General Election December, 2019 (U.K.)

ArmaniJeanss

sid waddell wrote: »

Think these results will change from 2017 (expect the Tories and Labour to win back most seats of defecting members), eg. Tories will win South West Hertfordshire, Labour will win Birkenhead etc.

Fair dues for the analysis.
Don't know if you cross-referenced with bookies odds but there's quite a few of those that the bookies have as coin-tosses and some where Labour are favourite (strongly so in the case of Sedgefield).
Obviously you may have failed to include some where the bookies have Tories as favourite.

I'd definitely hope you are wrong about Wirral West. I know it has sometimes been blue but surely the whole Johnson v Liverpool thing hasn't been forgiven so easily.

Professor Moriarty

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

They're 3% in the polls. They're a nothingburger.

Only because the Conservatives have promised to deliver Brexit, without that, they could have been up in the region of 40%, in this sense they have already succeeded in forcing Brexit onto the agenda.

Joe_ Public

Seems the level of tory candidates ducking hustings is a developing pattern. Its happening all over the country and seems to be largely based on climate themed events, though not exclusively. Incredible that the widespread avoidance of scrutiny can be seen as a viable election strategy, but here we are.

Here's one candidate with a handy get out. Fooling nobody though.

https://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/politics/safety-concerns-behind-hastings-and-rye-conservative-candidate-s-hustings-absence-1-9157926

Professor Moriarty

Deleted User wrote: »

Only because the Conservatives have promised to deliver Brexit, without that, they could have been up in the region of 40%, in this sense they have already succeeded in forcing Brexit onto the agenda.

Hard to believe that the Brexit party were at 26% to the Tories 20% at one stage. You could also argue that the ERG were the real momentum behind Brexit. Either way, the Tories have stolen their Brexit clothes. Now the Brexit party is pointless.

Fr Tod Umptious

Reading the posts about a state owned pharma manufacturer making drugs for the NHS reminds me a bit of the thread we had here a few years ago about the suggestion that the Irish government should have taken over the Dell plant and started making computers.

This sort of stuff is real 1970s Labour.
Government owning everything including manufacturing.
It's not a million miles from the USSR.

That ship has sailed, leave the manufacturing to the experts.

sid waddell

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Fair dues for the analysis.
Don't know if you cross-referenced with bookies odds but there's quite a few of those that the bookies have as coin-tosses and some where Labour are favourite (strongly so in the case of Sedgefield).
Obviously you may have failed to include some where the bookies have Tories as favourite.

I'd definitely hope you are wrong about Wirral West. I know it has sometimes been blue but surely the whole Johnson v Liverpool thing hasn't been forgiven so easily.

I have good few seats down as Tory gains where the bookies say Labour.

The thing is, with a small swing, you could easily pick out, say, 40 seats which could go a different way and produce a hung parliament.

Wirral West and Sedgefield, where Labour are favourites, are definitely two of those.

I have the Tories holding 10 in Scotland and gaining a good few in Wales, that could be all wrong.

Labour racked up huge votes in a lot of urban constituencies last time, votes that they will hardly improve on.

If they could get up to 37 or 38 it's possible they could hold a lot more of the marginals than expected.

Geographical concentrations of votes are everything. Can the Lib Dems maximise the efficiency of their vote in geographical areas where they have a chance?

Could the Tories rack up huge votes in places where they don't need them?

Is the absence of the Brexit party vote in seats the Tories hold distorting their national vote share?

Could the Brexit party vote deny them a lot of seats they have a chance of gaining?

And turnout, turnout, turnout is key. The polls got it wroong last time, it doesn't mean they can't again this time.

There are so many unanswered questions and while it looks good for the Tories now there's still a chance it could go badly awry for them.

Mr.Nice Guy

Based on Andrew Neil's twitter it seems Jo Swinson will be interviewed on Wednesday, and Farage on Thursday. No word yet on Johnson. Hard to imagine he will front up as it gets closer to the election date.

IAmTheReign

Joe_ Public wrote: »

In other news, ofcom dismiss the conservatives complaint against C4 over the climate debate but i dont think anyone is shocked by that.

I think at least one poster might be.

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes, Channel 4 was overtly biased and contravened its remit. It must be apprehended for its violation of laws relating to media bias.

I'm sure once eskimo has recovered from his shock he'll withdraw his claims of their unlawful behaviour.

prawnsambo

IAmTheReign wrote: »

I think at least one poster might be.

I'm sure once eskimo has recovered from his shock he'll withdraw his claims of their unlawful behaviour.

I doubt that somebody who made up laws is going to be terribly concerned about being wrong.

Letwin_Larry

Jobs for the boys eh?
no matter how much he scrubs, the smell just wont go away.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7752923/Jeremy-Corbyn-bomb-makers-friend-IRA-terrorist-admirer-Corbyn.html

A Dub in Glasgo

Letwin_Larry wrote: »

Jobs for the boys eh?
no matter how much he scrubs, the smell just wont go away.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7752923/Jeremy-Corbyn-bomb-makers-friend-IRA-terrorist-admirer-Corbyn.html

Can you paraphrase it as I cannot see the article (have an ad-blocker on)?

IAmTheReign

liamtech wrote: »

Il tackle this bit if i may

Labours policy as i understand it will

• Fund the creation of a National Pharmaceutical Manufacturer
• This by itself creates a new publicly owned asset, which will employ a great many people
• The manufacturer will produce medication for use by the NHS - in effect it will have one client - the NHS
• Medications on which patents have expired are there to be produced at no additional cost in terms of patent
• The Agency can also pay for access to patent restricted drugs (perhaps time limited access, certainly geographical limitation will be necessary to restrict these meds for use with the UK only) - which will be supplied to the NHS
• This will save the NHS in terms of the cost of importing or purchasing meds from privately owned firms - and allow the funds which are currently used for this purpose to be redirected elsewhere

In a nutshell - good for business - good for the NHS - Good for the public - and good for the government coffers

No offence to Labour but working setting up new pharma manufacturing sites is what I do for a living and the idea that they could do this is a complete fantasy, for a couple of reasons

Firstly they're glossing over the time and cost of getting a new site ready to send product to market. It wouldn't be unusual for a new manufacturing site to take 5 years or more to complete and cost a billion dollars to get one drug process validated and licensed. Meaning, if labour were elected this month it's likely they still wouldn't have supplied anything to the NHS by the time the next election rolls round. And that would typically only cover the bulk drug substance. You then need another site to turn that into a drug product that people can actually use, as in tabletting, filling vials or syringes etc. and then they need somewhere to label and package everything. Different drugs need different methods of delivery so you might need multiple drug product sites depending on what drugs you wanted to manufacture. Most pharma sites only ever produce a handful of different products because of the time and cost involved in bringing each product to market. You need to validate the production process and get licensing from any regulatory bodies for each product. It wouldn't be unusual for process validation to take a year or more for each drug. Pharma companies can do this because they typically have a global market to sell product into to recoup costs, the UKs national pharma company wouldn't have that. The simple fact is they wouldn't have the capacity to manufacture enough different products to make any significant dent in the cost of drugs without an enormous investment of time and money.


Secondly, is the question of what drugs would they even manufacture? Sure, they could technically produce any off patent drugs but the fact is that most drugs that are easy to replicate and off patent already have generic versions available. There's no point manufacturing those when you can already get them cheaply. You need to ask what makes a drug difficult to replicate and the answer to that is how regulatory bodies licence generics. Older drugs are whats known as small molecule drugs, meaning they're easy to analyse and confirm that your generic is chemically identical to the patented product. These are the ones that are easy to produce generics of. However, most modern drugs (the expensive ones anyway) are large biomolecules with extremely complex chemical structures. Drugs like these are impossible to replicate identically and for these you need to prove that your drug is functionally identical as the drug you're replicating. This is an extremely difficult process and is the main reason that there is only a handful of generic biomolecules on the market. See here.

ArmaniJeanss

A Dub in Glasgo wrote: »

Can you paraphrase it as I cannot see the article (have an ad-blocker on)?

Corbyn helped IRA bombmaker Gerard McLaughlin to skip up the Islington housing list.

Fr Tod Umptious

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Reading the posts about a state owned pharma manufacturer making drugs for the NHS reminds me a bit of the thread we had here a few years ago about the suggestion that the Irish government should have taken over the Dell plant and started making computers.

This sort of stuff is real 1970s Labour.
Government owning everything including manufacturing.
It's not a million miles from the USSR.

That ship has sailed, leave the manufacturing to the experts.

it sits well with the socialist message though. We're taking the PROFITS from big pharma and providing jobs for the working people.

scratch the surface though and it just isn't viable.

Joe_ Public

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Seems the level of tory candidates ducking hustings is a developing pattern. Its happening all over the country and seems to be largely based on climate themed events, though not exclusively. Incredible that the widespread avoidance of scrutiny can be seen as a viable election strategy, but here we are.

Here's one candidate with a handy get out. Fooling nobody though.

https://www.hastingsobserver.co.uk/news/politics/safety-concerns-behind-hastings-and-rye-conservative-candidate-s-hustings-absence-1-9157926

in fairness, a Tory candidate sitting in a room full of extinction rebellion nutters doesn't sound like the safest thing to do.

Extinction rebellion is the new home for the same anarchists who were campaigning to "Bash the Rich" and "Stop the City". I'm not saying they are all like this, but there are a lot who are.

CelticRambler

IAmTheReign wrote: »

No offence to Labour but working setting up new pharma manufacturing sites is what I do for a living and the idea that they could do this is a complete fantasy ...

There's another aspect to this side of the HNS/public health service which hasn't had much coverage recently, and that's the cost of regulation has been aggressively reduced in recent years by ... the Big Bad EU - with their utterly daft (and unsovereign) idea that a drug tested and proven safe and effective for a Frenchman or a German would be equally safe and effective for a little Englander, and so didn't need to be re-tested and re-certified by 28 different national medicines agencies when a single European Medicines Agency could oversee the process for everyone.

So for Labour's (or any equivalent Tory) plan to work, they would first of all have to replicate the cost and function of the EMA that's recently relocated out of London because of Brexit. :rolleyes:

LuckyLloyd

CelticRambler wrote: »

Maybe it's not necessarily a bad situation for Labour if the Tories win this election and preside over Brexit and the break-up of the UK in the half-decade to come. As a party, what exactly does Labour have to gain from winning this election? They'll spend all of the first year bogged down in the pre-Brexit quagmire just like the Tories, before moving on to either a revocation of the project and taking the heat for that, or leaving the EU and setting up the Kingdom for an NI Border Poll and a Scottish IndyRef2. Five years later, the Tories will be able to point the finger at Labour and say (without any hint of irony :rolleyes: ) "see - we told you Labour would destroy the country"

The alternative is to half-heartedly fight the good fight, graciously concede defeat on the 13th December, wait five years and then point a finger at the Tories, saying "look what they've done to the country!" Westminster without NI and Scottish MPs would offer Labour a greater chance of recovering their lost majority - as long as the Welsh don't go getting all nationalistic and wanting to do something crazy like declare independence and join the EU! :pac:

If the Conservatives win a majority Friday week I’d say it’s inevitable that it ends up their last term in government. There’s historical precedent around this - no party has survived post war beyond 18 years and the longer they stay in the greater the landslide defeat when they get voted out. The complexities and nuances of Brexit have essentially gifted them another half decade that their domestic record would have prevented occurring otherwise.

Given the economic projections that underpin Brexit and the reality that individual sectors will have to be sacrificed in the coming trade negotiations, the next election when it comes (with Brexit “done” but inarguably a bad thing) will see them decisively rejected at the polls.

No amount of dirty tricks or negative campaigning will stop that, and it’s likely Labour are going to lurch back towards Blairism again following this defeat.

Thus an eventual Labour victory will not be a victory for the left, though it may be a victory for competence when it comes.

IAmTheReign

Aegir wrote: »

in fairness, a Tory candidate sitting in a room full of extinction rebellion nutters doesn't sound like the safest thing to do.

Extinction rebellion is the new home for the same anarchists who were campaigning to "Bash the Rich" and "Stop the City". I'm not saying they are all like this, but there are a lot who are.

Hang on, her PR person claimed he pulled her from the event because of a protest that wasn't on that night based on advice he claimed he received from police but was actually made up.

Seems to me the only nutter in this story is the one making up events and conversations.

IAmTheReign

CelticRambler wrote: »

There's another aspect to this side of the HNS/public health service which hasn't had much coverage recently, and that's the cost of regulation has been aggressively reduced in recent years by ... the Big Bad EU - with their utterly daft (and unsovereign) idea that a drug tested and proven safe and effective for a Frenchman or a German would be equally safe and effective for a little Englander, and so didn't need to be re-tested and re-certified by 28 different national medicines agencies when a single European Medicines Agency could oversee the process for everyone.

So for Labour's (or any equivalent Tory) plan to work, they would first of all have to replicate the cost and function of the EMA that's recently relocated out of London because of Brexit. :rolleyes:

Well I was going to get into the fact that a large part of the cost of bringing a drug to market is down to meeting all the regulatory requirements and of course after Brexit the UK government are free to manufacture drugs to whatever lax standards they want as long as they don't leave the country. Nothing screams taking back control like poisoning your own people!:pac:

Joe_ Public

Aegir wrote: »

in fairness, a Tory candidate sitting in a room full of extinction rebellion nutters doesn't sound like the safest thing to do.

Extinction rebellion is the new home for the same anarchists who were campaigning to "Bash the Rich" and "Stop the City". I'm not saying they are all like this, but there are a lot who are.

Well, sure, those nutters who have been responsible for....wait, how many threats or attacks on conservative politicians? Granted, its as good excuse as any i would concede.

Its nothing new anyway, only the explanations. Apologies in advance for the partisan link, only to show we have been here before.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/no-show-tory-candidates-pulling-10570816

quokula

Great article from Peter Oborne on the state of the media in the UK

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/03/election-coverage-bbc-tories


Peter is a right-leaning journalist who was pro-Brexit a few years ago but changed stance when the facts became clearer, and who has more recently become something of a lone voice in crusading for truth and integrity in journalism, vigorously defending Corbyn against the many smears for example, while totally disagreeing with his economic policies.

liamtech

Aegir wrote: »

it sits well with the socialist message though. We're taking the PROFITS from big pharma and providing jobs for the working people.

scratch the surface though and it just isn't viable.

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Reading the posts about a state owned pharma manufacturer making drugs for the NHS reminds me a bit of the thread we had here a few years ago about the suggestion that the Irish government should have taken over the Dell plant and started making computers.

This sort of stuff is real 1970s Labour.
Government owning everything including manufacturing.
It's not a million miles from the USSR.

That ship has sailed, leave the manufacturing to the experts.

IAmTheReign wrote: »

No offence to Labour but working setting up new pharma manufacturing sites is what I do for a living and the idea that they could do this is a complete fantasy, for a couple of reasons

Firstly they're glossing over the time and cost of getting a new site ready to send product to market. It wouldn't be unusual for a new manufacturing site to take 5 years or more to complete and cost a billion dollars to get one drug process validated and licensed. Meaning, if labour were elected this month it's likely they still wouldn't have supplied anything to the NHS by the time the next election rolls round. And that would typically only cover the bulk drug substance. You then need another site to turn that into a drug product that people can actually use, as in tabletting, filling vials or syringes etc. and then they need somewhere to label and package everything. Different drugs need different methods of delivery so you might need multiple drug product sites depending on what drugs you wanted to manufacture. Most pharma sites only ever produce a handful of different products because of the time and cost involved in bringing each product to market. You need to validate the production process and get licensing from any regulatory bodies for each product. It wouldn't be unusual for process validation to take a year or more for each drug. Pharma companies can do this because they typically have a global market to sell product into to recoup costs, the UKs national pharma company wouldn't have that. The simple fact is they wouldn't have the capacity to manufacture enough different products to make any significant dent in the cost of drugs without an enormous investment of time and money.


Secondly, is the question of what drugs would they even manufacture? Sure, they could technically produce any off patent drugs but the fact is that most drugs that are easy to replicate and off patent already have generic versions available. There's no point manufacturing those when you can already get them cheaply. You need to ask what makes a drug difficult to replicate and the answer to that is how regulatory bodies licence generics. Older drugs are whats known as small molecule drugs, meaning they're easy to analyse and confirm that your generic is chemically identical to the patented product. These are the ones that are easy to produce generics of. However, most modern drugs (the expensive ones anyway) are large biomolecules with extremely complex chemical structures. Drugs like these are impossible to replicate identically and for these you need to prove that your drug is functionally identical as the drug you're replicating. This is an extremely difficult process and is the main reason that there is only a handful of generic biomolecules on the market. See here.

Right there are a number of posts on this and i cannot reply to all of them specifically - and again with the Caveat that i am not an expert in this field (which will no doubt be thrown back at me repeatedly - im fine with that) -

it seems this idea Labour has is being attacked on two fronts

- ONE with actual evidence, which i accept, but can still argue FOR the idea on the basis that it is possible through nationalization of some existing manufacturing, and the creation of an overall NDM incorporating both pre-existing and new facilities - There is also the idea that Pharma companies in the UK, have for many years, received investment for research in the UK - and this continuing investment, can be seen as leverage over the industry in the UK, in attempting to make medication cheaper

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-state-drug-company-labour-medicine-cheap-conference-a9118851.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-politics-labour-medicines/uk-labour-party-pledges-to-regulate-pharmaceutical-market-idUSKBN1W92D5

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-state-drug-company-prescription-fees-jeremy-corbyn-nhs-a9157641.html

Im also happy to acknowledge that their are people here who have an expertise on Pharma/Manufacturing so i will concede right now - my idea's are based on what is being reported - and if/when i lose the argument i will simply acknowledge that this NDM plan is a new concept, and perhaps seems a bit more complicated - while still arguing FOR IT as being the right approach

TWO - It is also being attacked on purely ideological grounds - this is typical of a policy during an election campaign, but with the caveat that attacks of this type are part of the usual campaign of disinformation on the Labour Party - Communist - Far Left - fantastical - like the USSR -

I mean this sort of attitude is simply indicative of a general attack on Labour's left wing agenda - We have for weeks, had users on this thread who simply attack everything to do with UK Labour, Corbyn - while totally ignoring the farce that has enveloped the Tories, AND THE FACT that the NHS is at risk of being hollowed out by US pharma -

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/02/uk-election-halt-us-trade-talks-until-nhs-off-table-corbyn-tells-johnson

I view this political argument as being a smoke screen - I cannot reply to every post, and in fairness its not my job to do so; i am not a labbyist for Labour, nor an expert on pharmaceuticals, but if you want to DEMOLISH the idea of an NDM - do so with facts (as some have done) - if you simply wish to dance about this thread parroting the CORBYN/COMMUNISM argument, i must tell you that this is now so common, it is becoming like white noise to many. Im a leftie and a remainer - but if you examine my posts i have been highly critical of Labour, Corbyn, the Lib Dems, and several other arguably Left/remain characters -this is a BALANCED discussion for me, if you provide genuine evidence based argument against labour and its policy (which has happened around this NDM policy) you wont get substantial argument from me

- while many PRO-BREXIT/TORY-FANS simply remain entirely partisan, and ignore obvious Tory scandals and lies - if this type of smoke-screen/politically-color-blind discussion continues, this thread will become two separate conversations, with no actual debate. users like this simply see what they want to see, defend all Tory/Pro-Brexit stances, and attack everyone who is not in line with this way of thinking - white noise - win an argument with facts and evidence if you can but understand that dancing around with the Corbyn/Communism argument is not going to change anyones mind

ancapailldorcha

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

If the Conservatives win a majority Friday week I’d say it’s inevitable that it ends up their last term in government. There’s historical precedent around this - no party has survived post war beyond 18 years and the longer they stay in the greater the landslide defeat when they get voted out. The complexities and nuances of Brexit have essentially gifted them another half decade that their domestic record would have prevented occurring otherwise.

Given the economic projections that underpin Brexit and the reality that individual sectors will have to be sacrificed in the coming trade negotiations, the next election when it comes (with Brexit “done” but inarguably a bad thing) will see them decisively rejected at the polls.

No amount of dirty tricks or negative campaigning will stop that, and it’s likely Labour are going to lurch back towards Blairism again following this defeat.

Thus an eventual Labour victory will not be a victory for the left, though it may be a victory for competence when it comes.

Yeah, very much this. It's probably why the disaster capitalist wing of the party has become so strong and vocal, they know this is their last chance. They have no new ideas to speak of and seem to stand for nothing more than racism, disaster capitalism and romantic nationalism.

Either the UK leaves the EU on very soft terms which will disappoint the Brexit faithful or it leaves on hard terms or CETA+ at which point the prophesisted Unicorns will fail to materialize. Reality will kick in and we'll see the Tories out of power for a decade. Of course, it will be too late to correct the problems they caused at that point but Remain will become rejoin and much, maybe even most of the UK's talent pool will move to more pragmatic and less xenophobic shores.

If Labour do come to power in a post-Brexit Britain then their first priority will have to be either rejoining the EU or renegotiating Johnson's deal for much softer terms including paying for access to the single market, EU regulations, the four freedoms and ECJ oversight. They simply won't have time to push any sort of Socialist agenda and that's assuming that Corbyn's successor is cut from the same cloth which seems likely given Momentum's stranglehold on the party. Corbyn himself will be gone due to both his age and losing two consecutive elections against the worst leaders of the Conservative party in living memory.

CelticRambler

IAmTheReign wrote: »

Well I was going to get into the fact that a large part of the cost of bringing a drug to market is down to meeting all the regulatory requirements and of course after Brexit the UK government are free to manufacture drugs to whatever lax standards they want as long as they don't leave the country. Nothing screams taking back control like poisoning your own people!:pac:

Hey - don't knock it. It's a model that works really well for the US (well, US corporations anyway ... )

I think it's a little unfair to forensically dissect everything Labour proposes when they've gone to the trouble of presenting details (however fantastic), given that we have plenty of evidence that Johnson doesn't "do" detail at all. The British electorate, though, seems to have forgotten that that's where the devil will be found. But hey ho, only nine days to go. :pac:

quokula

It's worth looking at what Labour has said about it's plans for pharma

https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Medicines-For-The-Many.pdf

There's a lot of detail in there, a lot of citations to existing research and implementations elsewhere in the world, and a lot of talk of feasibility studies and pilot programs. They're not going to just plough in blind.

Professor Moriarty

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Yeah, very much this. It's probably why the disaster capitalist wing of the party has become so strong and vocal, they know this is their last chance. They have no new ideas to speak of and seem to stand for nothing more than racism, disaster capitalism and romantic nationalism.

Either the UK leaves the EU on very soft terms which will disappoint the Brexit faithful or it leaves on hard terms or CETA+ at which point the prophesisted Unicorns will fail to materialize. Reality will kick in and we'll see the Tories out of power for a decade. Of course, it will be too late to correct the problems they caused at that point but Remain will become rejoin and much, maybe even most of the UK's talent pool will move to more pragmatic and less xenophobic shores.

If Labour do come to power in a post-Brexit Britain then their first priority will have to be either rejoining the EU or renegotiating Johnson's deal for much softer terms including paying for access to the single market, EU regulations, the four freedoms and ECJ oversight. They simply won't have time to push any sort of Socialist agenda and that's assuming that Corbyn's successor is cut from the same cloth which seems likely given Momentum's stranglehold on the party. Corbyn himself will be gone due to both his age and losing two consecutive elections against the worst leaders of the Conservative party in living memory.

The bookies' favourites are Starmer, closely followed by Long-Bailey with Rayner and Cooper distant third and fourth. Hope Long-Bailey doesn't get it. Labour could do very well with Starmer and Cooper especially.

ancapailldorcha

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

The bookies' favourites are Starmer, closely followed by Long-Bailey with Rayner and Cooper distant third and fourth. Hope Long-Bailey doesn't get it. Labour could do very well with Starmer and Cooper especially.

I don't know. As I said, Momentum's stranglehold on the party means that it'll be someone very similar to Jeremy Corbyn who will have less electoral baggage. John McDonnell might fit the bill.

Professor Moriarty

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I don't know. As I said, Momentum's stranglehold on the party means that it'll be someone very similar to Jeremy Corbyn who will have less electoral baggage. John McDonnell might fit the bill.

I like McDonnell but he's ruled himself out. In fact, he said he will step down from the shadow cabinet if they lose the election.

sid waddell

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

If the Conservatives win a majority Friday week I’d say it’s inevitable that it ends up their last term in government. There’s historical precedent around this - no party has survived post war beyond 18 years and the longer they stay in the greater the landslide defeat when they get voted out. The complexities and nuances of Brexit have essentially gifted them another half decade that their domestic record would have prevented occurring otherwise.

Given the economic projections that underpin Brexit and the reality that individual sectors will have to be sacrificed in the coming trade negotiations, the next election when it comes (with Brexit “done” but inarguably a bad thing) will see them decisively rejected at the polls.

No amount of dirty tricks or negative campaigning will stop that, and it’s likely Labour are going to lurch back towards Blairism again following this defeat.

Thus an eventual Labour victory will not be a victory for the left, though it may be a victory for competence when it comes.

Nothing is inevitable. You're assuming that UK politics, specifically how the Tories themselves operate and are covered in the media, will exist in a framework where objective truths matter.

I think it's inarguable that that's already gone.

I think it's more likely that there will be a lurch towards the right and we'll see the Tories mutate into a sort of illiberal Trump/Viktor Orban/Erdogan type regime - full blown right-wing populist with a client media successfully manipulating enough people into a sense of eternal victimhood to keep the Tories in power for a long, long time.

Joe_ Public

Quite interesting how mcdonnell has been ever so subtly distancing himself from some of corbyns positions - scottish indy ref, antisemitism apology to name just two - which seems to indicate some kind of strategic positioning, especially in relation to the younger demographic which reflects party membership that elects leaders. I've come to like him past couple of years, has very much moderated his demeanour and approach to things, but i think leadership has gone past him. Still too much of the same as will just have left, no matter how much distance he might seek to place between them.