I think we’ll know soon enough whether or not the members of the Labour party
have made the right choice. Jeremy received nearly 90,000 votes
from £3 registered supporters... now that he’s the leader, I hope they’ll all
now be willing to stump up the £3.88 to become full members. And I hope they’ll
turn up for their local party meetings, and knock on doors, and if they’re
wealthy enough, that they’ll donate money. And after that, if Jeremy’s supporters are correct, then we
should soon see some improvement in Labour’s standing in the opinion polls, and
Labour will gain seats in by-elections and get more seats in next year’s
European and local elections. Because if Labour is to win
the next general election, it has to start winning now.
I confess I’m a little cynical about this. My feeling from reading twitter is that Jeremy’s supporters
think that by having paid their £3 and cast their vote they’ve done their bit
and they have no intention of actually joining
Labour or campaigning for it;
they think that making sarcastic tweets during BBC Question Time counts as political activism and expect other
people to do the hard work. They’re the ones currently crowing that Corbyn’s
victory means the death of New Labour (you know, those scoundrels who built all
those hospitals and passed the Human Rights Act). But I hope I’m wrong and
if Jeremy’s supporters become full members, if Jeremy performs well on TV and
in the House of Commons, if he can unite the party behind him, and if he can
translate his support into a dramatic improvement in Labour’s fortunes, then he has
my support, 100%.
And if not... well, I was at the first hustings for the Fabian society, where all of the candidates unequivocally guaranteed that if turned
out they were an electoral liability, if their leadership did not deliver
results, then they would step down with immediate effect. Jeremy was the most emphatic
of the five candidates in making this promise and I have no doubt that he is a
man of his word.
One last thought on the leadership election. While Yvette
Cooper did suddenly improve in the last couple of weeks in the campaign, I
think she and Andy Burnham both suffered from essentially offering more of the
same with a few tweaks, while Liz Kendall – while being largely right about
what Labour has to do to win – was frustratingly weak on details and policy;
yes, Labour should be pro-business, but how, exactly? All three candidates
could’ve done with some big, memorable ideas – something for supporters to rally
behind – but instead they seemed to only offer small, timid, forgettable ideas.
Whereas Jeremy Corbyn was full of ideas, some of which are good, some of
which are bad, and hopefully he’ll have people to help him tell them apart
from now on.
Speaking of which, in terms of the deputy... I’m sure Tom
Watson will be fine. The only reason I didn’t vote for him is because he’s been
doing such a great job uncovering scandals that I kind of don’t want him to get
sidetracked from that.
But even though I didn’t get my first choice for leader(or
my second choice, or my third choice) as long as there are good people in the
Labour party, people like Liz Kendall, Yvette Cooper, Alan Johnson, Chuka
Umunna and Dan Jarvis, and as long as it honours the fantastic legacy of people
like Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Mo Mowlam, then I’m not going anywhere.
Anyway, after the great announcement, in my capacity as Winchester
and Chandler’s Ford Labour Party’s delegate to the Labour conference I attended
a pre-conference briefing on what to expect. As I’ll be attending as a delegate
my job will be to represent the views of the local Labour party; in regard to
Jeremy Corbyn, I gauge their attitude as being ‘cautiously positive’ and so
that is the opinion I will go in with. As I haven’t been mandated by the local
party to speak on any motions I can’t do that (although I’d be happy to) and
again, my votes and any public statements I make will reflect the views of
Winchester and Chandler’s Ford Labour Party rather than my own - I intend to
write a blog each day on the day’s events, so will try to avoid expressing my
own wacky opinions. Similarly, for the duration of the conference, I will be
upbeat and positive in my twitter activity; I have been advised to avoid
tweeting when I am angry, drunk or not very awake, which is a pity as that's when I write my best material. And as I’ll be blogging
every night, and sleeping on a friend’s sofa, drinking is not going to be an
option anyway.
But that’s two weeks away. Up until then, all blogs and
tweets remain my own deluded opinions and should be disregarded as such.
