My Thoughts On Jeremy Corbyn and The Labour Party

My thoughts on Jeremy Corbyn:

I have been trying to understand why anybody on the left would wish to keep Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party when all recent polling shows he is clearly unelectable and will lead Labour to a crushing defeat at any forthcoming general election unless he is replaced. I have been trying to understand why anyone on the left would want to keep a leader who will only help to increase, solidify, and extend the Tories grip on government. These are nearest thing I found to reasons for keeping Corbyn as leader.

1) 'Labour will lose next general election so it doesn't matter who the leader is.'

While it is true that Corbyn leadership has lead Labour to such a low watermark that any new leader will find it hard to make up all the ground lost by Corbyn general elections are not a zero sum game. A narrow defeat where a credible Labour opposition is poised to take over from a Tory govt as its (relative) popularity fades may be able to keep at least some of its worst excesses in check. A Tory govt without an effective opposition is free to run amok and will move further and further to the right as it has already started to do with the new cabinet positions. A heavy defeat for Labour would ensure Tory govt in power not only for the next few years but for decades.

2) 'All the polls, surveys, and feedback from Labour MPs are wrong, and Corbyn will win the general election (the opposite to point 1)'

While recent polls v actual results have been wrong they have only been wrong by a % few points but always in the way they have overestimated the left wing vote and underestimated the right wing vote. In short: Labour's polling numbers under Corbyn are diabolical but in truth are likely to be EVEN WORSE for Labour than they appear to be.

(if you look hard enough you may be able to find an outlier poll with a small Labour lead but please understand that at this stage of the election cycle an opposition party needs to be streets ahead of the incumbent Govt to stand a chance of forming next govt. As we know Ed Miliband's Labour party failed to win last years election: Corbyn's polling numbers are far worse than they were under Miliband)

3) A right wing Labour govt is just as bad as the Tories so we might as will keep Corbyn even if he is unelectable.

A Labour Govt of the relative left, centre, or right is infinitely better than a Tory govt. The last Labour govt which was the most right wing Labour govt there has ever been still introduced the minimum wage, disability rights, civil partnerships, investment in schools hospitals and public services. The only real 'achievement' of the last Tory was making sure the poorest and most vulnerable paid for a financial crisis caused by the bankers. This went hand in hand with the closure of libraries, women's refuge centres & the cutting of funding for almost all organisations that offered support for the most vulnerable in society.

Since the last Labour Govt Labour's center has moved to the left while the Conservative have moved ever further to the right. Even the last Tory govts relatively socially liberal aspect is now dead. The new PM is against gay marriage and has installed a foreign secretary who is openly racist. I personally would prefer a Labour leader from the center left of the party and that is likely to be were any replacement of Corbyn comes from, but quite frankly things are so serious now that I would welcome a new leader from the left, or right, of the party as long as they were competent and would take the fight to the Tories.

The problem with Corbyn is not the he is 'too left wing' it is that he is incompetent. As Owen Jones a natural Corbyn ally puts it:

"There is little point pretending that I have not frequently been in utter despair, because I believe socialism, on the one hand, and competence and effective communication to the majority of people, on the other, are not mutually exclusive."

"there has always been a lack of direction, clear vision or ability to communicate in a way that resonates with most people. The Tories have repeatedly been let off the hook (...) overall most people are at a loss as to what Labour stands for."

Finally: What some Corbyn supporters offered when asked why they wanted to hang on to a leader that was clearly unelectable was not reason but paranoid accusations that any Labour MP, member, or supporter of the party who wanted to replace Corbyn was part of a 'blairite conspiracy'.

Once someone has gone down the 'conspiracy theory' route it is clear they are no longer interested in listening to reason but to be clear: Some in the PLP are Blairites who were never going to give Corbyn a chance and were out to get him for day one (these idiots have only managed to strengthen Corbyn by engendering a siege mentality among his supporters). Some where ideological Corbyn supporters who were always going to support Corbyn however he performed. Most were somewhere in the middle, many were lukewarm supporters who feared he was not up to the job but hoped to be proved wrong and that they would see him rise to the occasion. It is the support of these MPs, from the left, right, & centre of the party, and from all parts of the country that Corbyn has now lost.

The reason they called on Corbyn to step aside was not just his abysmal polling numbers and loses at council elections, or his abysmal performance in the referendum campaign where it had been hoped he could seize the spotlight and make a real connection with voters (Corbyn is obsessed with attending Jeremy Corbyn rallies where he preaches to the converted but seems to have no interest in convincing non Labour voters to switch - which is what a Labour leader must do to win a general election). It was because they been in regular contact with their constituencies and found that most normal voters had no time for Corbyn, not only was he not convincing voters of other parties to switch to Labour but Labour voters themselves were telling them that they would not vote for Labour as long as Corbyn remained leader. These MPs had previously stuck with Miliband despite negative feedback from constituents and regretted it but the feedback from normal voters about Corbyn was much, much worse.

Corbyn ally Owen Jones again:

"We can’t ignore polling that is below what Ed Miliband achieved at the same stage in the electoral cycle – before going on to lose; Corbyn’s own personal rating is now -41, a catastrophic level, with more Labour voters dissatisfied than satisfied. Call the polls wrong [if you want to but] normally when they are, it’s to Labour’s detriment)"

"Socialism without power is slogans: a mild irritation at worst, a source of bemusement at best to a Conservative government that can do as it wishes. "

The Labour Party can achieve nothing unless it is in power. Not winning means a country led by a far right Tory Govt for decades. Not winning is the ultimate betrayal of middle and working class people.

These are serious times and I am feeling quite emotional (and not in a good way) but I feel that any action intended to keep Labour stuck with a leader that is only helping to increase the power of the Tory party is disgraceful.

ps. You can sign up to vote against Corbyn here: https://www.savinglabour.com/

Tony Benn: National Treasure status was a sign of failure

Tony Benn was a mediocre minister when in power, a terrible grandstander once out, and a leading figure in a generation of failed Labour politicians that left the way open for the rise of Thatcherism, neoliberalism and the toxic strain of Capitalism that persists today, and a great admirer of Margaret Thatcher herself... no wonder he was the Left-winger most admired by the Right in general and the Daily Telegraph in particular. His elevation to tea-drinking 'Nation Treasure' status was nothing more than evidence of his complete failure as an advocate of Socialism and irrelevance to the shaping of the national discourse. It is when the right-wing press hate you that is a sign that they see you as a threat and take you seriously enough to fear you, that is the sign that you know you are doing well, not when they pat you on the head and patronise you. This is the thing to remember as we await the string of sycophantic tributes from across the political class's that will now inevitably follow his passing. We live today in a country ruled by a bunch of incompetent Old Etonians where the poor, the sick and immigrants are punished for an economy brought to its needs by the incompetence and avariciousness of a venal and corrupt 'greed is good' banking class. Despite her passing we are still living very much in Thatcher's Britain and as much as Thatcher is seen as an icon of the triumph of the Right, Benn can be viewed as a symbol of the abject failure of the left.

Why the Right-Wing demonise the poor and why Ed Balls is an idiot.

http://www.channel4.com/news/balls-attacks-benefit-claimants-who-are-playing-the-system

The Tories have no real intention of winning the ‘debate’ about the long term unemployed by means of reason, statistics or even anecdotes. They can’t because they have no sustainable argument whatsoever, but they don’t have too. The point is simply, with the craven support of the overwhelmingly right-wing media, to shift the agenda away from the failures of so-called ‘laissez-faire’ Capitalism (what a charming term) in general, and this Government's abject failure at revitalising the economy in particular, as much as possible. Therefore causing resentment, anger and energy to be (mis)directed away from them and those at the top of the socio-economic ladder and onto those at the very bottom. And here comes Mr Balls playing right into their hands ensuring this phoney ‘debate’ runs and runs…  If the Labour Party’s leadership continues to slavishly follow that of the Tories/Tory press it may as will give up. I really do despair.

Chuka Umunna

Politics I believe the next Labour PM will be Streatham’s current MP: Chuka Umunna. I was extremely impressed by Umunna’s performance while grilling the vile Bob Diamond. He exhibited three vital qualities that Ed Milliband distinctly lacks: i) Clear, concise, communication skills, ii) A passionate, and authentic, sense of right and wrong, and iii) the appearance of a sharp, intelligent, confidence while still managing to appear ‘normal’. Roll on 2020… Mr Umunna also fancies himself as a bit of a Soulful House DJ. Click here some of his choices.

The Future of UK Politics

Politics The LidDems should not coalition with the Tories as the Tories won't seriously offer them any real chance of PR (it would be electoral suicide for them to do so). Instead the Libdems will agree to back them over the Queens speech and budget to allow the Tories to govern. This will allow the LibDems to remain untainted by the savage cuts the Tories will make. Meanwhile Labour under Alan Johnson will be revitalised and discover their radical sense of purpose. After a couple of years of Tory cuts as a minority Government the Tory government will fall allowing the emergence of a centre left coalition who will introduce PR resulting in the Conservatives being denied forever the chance to govern the country again.

Update** A week Tory government relying on the LibDems to keep it in power is by far the best outcome we could have realistically hoped for but Clegg has made a mistake entering a formal coalition and accepting cabinet posts as the LibDems will now be tarred with association with the cuts that are coming so will probably get annihilated at the next general election that won't be far away.

Some brief notes on Time

Time: the socio-political
The ways we have marked out time, from the obelisks of ancient Egypt and Babylon to the atomic super-clocks being developed today that are said to be more accurate than time itself, the socio-economic system in place and the way human beings experience time have always remained inter-linked. It is perhaps not surprising that slave based societies such as the ancient Egyptians, owing their power to the systemization of social relations enabled by the development of mathematics, also appear to be the first societies to deploy time keeping devices. In the middle ages where man’s still relatively direct relationship to the land meant that the seasons and weathers fluctuations informed his working patterns, the micro-management of time was unnecessary. But as feudalism began to be replaced by capitalism during the Renaissance our relationship with time started to shift. In 1584 Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar that we use today propagating the centralization of papal power. Somewhat ironically Rome had been systematically replacing the God given circadian time as churches were turned into giant sundials by the drilling of a hole in its roof in order to predict the arrival of Easter. When the Gregorian calendar was finally adopted in England in 1752, in order to catch up with this now standardized European calendar from which it was lagging behind, Wednesday September the 2nd was immediately followed by Thursday September the 14th. This apparently resulted in widespread riots by angry mobs chanting ‘Give us our eleven days back!’.

The political nature of time was made explicit in revolutionary France when gunshots were fired at town hall clocks to mark a radical break from history. French Revolutionary Time was subsequently introduced where, in the enlightenment spirit of obsessive rationalization, the 24 hour clock was replaced with a decimalized system dividing the day into 10 decimal parts each of these 10 parts were divided into ten others and so on, so the hundredth part of the hour is the decimal minute and the hundredth part of the minute was the decimal second. With the emergence of globalized trading, precise time keeping for navigation became a priority. As a ships position at sea could only be determined with accuracy if a navigator could refer to an accurate clock, the then standard pendulum-based clocks originally conceived by Galileo were unsuitable for the task. In 1714 after the loss of numerous cargos (and lives) the British government offered twenty thousand pounds to whoever built a clock that would keep accurate time at sea. A young man took up the challenge by the name of John Harrison, a carpenter at the time, who on hearing of the competition dedicated his life to this quest and eventually succeeded at his 4th attempt. The government originally refused to pay up, but, after the intervention on his behalf by King George, Harrison eventually received his payment at the age of 79, becoming a multi-millionaire in today’s money.

The phrase time is money represents the commodification of time as an object to be exploited in the accumulation of greater capital, and it was capitalisms transformation during the industrial revolution that brought about the now normative adherence to clock-time we observe today, as a synchronic form of time and work discipline was imposed on workers. Up until the 19 Century British cities ran to local solar time and it was only with the introduction of the electric telegraph that enabled the imposition of a standardized single time zone (GMT) that industrialists demanded despite much local opposition. The emerging power and influence of rail companies such as the Great Western Railway sped up the rationalization and standardization of time to increase the efficient distribution of goods and materials. To placate local objections many cities ran, for a period, a dual time system. The clock at the Exchange in Bristol for instance, which is ten minutes behind London Time (or London is 10 minutes ahead of Bristol), still features two minute hands: one showing GMT the other Bristol Time.

A hyper-rationalization of time management was developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor In 1911 reaching its apex in the industrial mass production methods of the Ford motor company in Detroit. It involved scientific analysis of the time/productivity relationship in pursuit of the maximization of profits e.g. the screwing of a single bolt being calculated at 15.2 seconds. Capitalisms other has a less historically linear relationship with time. The Soviet Union fetishized production as much as America and adopted an equally technological view of time. Aleksei Gastev, an avant-garde poet who wrote futurist prose eulogizing industrialization and the coming era of the new man, advocated Taylerism through ‘the movement for the scientific organization of labour’, or NOT (nauchnaia organization truda), which he described as his last artwork. These ideas, imported from capitalist America, underpinned the Soviet commodification of time epitomized by Stalins 5-year plans 1928 and 1932. Unfortunately for Gastev his own time ran out in 1938 when he was arrested on false charges of counter-revolutionary terrorist activity and shot by the KGB, and as Heidegger and others have observed death is the limit point of our social temporality.

Year Zero was declared by Pol Pot when his Khmer Rouge completed their take over of Cambodia in 1975. It was George Orwell who observed Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future. Here, a pre-industrial agrarian utopia was founded where history not only ended but ceased to exist and time stood still. Cities were forcibly emptied as the entire population was made to farm the land in organized labour camps and any expression of nostalgia for pre-revolutionary times was referred to as memory sickness and could lead to execution. This anti-technological state existed as the antitheses of the Soviet/American view of time as a site of progress – here you would be killed for simply owning a wristwatch. When the regimes rule ended, after eight months and 20 days, one quarter of the country’s entire population of about seven million were dead.

Re-posted from Time: a group exhibtion