of the Labour party would be the last leader! Ed would decrease their vote by 50%!

Horrifyingly, arch Blairout and all round bad fellow, David Miliband, would increase their chances of winning by 11%. The man is all but a Tory.

What's happened to their internal intelligence? Surely someone must have been aware that Gordon Brown is the kiss of death, so why did they haul him out of his retirement in Los Angeles to run a marathon back and forwards on the stage in London today...?

Answers on a postcard.

WHAT IS LABOUR FOR?

So, what is Labour for?

I've certainly criticised them and other opposition parties in the past, for opposing for the sake of opposing. The Willie Bain philosophy of politics was never going to make it into the pages of tomes on great political thinking. 

But, by the same token, never opposing anything because, well, that's what people voted for, is plain stupid. Specially when the government majority is so slender and was elected on a 37% vote. David Cameron must be rubbing his privileged hands together with glee at the capitulation of Labour.

It's almost like they said... "Well, we lost. We should just let them get on with running the country. We'll just head for the bars".

The leadership rivals seem to be with Harman in accepting that even with a majority of 12, the Tories should be allowed a free run at destroying the welfare state.

Burnham sent out mixed messages saying that he opposed the cuts, but then abstained, because Harriet Harman told him to. Yvette Cooper likewise abstained, but wasn't available for comment. This is amazing in a leadership contender, but presumably she thinks "least said...soonest forgotten about".

Liz Kendall also abstained, but she's such an outsider that no one much cares. She so right wing, I'm surprised that she didn't vote WITH the government.

Alone, Jeremy Corbyn voted against the cuts. He was joined by 46 Labour MPs. Needless to say the real opposition parties voted against. The SNP, Plaid, Green, UUP, DUP and Liberal Democrats went into the no lobby.

Jeremy seems to me to be the only hope they have of not being subsumed into the Tory party.

How proud the founding fathers must be of this shambles. Heaven only knows what the answer in the Scottish branch is, but it's not Ken or Kezia.

List of MPs who voted against the Welfare Bill.

PERHAPS THEY SHOULD JUST MERGE AND SAVE ON THE ADMINISTRATION COSTS?

There are rumours that Ed Miliband is on the way out. The bookies have cut the odds on his not leading Labour into the next election. Gossip from Simon Carr of the Indy, suggest he may be gone by Easter.  

 

So who have they got to replace him? Surely his brother wouldn’t consider being second hand Rose? In any case would he be any better? So, would it be Ed Balls, close bosom friend of the retired chef de cuisine of the stew that the country is in, Gordon End to Boom and Bust Brown?

Ed’s wife Mrs Balls, knowing how her husband covets the job, would surely never take it from him. And the rest? Burnham, Murphy, Alexander? They’d all be just as bad.

Labour are lost. Tony Blair made them Tory Light in order to make them electable in the south of England, where half the UK population lives. It was a good move politically. They got 13 years of government out of it, and Blair himself became a multi millionaire on the back of his war crimes. But ideologically they have never really got over this, because they don't now know that they are for.

They used to be about the "working man": the factory worker, the miner, the foundryman, the ship builder, the agricultural worker, but Thatcher got rid of most of them, put them on the dole, or on the "sick", and sold the rest shares and houses.

It wasn’t enough to be for the workers anymore; there weren't enough workers.

So they elected themselves a complete loser. A man who oozes indifference; who seems even when he is telling you how passionate he is about something, lacks any kind of sincerity. A man who, from day one, has been a dead loss weight round their collective neck.

Cameron is not clever. He’s cunning and devious, but he’s not good with facts, lacks depth and gets easily flustered if people push him. The Flashman tendencies are never far from the surface, which makes him incredibly vulnerable. He’s already been forced to apologise for wisecracks, and biting sarcasm delivered in barely controlled temper.

And yet this second rater can't begin to unseat him. Just imagine if there was a prime minister who was clever and knowledgeable!

Look at some of the things the government is doing will completely change the character of English life: eg, introducing a two tier health service where the rich will pay for better treatment IN NATIONAL HEALTH HOSPITALS, and where, because of the shortage of facilities, the poor will wait till their betters are seen to, scanned, exrayed, operated upon, looked after in ICU, de-fibrillated...  for their turn, if all the staff haven't gone home by that time.

And then there are measures that will cause hardship in the whole of the UK. Cameron once said that it made him physically sick to think of a guy who had stolen, say a couple of bottles of water, being allowed to vote. (I imagine because he fondly imagines that most of them would vote Labour; the people who count usually being able to call in the odd favour to avoid such indignity.)  Well, it makes me physically sick to think that I belong to a society that sends patients with life threatening illness to a job readiness interview, or denies severely disabled children benefits when they come to 18, and thereby denies them any independence, because they’ve never paid any National Insurance.

And still this Labour can’t get get the upper hand, because they can’t really argue with most of what Cameron says. Even tonight Balls was saying that it's unlikely that they would reverse any of the Tories cuts.

It doesn’t matter much whether it’s Miliband Maximus or Minimus, Balls male or female, Andy Birnham or anyone else for that matter. Labour hasn't got any soul left. Once their raison d’être was lost, they were lost. In the south of England they compete for the same votes now as the Tories do. Nowhere else matters that much, for that is where the elections are won and lost. 

That's why the Tories too were useless in opposition. They don’t seriously OPPOSE each other any more.

This should have been the Liberal’s opportunity to make a massive comeback, and they blew it, which is, I think, unfortunate for everyone in the UK.

Pics: Ed, David and Andy, all apparently describing things of varying sizes