This does not make him look good. Is he or is he not the leader of the party?
Of course. It just looks bad all round.Aye, but carrying on with it and possibly facing weeks of infighting wouldn't make him look good either, an unneeded bit of self harm whatever and whoever started it.
This does not make him look good. Is he or is he not the leader of the party?
McCluskey is the boss.
I've lost count the amount of own goals scored by Labour since 2016.
Corbyn's polling numbers, labour's dreadful europe election and council results has nothing to do with Tom Watson.
Ah, that was a debunked number. The site who opted to use that number, actually used the number of times he was mentioned in the media as the basis for the claim. Labours own numbers have him at;
10 EU Rallies
A bus launch
A Sky News debate, Andrew Marr twice, Peston once
6 statements in HoC, and 10 PMQs
Two Op-Eds (Observer, The Mirror)
That said, I don't think any other MP has been scrutinised so much for the amount of Remain support they gave, which is all honesty, pretty fair given his previous stance on the EU, and him being the LotO at the time. I would like numbers for other prolific remain MPs but I don't think it's likely to obtain them, precisely due to the lack of scrutiny on their position.
For as long as I can remember one of the laws of UK politics is the winning party has to be or look united, if you have splits on big issues, if own people infer the leadership is cool with bigotry, isn't in control etc then how do you convince people to vote for you.
Well considering we have the most shambolic government in history and yet Labour are in danger of slipping into third and have done in a poll already and almost in another, how can anyone see them winning an election when they have the worst rated leader in living memory and his cult in charge. I was a lifelong labour voter, voted every election from 1992 until 2010 for them, helped my local mp campaign in several elections. Now I cannot justify voting for a party who was in involved in fake promises and lies during the Scottish Independence referendum, which I stupidly bought into.
Watson can fuck off.
Labour look weak keeping him as deputy PM.
Time to get rid
It's really really not. Watson constantly uses his platform to trash Corbyn and Labour. There is no indication, at all, this would stop during any GE campaign.
It's really really not. Watson constantly uses his platform to trash Corbyn and Labour. There is no indication, at all, this would stop during any GE campaign.
They more or less stopped in GE2017. This move is simply bad optics and bad PR. It will overshadow the rest of the conference.
The deputy leaders attacks on the leader more or less stopping during a GE campaign is far from a good reason to keep him.
Tory's have managed to get votes in spite of this for years though...
The good reason for keeping him right now is the PR shitstorm that it will and is causing, this is especially bad so close to a GE.
Pull the plaster.
The PR fallout from keeping him on and having to deal with his constant sniping would be far worse
If Corbyn steps in to calm things down is Tom Watson going to wind his neck in and actually do his job though? I just don't know. Maybe the damage is already done.The good reason for keeping him right now is the PR shitstorm that it will and is causing if it goes through, this is especially bad so close to a GE.
true which is why Tom Watson shouldn't be making up his own policies and having press conferences the day after the leadership decide on something. That's not a united front.If they had done this in 2017 it would be another story, what part of a GE is coming don't people understand. The one focus should be getting rid of the Tories not causing a party civil war.
Since March apparently, yeah.Has Watson really not attended an NEC meeting for 6 months? That can't be right.
Whatever you think of Watson this is a really shitty thing to do.
Whatever you think of Watson this is a really shitty thing to do.
Oh no, Blair is going to attack Corbyn again, that'll be something new....
If Blair, Brown etc want any influence with Corbyn they need to, occasionally, support him
Whatever you think of Watson this is a really shitty thing to do.
Whatever the reasoning, it'll get spun as Labour's Marxist cabal erasing centrist views from the party.
It'll really help the poor and needy for Labour to be infighting and slipping further from power.
I'm not gonna argue with anything else cus I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, but I just wanna point out that the left wing government thing isn't necessarily true, not directly at least. Many left wing policies are very popular with the general population. In fact, some research (by BMG) I've seen actually puts 55% of the population at left wing economic views. It's just that some with those views vote for right wing parties for other reasons.
The hard left of the Labour party have no concept of optics. This whole thing shouldn't be happening in the first place, the quicker Corbyn comes out and says something the better.
This is so disingenuous because Tom Watson isn't the bastion of moderate centre politics in the Labour party. As someone else said on the last page if someone like Kier Starmer was put forward as deputy leader he'd win easily even though he's been at odds with Corbyn over brexit for years and supported the other candidates in both leadership elections. But he also isn't a massive fucking prick about everything and doesn't use his platform to constantly trash the party and undermine the leadership. Tom Watson is just shit at his job and is only there because the rules are outdated and the members have no other way to voice their disapproval. This is the nuclear option.The policies are fine it's the party that's the problem. The mainstream don't want to vote for a party overrun by a hard left that is self obsessed with purity tests and infighting with a damp squib of a leader.
To win elections, political parties have to be united and welcoming open churches. If Tom Watson isn't pure enough to be part of the Labour party then what message does that send to the average voter in a Tory/Labour marginal who may just want better schools and an NHS but isn't part of the socialist struggle.
How does this action on the eve of an election possibly make the party more appealing to precisely the sort of voters that Labour need to prevent a catastrophic Tory majority and No Deal Brexit?
This is so disingenuous because Tom Watson isn't the bastion of moderate centre politics in the Labour party. As someone else said on the last page if someone like Kier Starmer was put forward as deputy leader he'd win easily even though he's been at odds with Corbyn over brexit for years and supported the other candidates in both leadership elections. But he also isn't a massive fucking prick about everything and doesn't use his platform to constantly trash the party and undermine the leadership. Tom Watson is just shit at his job and is only there because the rules are outdated and the members have no other way to voice their disapproval. This is the nuclear option.
The hard right of the party went after a cancer patient. A cancer patient who still does her job, unlike a certain deputy leader.
Fuck your optics. You think the left playing nicely nicely will change how the Mail, Telegraph, BBC, etc. treat them? come off it.