Hattersly on Corbyn
On the BBC's World at One the other day Roy Hattersley, deputy leader of the Labour party under Neil Kinnock, was scathing about Jeremy Corbyn's leadership and Labour'c chances in the June general election.
Now Hattersly is no great fan of Today Blair, but he made the point that there are 10 or so Labour MPs who are credible alternative leaders who should be speaking out against Jeremy Corbyn before it's too late.
Here's the most telling part of what Roy Hattersly had to say and you have to ask yourself if Labour stalwarts like hime have no confidence in Corbyn - why would anyone else?
"The situation in the Labour party is far worse than it was in 1983 ... I think there’s half a dozen, perhaps 10, members of parliament in the Labour party who would make perfectly good leaders. They ought to be speaking out for the real Labour party rather than let all the running go to policies which are divisive and doomed to failure.
"The Labour party will continue. Democratic socialism is far too strong an idea to be defeated completely. But we may be out of power for the next two or three general elections. And Neil Kinnock says not again in his lifetime, which may be an overstatement of either his health or the Labour party’s condition. But it will be a long period unless we pull our fingers out straight away and start, some people, talking about the real Labour party and what it stands for.
"There is no future in a split. The Labour party can be put right as long as people start working on it now. But what we want is people saying this is the real Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn’s ideas are not the Labour party’s ideas, we stand for something better and different and more electable ...
"The idea of going slow, waiting for [the party] to implode is a terrible mistake. We need to reassure people in the country there is a real Labour party. There are many people I meet every day [who] say what’s happening to the Labour party. What we need to convince them is what’s happening is temporary and there are better people [who] can do a better job."
