PlaySchool Labour

  
I suggested last year that electing Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party made about as much sense as appointing the school caretaker (janitor) as its new head teacher.

Not a bad analogy, as things have turned out, and although the appointments system has been broadened out, under new Labour Party rules, the result in some ways is akin to giving school pupils (party members) the same voice about who gets the top job as their teachers (Labour MPs).

Now that's a good thing you might say since a political party is not a school and more direct democracy has to be welcomed, generally speaking, except that other 'outside' interests also have a big say in who should become Labour leader, such as trade union bosses like Len McCluskey and 'registered' Labour supporters.

Meanwhile, going back to the school analogy, the parents (Labour voters) and the wider community (the electorate) are forced to sit on the sidelines while this unedifying drama is being played out viewing developments with a mixture of detached interest, horror and bemusement.

In effect the 'glue' which held the old system together by giving MPs a strong say in who should become their leader has been discarded and, amazingly enough, the weighted voting of the old electoral college has been replaced by something even more dysfunctional.

So we now have a standoff in which the majority of Labour MPs have no confidence in their leader, but nonetheless the pupils and supporters are now running the school while sticking two fingers up at the 'establishment'. 

Will the school start to function again, will the staff begin to leave or will the parents and wider community vote with their feet? 

I don't know to be honest al though I would say that having lived through Old Labour and then New Labour, I never thought I'd see the day of PlaySchool Labour.

Willie for Leader! (05/08/15)

Where is Gordon Brown when you need him?

The former prime minister is regarded, in some quarters, as an intellectual heavyweight within the Labour party, one of the key architects of the New Labour project who understood the need for his party to make itself electable again.

But as Labour flirts with the idea of electing Jeremy Corbyn as its new leader, Gordon is nowhere to be seen or heard, even though the former Iron Chancellor is well placed to explain that Labour needs a Marxist economic programme like it needs an extra hole in its head at the moment.

Alan Johnson, the avuncular and well-liked former Labour minister, has come off the fence with an article in The Guardian calling on Labour members to end the Corbyn 'madness' and you can read what he has to say via the following link:     

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/04/labour-yvette-cooper-jeremy-corbyn-alan-johnson

In effect Johnson is arguing that Jeremy Corbyn is simply not up to the job of leading the Labour party or becoming a Labour prime minister in 2020, which is a devastating comment coming from some who is not normally associated with personal attacks on his political friends or foes.

I agree with Johnson's assessment although I would put things this way - if the Labour party were to elect Jeremy Corbyn as leader it would be like appointing the school janitor as the school's new head teacher.

Now I can see what fun some of the kids can see in Groundskeeper Willie replacing Principal Skinner, but on sober reflection I've no doubt that even Homer Simpson would take a very different view.