Tag Archives: jeremy corbyn

John Abrams

How did Labour get themselves into this mess?

By John Abrams | Thu 10th September 2015 - 4:55 pm

So it looks like Jeremy Corbyn may be elected Leader of the Opposition and if that happens, Labour have no one to blame but themselves.

As we’ve witnessed the farcical antics of Her Majesty’s opposition let’s consider how they have reached this point.

There’s a line that runs directly from the Blair years to 2015.

The Blair years (despite the welcome policies of National Minimum Wage, LGBT equality and various other things) were really about kicking difficult and much needed economic and welfare reforms into the long grass hoping it would be `alright on the night`. Their handmaiden was an unsustainable boom propped up by the Chinese. Though it’s true to say that Labour didn’t directly cause the banking crash – they did enable it to affect our economy by stoking up a huge credit bubble and poor regulation of the banks. Thus a blind eye was turned to  an annual 3% deficit during a boom – all designed to gain ballot box receipts. The money had to run out sooner or later. Blair and his cohorts loved the housing bubble and some MPs even took advantage of it by flipping homes.

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dems could try to out-flank Corbyn from the left? Are you having a laugh? Oh, and quit the anonymous briefings…

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 30th August 2015 - 8:55 am

I am more than a little irritated by an article in the FT in which three of our eight MPs are quoted. They are all talking about the need for the Liberal Democrats to stick to that centre ground and not try to move to the left of Labour if they elect Jeremy Corbyn.

When on earth was that ever going to happen? How on earth could you outflank Corbyn from the left? He is an old fashioned socialist. He wants to nationalise everything, leave NATO, dispense with any sort of fiscal caution. To go any further left would involve Five Year Plans, hammers, sickles, a whole load of red and a Politburo. That’s not really our usual style, shall we say.  The notion that Tim Farron would actually try and do this is risible, yet we have three of our MPs and perhaps an un-named fourth constructing a straw-man.

One un-named MP is quoted thus:

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Caron Lindsay

Why I’m not going to castigate Jeremy Corbyn over women only train carriages

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 26th August 2015 - 10:40 am

Twitter is having one of its more febrile moments over Jeremy Corbyn’s plans for women-only train carriages.

I actually think that there are reasons to praise Corbyn for floating the idea.

First of all, it’s pretty good to see a male politician think that the issue of sexual assault on public transport is an important one that we should do something about. Where were the other politicians, including Liberal Democrats, when the statistics showing showing an increase in reported sexual assaults came out last week?

Secondly, look at what Corbyn actually said:

Some women have raised with me that a solution to the rise in assault and harassment on public transport could be to introduce women only carriages.

My intention would be to make public transport safer for everyone from the train platform, to the bus stop to on the mode of transport itself. However, I would consult with women and open it up to hear their views on whether women-only carriages would be welcome – and also if piloting this at times and modes of transport where harassment is reported most frequently would be of interest.

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Paul Walter

How would Jeremy Corbyn actually lead the Labour party?

By Paul Walter | Tue 25th August 2015 - 2:30 pm

It was bad enough watching Ed Miliband rather out of his depth as leader of the Labour party. He seemed to sit back in his study quite a lot, talking with his inner circle. He did quite well at PMQs sometimes. But you got the impression that he wasn’t really fully in charge. This was made worse by unfortunate (and somewhat irrelevant) incidents such as the bacon sandwich episode.

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Ed Fordham

Good luck, Jeremy

By Ed Fordham | Tue 4th August 2015 - 7:27 pm

Okay so here is the rub (possibly more than one): I massively feel sorry for friends, colleagues, opponents in the Labour Party who are faced with the very real election of Jeremy Corbyn. I genuinely believe that his election and his pitch would be a retrograde step for any party. An equivalent would be Nigel Farage tipped to win Leader of the Conservatives… which in the current climate Farage might want to think about.

But one of the jibes I hear most from Labour folk, and it is Labour folk, is that Liberals (and they can’t get the name right and choose not to) are too pure, to small and too broad stroke in our politics.
And yet, if I understand their concern over Corbyn-mania correctly it’s that he will confine them to unelectability for a generation.  And so they demonstrate their flaw. They quite like Corbyn – but they can’t vote for him because he won’t give them power. They might agree with him, but dare not.  That they can’t leave Labour and create either a new party or join with another non-Tory alternative because they are Labour folk – that is what I loathe about their politics. That their tribal instincts are so deep that they can’t be honest and advocate fair votes for local government, let alone our national parliament – even though they have allowed a series of different voting and counting systems across the UK.
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Siobhan Mathers

What we can learn from Corbyn and Boris….and Sanders and Trump

By Siobhan Mathers | Sun 2nd August 2015 - 11:13 am

We’ve all noticed that Jeremy Corbyn has jumped dramatically from rank outsider to Labour leadership  favourite. An old school leftie, in sandals and a beard (bear with me Liberals, I’m not against sandals and beards!) seems set to tap into a Labour rank and file zeitgeist not many thought was there a few weeks ago. Whilst the Boris star may have been dampened a little with water canon etc since he arrived in Westminster, he still electrifies any campaign he’s involved in.  And a mop-haired loon with a habit of putting his foot in his mouth, and a track record of scandalous romantic dalliances, is more of a campaign weapon for the Tories than almost any Saville Row suited safe choice braying about elimination of the fiscal deficit and family values.

Across the pond, maverick Independent Bernie Sanders is giving the establishment candidate for the Democratic nomination a run for her money (yes, a woman can be the safe establishment choice too). On the Republican side “The Donald”, with his mirth-inducing hair piece and boundless self belief in his eccentric world view, is posing a headache for the more mainstream Bush, Cruz etc.

What binds these politicians together apart from the fact that they’re enjoying surprisingly good poll ratings? It’s all about authenticity, stupid. Electorates have switched off from the usual platitudes. They want character. There’s a real yearning for authenticity, for voices and views we can identify with.

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Mark Argent

What could a Jeremy Corbyn victory mean for the Liberal Democrats?

By Mark Argent | Fri 24th July 2015 - 8:57 am

A reasonably-new Conservative government lurches to the right. The defeated Labour Party elects its most left-wing leader in a generation. There is a new sense of opportunity in the party as the centre-ground seems to be opening up. At conference the leader’s uplifting speech ends “Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government”…

That was David Steel in 1981, when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister and Michael Foot the leader of the Labour party. The excitement was real, but it didn’t happen. Our actual breakthrough waited until “New Labour” was electable and people were no longer frightened into voting Tory.

Pragmatism says we should wait to see who Labour elects, and what the actual effects are before getting too excited or worried. But thinking about the prospect of a Jeremy Corbyn victory could help us in our journey. I’ll offer two thoughts as starters:

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Mark Pack

Rejoice! 11 months (and 1 new government) on and the Home Office responds

By Mark Pack | Sat 14th August 2010 - 9:20 am

Long term readers may recall my concerns over how the approach the Independent Safeguarding Authority was taking to the Vetting and Baring scheme, and in particular the way its guidance suggested that it didn’t really treat being found innocent in a court as counting as being innocent.

The ISA passed the issue on to the Home Office, and – as I previously reported – then there was silence, despite prompts from me. Silence too reigned when I contacted my Labour MP, Jeremy Corbyn, three times about the matter. Between them they didn’t even reply the once.

The ISA had the …

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Mark Pack

Dear Ed Balls…

By Mark Pack | Tue 15th June 2010 - 2:02 pm

I see you’ve been speaking out today defending Labour’s record over the Vetting and Barring Scheme.

So I hope you don’t mind me raising again my own experience of trying to raise concerns with the Labour government over one particular detail of the scheme it introduced.

As I previsously wrote,

I emailed Sir Roger Singleton on 14 September about my concerns with the way the Independent Safeguarding Authority’s guidelines state that if someone has been found innocent in a court of law that does not mean they could have been completely innocent. Particularly given the many issues about the ISA’s

…

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Mark Pack

Cabinet Office breaks the law, again

By Mark Pack | Tue 16th March 2010 - 9:20 am

Regular readers of The Voice may be familiar with my correspondence with the Cabinet Office and the tales of how the Cabinet Office has lost correspondence, failed to comply with data protection access requests and ignored requests made under the Freedom of Information Act. In short, the Cabinet Office’s administration is frequently chaotic and on several occasions the Cabinet Office has broken the law.

A sample of this was contained in my previous post:

I’ve also put in two Freedom of Information requests about the Cabinet Office’s records of complaints about emails sent via their website going astray. The first produced

…

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Mark Pack

Memo to Home Office: it would be terribly nice if you sometimes answered a letter

By Mark Pack | Wed 27th January 2010 - 10:20 am

From a letter to my MP:

I emailed Sir Roger Singleton on 14 September about my concerns with the way the Independent Safeguarding Authority’s guidelines state that if someone has been found innocent in a court of law that does not mean they could have been completely innocent. Particularly given the many issues about the ISA’s remit, this choice of wording in their own guidelines is one of obvious concern.

I heard nothing so I emailed again on 16 October. On 19 October I was told by the Vetting & Barring Scheme Information Team that the issue had been passed to

…

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