The New Statesman declines to endorse Corbyn

If there was one endorsement at election time which Labour can usually rely on, it is that of the New Statesman.

Not this time.

I don't agree with their general approach to politics or with most of the rest of the editorial linked to here which refuses to endorse any party in the present election.

But to any reader who thinks that the concerns about Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party are all "smears" put together by the "right-wing press," the fact that a magazine which is sufficiently left-wing to put forward the other views in this article has also published the paragraphs which explain why they cannot endorse Labour under Jeremy Corbyn should come as a wake-up call.

Comments

Gary Bullivant said…
Very brave of you to highlight this becaause he has now apologised and the Labour Party's position on Brexit is clear enough whatever he thinks personally. It should appeal to a lot of those who occupy the centre ground, left or right leaning. I am a soft leaver because it's the ever increasing political integration I object to. As a result I don't like the idea of delay and I don't like the idea that the last referendum can be overturned. I'd prefer to take Boris's deal but drop Boris, the risk of no deal and the referendum. I can't trust Mrs Harrison to resist further preferment so, because he appears only to have temporarily lent his support to Mr Corbyn, Mr Lywood is looking like a really good choice for me and my WASPI wife. His CV looks pretty blue too (property landlord, businessman, prvate school education, 80's Uni degree). Looking forward to the hustings Friday.
11:04 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Don't quite see how you get to most of those conclusions - what Labour is offering in most of those areas is exactly what you say you don't want.
10:31 pm
Anonymous said…
Let me try to make it clearer. As a young man studying PPE at undergraduate level I voted to join the EEC in a referendum. As an old man with experience of life I recognise that Boris and his mates really can't be trusted and I sense a hard Brexit is inevitable if there is a Conservative working majority, as may well happen. Mr Corbyn will not survive another failed election and Mr Lywood is just the sort of MP the Labour Party needs to help to haul it back to the centre when he does. Mrs Harrison, so easily convinced to bag carry for Mr Williamson, is not very likely to help haul the Conservative Party back to One Nation territory any time soon.
3:53 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
First of all, I am not going to let your description of yourself as an "old man" go unchallenged.

If you voted in the 1975 referendum as an undergraduate then I presume you must now be in your early sixties - indeed, probably almost exactly the same age as Cllr Lywood - and whatever else I might think about his suitability to be our MP he is certainly not past it and neither are you.

However, I have a number of fairly serious difficulties with the position you laid, out, of which the more fundamental is that a vote to make Tony Lywood MP for Copeland is NOT and cannot be a vote for an opposition MP to guide Labour back to the centre after Jeremy Corbyn has failed to become Prime Minister.

It is a vote to make Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister.

In the context of this election, in which the Conservatives are likely to be gaining ground in heavily "leave" areas like Copeland and losing ground in "Remain" areas, then if the Conservatives lose seats like Copeland it is likely to mean the next government will be some sort of arrangement between Labour and the SNP, since the Lib/Dems say they will not support either a Conservative or a Labour government.

If you want a Corbyn government, then you have every right to vote for one, but don't kid yourself that voting Labour in Copeland in 2019 can possibly be anything other than a vote for that outcome.

I have worked with both Tony Lywood and Trudy Harrison for approximately two and a half years. I'm not a fan of the sort of politics which involves denouncing your opponents as bad people and I'm not going to get into an argument about what they are like as people which could all too easily end up in that sort of territory.

I would suggest, however, that you ask yourself carefully whether the arguments you have posted on my blog about those two individuals are internally consistent. I don't think they are.

10:29 pm
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