O/T Tom Watson.

Not his constituents, no, but Momentum would have pushed him eventually. A good, principled man. I’m sorry he’s decided to step down.

 

I didn't see an explanation. I'm entitled to reach my own conclusion based on a well documented dislike that Tom Watson has always had for Corbyn. If you're happy not to find it odd the deputy leader resigns five weeks before an election, then that is also your right.

 

But you haven't voted for Labour since 1997 so you can't have liked Tom Watson or his politics either?

 

Brought about the death of the Labour Party through his actions in that West Brom curry house in 2006, so no sympathy from me.

 

I've always considered Tom Watson to be an odious little man. His joy of being one of Gordon Browns "attack dogs" that continually undermined Blair. His self restyled image to be a doer of good routing out corruption and his participation in Leveson... but then going further with his supposed overstepping of the investigation into a powerful tory led paedophile ring that has been hugely criticised of late.

I'm no fan of the man, but I find it troubling that so much time and effort have been invested by Corbyns cronies to push him out of the party and trying to usurp his position.

I'm not a fan of Ian Austin either and feel his views of voting Tory to block Corbyn aren't the right way either, but you cant help look at his words and expressions but understand he means them and feels Labour isn't the party it was just 5 years ago.

I can understand left leaning voters liking some of the policies. I can even moderately understand (though not hold the same view myself) that some people look at Corbyn as a deity with saint like qualities. But what I don't understand is the ignorance towards this nasty shift, of pushing and aiming to deselect people within Labour who have a moderately different thought, who wish to run the party better, improve it and make it more broad ranging to enhance its appeal to be in power.

There is an absolute lack of congruence between what you see in public glare, and what happens when the door is closed to onward lookers. I know many will disagree, but Corbyn and Johnson aren't that dissimilar. It come from different places, but what they are each doing to their parties is frighteningly similar.

 

Correct but not left wing enough for Comrade Corbyn..

 

Good post.

There are those who are well within their rights to denigrate a referendum result, and instead espouse parliamentary democracy.

However if the parliamentarians themselves are mere ideological puppets, carefully vetted and selected by the party for their unwavering commitment to the cause, then there'd be no point in debates and votes, no point in parliament, because nobody would ever be swayed by any argument.

How our MPs get selected in the first place deserves more scrutiny than ever before.

 

What breaks my heart is that there were huge people of talent and competence that could have molded the political direction of Corbyn in to game changing and electoral winning policies. But when Corbyn was elected as leader they chose to disengage and not serve under him. And when he unexpectedly increased the Labour vote (share and seats) at the last election they became even more entrenched and critical rather than considering whether they may have been wrong. See Stephen Kinnock's almost dismayed reaction to the unexpected outcome in 2017.

The net result is many in the Labour Party, particularly people of my generation and younger, feel like the current Labour policies have never been given a fair chance. They feel like they've been hampered by their own party. I wonder if some of those MPs wish they'd embraced the change of direction. Because if they had it would have either resulted in electoral success OR failure, and people would have accepted that Corbyn had been given a fair chance and would therefore be gone by now.

I would love to have seen what could have happened with Labour's current policies honed by the minds of people like Yvette Cooper and the oratory skills of a Burnham or an Umuna and a party united behind it. Sadly they chose to disengage, undermine or even walk away.

As much as people talk about the cult of Corbyn it was the manifesto that was the star at the last election.

 

Whatever Tom Watson's excuses are for leaving parliament is a matter for him. Me personally I think Tom does not look very well I hope I'm wrong.

 

Was thinking the same thing myself ,
Wish him well and a long future in his next venture.

 

interesting post.... what if though, they weren’t allowed the chance? What if they were ignored, ostracised and undermined at every opportunity?

And what if the replacement machine was chaotic, flighty, slow to respond and unorganised?

I’ll be interested who the next leader is from january onwards and if that allows all the allegations suddenly get light of day.

 

He was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and massively changed his lifestyle to lose loads of weight and reverse it I believe. I understand books are in the pipeline.