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Consequences
Anyone tempted to listen to the anti-Corbyn propaganda should remember this: most of the measures described in the article below were contained in the Tory Welfare Bill 2015. That was passed in the Commons during the Labour leadership contest. Acting leader Harriet Harman told her MPs to abstain in the vote on the bill so that us voters would understand that Labour could be “trusted on benefits.” 184 of them did. 48 of them voted against it (including John McDonnell, who said he would “swim through vomit” to do so). Jeremy Corbyn was the only leadership candidate to vote against it: Yvette Cooper abstained, Andy Burnham abstained, Liz Kendall abstained. The bill was passed, with the predictable results below.
Now then, which one of those abstaining beauties would you prefer as Labour leader? Jeremy is criticised for having voted against the Labour whip in Parliament many times since his arrival there in 1983. But that’s because he’s got principles. If others had done the same over the Iraq war, we’d be in a better place today. And if those 184 Labour MPs had joined with the 48 and the SNP and other smaller parties that night in 2015 and voted against the whip they could have beaten George Osborne’s bill. And the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society would be in a better place as they face the months ahead.
Please read the article.
A plea for sanity. Mine.
I have sent the following plea to Andy Burnham in response to the latest email he sent out in his attempt to become the next leader of the Labour Party:
“Andy,
I have registered to vote in the Labour leadership elections. I am not a member of any other party and my values are, as far as I can see, Labour ones. In your latest email, you say (in an apparent swipe at Jeremy Corbyn), “We’re … at grave risk of returning to the in-fighting of the early 80s”. I’m sorry to have to say it, Andy, but if anyone is engaging in “in-fighting” it’s you, Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper. Jeremy Corbyn’s behaviour is as far from that as it could possibly be. He has gained enormous support and enthusiasm by talking about his policies (that seems to be what you mean by “in-fighting”), and his meetings get larger. The irony is, of course, that the more popular – and surely, therefore, electable – he becomes, the more you all claim he’s unelectable. Can you stop doing this please? It’s doing my head in.
Yours,
Bob Mouncer”
It will come as no surprise, dear reader, when I tell you that, within seconds of receiving my how-to-vote instructions from the Labour Party, I cast my vote for Jeremy. Please do it if you can. While you’re thinking about it. Like, now.
Go, Jeremy!
According to The Guardian, “[Harriet Harman] has written to every Labour MP with the names of people in their constituency who have signed up as party members or registered as supporters since the election.” She “wants the MPs to report any of the new members or registered supporters who are members of other parties or are known troublemakers.”
Well, I’ve signed up as a supporter. I’m not a member of any other political party. I am, however, a known trouble-maker (ask my MP, Alan Johnson, who is, by the way, a known supporter of Yvette Cooper).
But Harriet is missing something important in all her talk of Labour under Jeremy being unelectable. The same Guardian story tells us: “Figures show that 20,000 new members and a further 21,000 registered supporters have signed up since nominations for the leadership closed.” If, as she seems to be implying, those thousands are Corbyn supporters, this surely means that Jeremy himself is very electable. These figures seem to show a kind of surge away from “they’re-all-the-same-ism” to a hope that Jeremy might not be an “all-the-same” person. Don’t you want an electable leader, Harriet?
Anyway, I invite Alan Johnson to check my credentials, revisit my emails, and send the results to Harriet. She will find that I was against (for example) all the wars since the Falklands, whether they were Tory wars or Labour wars; that I am against the jailing of asylum seekers (and their children), whether under Labour, Coalition or the present Tory government; against letting migrants drown in the Mediterranean or dogs being set on them in Calais; against the Welfare Bill; against austerity, either heavy or lite; and against the economic crisis being paid for by the poor rather than the bloated geniuses who caused it.
Go, Jeremy!
Here’s the Guardian article: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/04/labour-must-end-the-madness-over-jeremy-corbyn-says-alan-johnson?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
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