Showing posts with label Owen Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Owen Smith. Show all posts
Friday, 19 August 2016
Tuesday, 16 August 2016
Is Watson the 'King Maker' in Labour's leadership election?
by Les May
Originally published in September 2015 an article in the Daily Telegraph
contained the following passages;
'During the leadership election, the New Statesman quoted a Labour insider talking about Mr Corbyn and Mr Watson as Trotsky and Stalin. It’s an apt metaphor. Mr Corbyn is an ideologue and a thinker, while Mr Watson is an organiser who understands supremely well how to marshal and employ political power, sometimes to destructive effect. A mere junior minister in Tony Blair’s government, in 2006 Mr Watson assembled and deployed the forces that drove Labour’s most electorally successful leader from office the following year.' and 'A lethally efficient political fixer, Mr Watson works tirelessly behind the scenes to bring the Labour movement under his control.'
The New Statesman passage published some five weeks before Corbyn was elected leader read;
'And if, as looks likely, Tom Watson becomes deputy leader, would his opponents in the PLP risk handing full control over the party to Watson? One insider described the transition as “swapping Trotsky for Stalin”
The Stalin jibe comes from the fact that to seize power he constantly expanded the functions of his role as General Secretary of the Central Committee, all the while eliminating any opposition. I did not see these articles at the time. But now that I have it has made me wonder. Are we missing something in thinking the Labour leadership contest is between Corbyn and Smith?
At this point I had better declare an interest. As in the last leadership election contest I will not have a vote nor am I a member of Momentum. But I would readily vote for a Labour party lead by Corbyn. So what I have to say about Smith is not entirely impartial. I find Owen Smith 'a lightweight'. If this is the best 'the plotters' can do then I'm surprised they had the cheek to bother. He may be running on much the same platform as Corbyn, but I'm not sure he has 'the bottle' to carry it out when faced with the murmurings from the still present Blairites (a.k.a Bitterites). Certainly I don't think he would be half so tenacious as Corbyn in insisting that he had a 'mandate' from the membership if Labour's poll ratings did not start to pick up quickly. But perhaps that is the point of the exercise. If Watson really is trying to bring the Labour movement under his control, as the writer of the Telegraph article suggested a year ago, then what better way to do it? Watson has shown a remarkable enthusiasm for using the money from members who joined the Labour party after mid January to make sure they are not eligible to vote. The assumption is that this will help Smith by reducing votes for Corbyn.
Perhaps the expectation is that a Smith win would lead to the pro-Corbyn membership dwindling away and the remainder would accept the safety of a more centralised control and as one Corbyn supporter put it to me 'act as postmen for Labour candidates at election time'. That's something the Parliamentary Labour Party might find very much to its taste if recent performance is anything to go by. If that line of thinking is correct then it would make Watson not just 'the king maker' in this election, but 'the power behind the throne' for the foreseeable future. Perhaps the Labour leadership contest isn't about politics after all. Perhaps its really about who wields the power. If you do have a vote in the ballot please think very carefully how you use it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/12/tom-watson-masterful-organiserskilled-political-assassin-and-je/ http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/08/what-happens-if-jeremycorbyn-wins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin
Friday, 12 August 2016
The Irish Times on Trot Claim!
by Les May
IN an article I wrote on 20 July I drew attention to a
report by the Media and Communications Department at London School of Economics
and Political Science with the title 'Journalistic Representations of Jeremy
Corbyn in the Mainstream Press: From Watchdog to Attackdog'. The study analysed articles in eight national
newspapers between 1 September and 1 November 2015, and included both right and
left wing press. It found three areas where Corbyn has not been treated fairly;
through lack of voice or misrepresentation;,through scorn, ridicule and
personal attacks, and through association.
Tom Watson's claim that tens of thousands of new members are
being manipulated by Trotskyists to turn the party into 'a vehicle for
revolutionary socialism' seems to me not far from fantasy as Britain's two
Trotskyist parties can muster only about 4,000 members between them. But it
will no doubt be taken seriously in some sections of the English press.
A long article in Thursday's Irish Times by its London
Editor, Denis Staunton, headed 'Trotsky claims reveal deep schism in Labour
Party' provides an international perspective on this. Some of his comments are worth repeating in
full.
'MPs and much of the media are bewildered by Corbyn's
enduring appeal among the membership and his ability to inspire so many to
become active in politics for the first time.
His success owes much to his apparent authenticity, a refreshing change
of style from the professional political class which has dominated both main
parties for a generation.
'But Corbyn's support is also an expression of the
membership's determination to be heard by a parliamentary party it sees –
sometimes unjustly – as out of touch.
The fact that Smith is running on a platform which is ideologically
almost identical to Corbyn's only serves to reinforce the impression among many
party members that the MPs challenge to the leader was also a move against the
membership.
'Watson's patronising suggestion that young members are the
unwitting puppets of conniving old Trots reflects a broader attitude among
Labour MPs which views the massive influx into the party as a threat rather
than an opportunity. If they wish to
regain control of their party, MPs will have to win the argument among the
membership. To do that, they must first
decide on the argument they want to make.'
Watson's claims seem to me singularly unhelpful. Far from bridging the gap between Corbyn's
supporters and the Parliamentary Labour Party they serve only to widen it as,
even though he may wish to deny it, they are little more than a calculated
insult to those who are inclined to vote for Corbyn.
http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/jeremy-corbyn-misrepresentaion-in-media.html
Wednesday, 27 July 2016
John Spencer-Davis on the Owen Smith Bid
John Spencer-Davis July 26, 2016 at 18:32
I received an e-mail from Owen Smith MP today, and I publish it and my response below.
*****************************************************
E-mail from Owen Smith MP dated 26th July 2016 Labour’s future, radical politics
John,
I grew up in South Wales during the miners’ strike. That’s when I came alive politically.
I saw the power of politics to change lives, for better and worse. We are seeing it again with a Tory government inflicting such damage through austerity. That’s why we need a radical, united Labour Party and why I am standing for Leader.
Jeremy Corbyn has reconnected our party with its radical principles. But it’s now time for a new generation with the energy and ideas to turn those principles in to action.
Under my leadership, we will be a powerful voice for social justice.
Together we can defeat this government.
Owen
***************************************************
I received an e-mail from Owen Smith MP today, and I publish it and my response below.
*****************************************************
E-mail from Owen Smith MP dated 26th July 2016 Labour’s future, radical politics
John,
I grew up in South Wales during the miners’ strike. That’s when I came alive politically.
I saw the power of politics to change lives, for better and worse. We are seeing it again with a Tory government inflicting such damage through austerity. That’s why we need a radical, united Labour Party and why I am standing for Leader.
Jeremy Corbyn has reconnected our party with its radical principles. But it’s now time for a new generation with the energy and ideas to turn those principles in to action.
Under my leadership, we will be a powerful voice for social justice.
Together we can defeat this government.
Owen
***************************************************
| John Spencer-Davis: |
Reply dated 26th July 2016 to Owen Smith MP’s e-mail of the same date
Mr Smith,
No, I will not click here to watch your election video. I am not interested in your leadership challenge. You should not be running for the Labour leadership at all. The Labour Party already has a leader, elected less than a year ago with a vote so far above that of his nearest challenger, that you should be heartily ashamed of what you and your colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party have done. Given the ridiculous antics that you and your fellow MPs have indulged yourselves in over the past month, I am astounded that you have the temerity to e-mail the membership at all.
However, I am very glad of the opportunity to tell you exactly what I think of you and your colleagues, and why. I am also going to formally request a response to this e-mail. First of all, I would like to draw your attention to a report in the Times dated 28th November 2015, of which I am certain you will be perfectly aware, titled “Secret bid to oust Corbyn” which describes senior Labour figures and MPs as “desperate to keep Corbyn off the ballot paper” in the event of a leadership challenge, and states that the firm GRM Law has issued legal advice on the matter at the request of these senior Labour figures and MPs. Secondly, I draw your attention to a report in the Telegraph dated 3rd May 2016, titled “Revealed: plot to oust Jeremy Corbyn by using veteran Labour MP Margaret Hodge to spark leadership contest”, which includes the following: “A plot to oust Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader has emerged, with veteran MP Margaret Hodge said to have been persuaded to stand against him to spark a leadership contest…The veteran MP could be used as a stalking horse before dropping out to allow moderate MPs to remain unscathed as they launch their leadership bids”. Thirdly, I draw your attention to a report in the Telegraph dated 13th June 2016, titled “Labour rebels hope to topple Jeremy Corbyn in 24-hour blitz after EU referendum” which includes the following: “Labour rebels believe they can topple Jeremy Corbyn after the EU referendum in a 24-hour blitz by jumping on a media storm of his own making… By fanning the flames with front bench resignations and public criticism they think the signatures needed to trigger a leadership race can be gathered within a day”.
I assume that in the light of what began on 26th June 2016, you are not going to insult my intelligence by suggesting that these newspaper reports, and a number of others like them in newspapers and social media, were fantasy, and I assume that you will not likewise insult it by suggesting that you were unaware of these reports and the movements behind them. One of the two MPs who submitted a vote of no confidence to the Parliamentary Labour Party Chairman on 24th June 2016 was Margaret Hodge. A series of front bench resignations began after Hilary Benn MP deliberately invited his own dismissal in the early hours of the morning of Sunday 26th June. Among those front bench resignations was yours from the Shadow Cabinet. You participated in the vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party. I will be pleased to be more specific about other similar reports if necessary.
In the light of what I have stated above, it is impossible to credit that the events of the 24th to the 26th June 2016, and subsequently, did not take place in order to force the resignation of Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour leadership and thereby assure that he was not able to garner sufficient support from the PLP and MEPs to be eligible to seek re-election, as per the legal advice provided by GRM Law in November 2015, two months after his emphatic victory in the leadership election. It is also impossible to credit that an intelligent person with your political connections and experience could fail to be aware of what was going on during those days, and therefore, whether you care to admit it or you do not, it is as plain as day to any objective observer that your resignation from the Shadow Cabinet and your participation in the vote of no confidence make an utter mockery of your assertion, as reported on 13th July 2016, that you were not part of any plot or coup against Jeremy Corbyn MP. That assertion is flatly and obviously false. I also draw your attention to the tweet by Andy Burnham MP on 26th June 2016, which honourably stated: “I have never taken part in a coup against any Leader of the Labour Party and I am not going to start now.” Mr Burnham evidently knew what was going on. Do you seriously assert that you did not? You are taking all of the members and supporters of the Labour Party, including myself, for mugs, Mr Smith, and I do not like it. I also draw your attention to the tweet by John Mann MP on 13th July 2016, which stated: “I was approached six months ago to back Owen Smith to be Labour leader. I politely declined the offer”. I quote again the Telegraph from May 2016 regarding Margaret Hodge MP: “…could be used as a stalking horse before dropping out to allow moderate MPs to remain unscathed as they launch their leadership bids”.
I don’t need to know any more about your leadership bid than I have outlined above, Mr Smith. Unlike Andy Burnham MP, you have acted in the most dishonourable and disgraceful way, and have enthusiastically participated in a wholly undemocratic attempt to deny the members and supporters of the Labour Party their right to choose, again, the leader that they overwhelmingly chose in late 2015. You have also had the hypocrisy to state that you will fight a clean leadership campaign, when your campaign has been dirty and tainted from the very beginning, for the reasons I have summarised. Your subsequent actions have also been so, but that is no surprise given the way you started, and there is no need to go into that: what I have said is enough. You should be ashamed to show your face at any leadership husting, and I urge you to do the honourable thing even now, at this late stage, and say that you will have no further part in this cynical affront to Labour Party democracy and to the members and supporters.
I will be publicising your e-mail to me and my answer to it as widely as possible, so that as many members and supporters of the Labour Party I can reach can see the sources I have cited and what an ordinary member thinks of you and your e-mail and your leadership bid. I will also be copying it to my own MP.
I await your reply.
Yours sincerely,
John Spencer-Davis
Thursday, 21 July 2016
Owen Smith - Corbyn-lite?
by Les May
AT first sight it looks as if the decision by Angela Eagle to pull out of the contest for the Labour leadership is, from the 'plotters' perspective a good one, because it ensures that the anti-Corbyn vote will not be split. But in the interval between now and the leadership vote there is enough time for things to turn sour, not because of anything Corbyn says or does, but from what Owen Smith himself says. Now I was not an Eagle fan as I showed in some recent articles for Northern Voices. There were two reasons for this. The first was that if she was as left wing as was proclaimed in the media, why should I settle for voting for a Labour party led by an ersatz version of Corbyn, when I could have the real thing?
The second developed more slowly. I began to see that her supporters, and especially her supporters in the media, were going to fight her leadership campaign on the basis of 'intimidation' by Corbyn supporters, 'sexism' and 'homophobia', and that she was not going to set the record straight.
In fairness I should point out that it is possible to generate claims of 'homophobia' from the most innoccuous of statements as happened to Owen Smith after he talked about his family life as a married father with children and describing himself as 'normal' and there is no suggestion that Angela Eagle would endorse such nonsense.
But one thing I would not accuse her of is being someone who makes rash statements just to get elected. Appearing to make vague promises and then not being able to deliver on them has a habit of coming back to haunt you.
Two days ago Owen Smith was quoted as saying 'I would renationalise our railways tomorrow'. Sounds radical, but it's just playing to the gallery and telling Labour people what he thinks they want to here. As I pointed out in this extract from an NV article in August 2015 ownership isn't the issue. The problem is to make the system work for the benefit of the public.
So why do I care? Why do I, and people like me, find Corbyn by far the most appealing of all the leadership candidates? I'm not hung up on renationalisation of the railways. But I do want them to work. I want to be able to go into any station and book the cheapest ticket to anywhere in the country using any train. I don't want to be crammed onto a train with too few coaches every day. I don't want to surcharged if I find myself paying the conductor. If it takes nationalisation to make the system work so be it. If you object to nationalisation just make the system work. Or would doing that not be 'business friendly'?
Yesterday, we were told that Smith has 'promised a second referendum on EU membership or a general election to influence how Brexit goes,' and 'it would be “tempting” to stop withdrawal from the EU if he became Prime Minister.'
Again this is just telling people what he thinks they want to hear. If he really believes it then he clearly does not understand what is going to happen once a UK government triggers Article 50.
As I wrote in a NV article two weeks ago:
What is clear even now, and becomes clearer every day, is that try as it might, no UK government, whether Tory or Labour, is going to get access to the so called 'single market' unless it accepts free movement of workers, a.k.a. immigration. This is why: 'The internal market, or single market, of the European Union (EU), also known as the European single market, is a single market that seeks to guarantee the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people – the "four freedoms" – between the EU's 28 member states.'
There is not going to be any 'pre triggering' negotiation designed to give the UK a relationship with the EU more privileged than any of the remaining 27 members enjoy. The choice is stark, leave the EU and maintain access to the single market by allowing free movement or negotiate with the rest of the world and pay the tariffs imposed by the EU on external trade. a.k.a increase the cost of British exports to the EU.
Owen Smith is a 'loose cannon' liable to say things he is not going to be able to deliver on. The media love him at the moment because he's not Corbyn. But if he keeps on making rash half promises it won't take long for someone to spot that he's just playing the game of being 'Corbyn lite' to garner votes for the leadership election. How long before some wag asks if promising a second referendum isn't just a bit like the whole leadership challenge: keep them voting until they come up with the right answer!
http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/labour-party-corbyns-policy-proposals.html
http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/corbyn-northern-voices.html
http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/brexit-fall-out-little-local-problem.html
Friday, 15 July 2016
Getting Rid of Corbyn!
by Les May
RECENTLY at a fund raising event John McDonnell, Labour Shadow Chancellor is reported to have denounced those seeking to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn saying, 'They have been plotting and conniving. The only good thing about it, as plotters they are fucking useless'. Now having said much the same thing myself a couple of days ago I am unlikely to disagree with this sentiment, though I would not have given the media a stick to be me with by using those exact words!
Just how useless they are can best be seen by watching them toy with the idea that the best way to proceed is to field a second candidate and so split the anti- Corbyn vote. But as a Labour voter happy with the direction in which Corbyn is trying to lead the party I would say that wouldn't I?.
So what do other people think?
Two days ago Matthew Norman writing for the Independent attached the sobriquet 'Tiny Tears' to Angela Eagle and yesterday Richard Godwin wrote in the Evening Standard:
'With the best will in the world, if the answer to Labour’s woes is Angela Eagle in a fuchsia blazer — capable and honourable politician though she may be — then you have to wonder at the phrasing of the question.'
As for Owen Smith, who is being talked up as a 'soft left' candidate by people who think we Labour voters are soft headed, this is what Guido Fawkes had to say, 'Owen Smith is hoodwinking people on the left of the Labour Party into believing he is one of their own. Nothing could be further from the truth. Smith’s nickname when he worked as a corporate lobbyist at Pfizer was “Oily Smith” because everyone was wise to his habit of telling people what he thought they wanted to hear.'
Time to remind the plotters of Denis Healey’s first law of politics: 'when you’re in a hole, stop digging.'
http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/richard-godwin-labour-must-get-real-if-it-wants-to-fight-the-tories-a3294761.html
http://order-order.com/2016/07/13/241581/
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/03/denis-healeys-10-most-celebrated-quotes-former-labour-chancellor
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