tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/owen-smith-29294/articlesOwen Smith – The Conversation2016-09-22T15:02:48Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/656802016-09-22T15:02:48Z2016-09-22T15:02:48ZWhy do we treat political party members as oddballs and zealots?<blockquote>
<p>It’s all very well enthusing party members, but what about the wider public? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>If any question can summarise the Labour leadership contest, this is surely a decent candidate.</p>
<p>For many, the two contenders in this election have had their eyes on different constituencies. Leader Jeremy Corbyn, it is said, revels in his bond with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/poll-says-66-of-labour-members-support-corbyn-but-its-hard-to-find-a-friend-in-parliament-51002">party membership</a> and struggles to speak beyond it. He is more concerned with denouncing austerity than addressing the aspirations of ordinary voters.</p>
<p>Corbyn’s challenger <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/owen-smith-29294">Owen Smith</a>, on the other hand, is seen as aiming to connect with the larger population. They are battling to decide who the party will speak for – members first and voters second, or vice versa.</p>
<p>This distinction between voters and members reflects a long-term suspicion of the latter. They are typically seen as a different species from the ordinary citizen. They have their own concerns and a set of passions that others do not share – hence comparisons with <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/26/jeremy-corbyns-labour-party-is-a-cult-even-losing-his-shadow-cab/">religious sects</a>. </p>
<p>Members’ attachment to the party tends to be presented as an identity – the expression of a personality type rather than the outcome of a reasoned decision. Voters choose, whereas members just are. Their views are an extension of their characters: well they would say that wouldn’t they?</p>
<h2>A conscious choice</h2>
<p>But what were members before they were members? They were ordinary citizens of course. No-one in modern Britain is born into a political party: it is a status chosen by the previously unaligned. The category is inherently elastic. A story like Labour’s, of expanding membership, is already a story about the larger population.</p>
<p>The habit of dividing up the electoral universe is a longstanding part of our political culture. Democracy has always tended to be accompanied by efforts to discern laws of behaviour. The idea is to divide people into separate and largely stable groups – voters, elites, members and so on – in order to chart patterns and make predictions.</p>
<p>Each has a distinct personality type, each their own set of attitudes. Those we attribute to the party member can be traced to a broader suspicion of political commitment. Viewed as those who stick relentlessly to their cause, members are those who stand for the intrusion of passions on civilised society. They are the kind of people who do not know how to compromise – probably mad, possibly bad. </p>
<h2>Rising numbers</h2>
<p>But if it was ever possible to view party members as a world unto themselves, it is unfeasible at a time when levels of membership are fluid. When large numbers are joining Labour – and in recent years also the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/green-party-5002">Greens</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/snp-3033">SNP</a> – there can be no denying that plenty are members by choice, not identity. And given we cannot know what the ceiling to these numbers will be, and what factors genuinely limit them, we can hardly mark sharp boundaries between party members and ordinary citizens.</p>
<p>Nor should we want to. Even the detached observer must surely baulk at the negative way party members are being portrayed in this contest. Joining a party is one way to seek to improve society. It means taking a stand on important issues, in a measured and rule-bound way. To join a party is a classic way to exercise the rights and responsibilities of a citizen.</p>
<p>Rather than rising numbers, it is party decline that has been more commonly observed in recent years, in Britain and well beyond. Revealingly, when a party is abandoned by its members, this tends to be read as a valid judgement cast – a sign of the party’s irrelevance or folly. We are comfortable attributing reflection to those who leave a party: those who join one tend to be viewed more sceptically.</p>
<p>But as long as one is broadly committed to some notion of party democracy, the decision of individuals to join parties demands to be seen as no less reasoned than the decision of others to abstain or to leave.</p>
<p>Indeed, rather than see members as the oddity, perhaps it is time we saw non-aligned citizens simply as people who are yet to find their party.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Meaning of Partisanship, by Jonathan White and Lea Ypi, will appear with Oxford University Press in early October 2016. Jonathan is a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>The Labour leadership contest is discussed as though people inside and outside the party were a different species.Jonathan White, Associate Professor (Reader) of European Politics, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/634832016-08-08T08:40:53Z2016-08-08T08:40:53ZHow unions still influence the Labour Party leadership contest<p>Trade unions constitute a sizeable influence in the Labour Party. This goes back to the party’s founding, which <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/pages/history-of-the-labour-party">grew out of the trade union movement</a>. Continual changes to the party’s governance by its last four leaders have attempted to reduce this influence, but, as Jeremy Corbyn’s enduring popularity among party members shows, unions – and the left – are now more dominant in Labour than at any time in the last generation.</p>
<p>Already, four unions (<a href="http://www.aslef.org.uk/information/100012/144564/aslef_backs_jeremy__again/">Aslef</a>, <a href="http://www.cwu.org/media/news/2016/august/02/corbyn-sets-out-people-s-manifesto/">CWU</a>, <a href="http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-7317-Corbyn-gains-another-union-backer-for-leadership#.V6Q9q0YrLIU">TSSA</a> and <a href="https://www.ucatt.org.uk/ucatt-nominate-jeremy-corbyn-labour-leader">UCATT</a>) have declared for Corbyn against his challenger, Owen Smith (who so far has the backing of two unions, <a href="http://www.community-tu.org/community-backs-owen-smith-labour-leadership/">Community</a> and the <a href="http://www.musiciansunion.org.uk/Home/News/2016/Aug/MU-Executive-Committee-votes-to-endorse-Owen-S-(1)">Musician’s Union</a>. Other unions, including the largest two unions, Unite and UNISON as well as the FBU and BFAWU, are expected to back Corbyn in the weeks ahead. So most unions’ goal will be to get Corbyn re-elected as party leader on September 24 and help him become elected as a Labour prime minister in the next general election.</p>
<p>So what, in practice, does union support mean? For Corbyn, the mere formality of individual union backing is important. Not to have this would be seen as a startling rebuke, given that he is a man of the left, that unions have long wanted the politics that he espouses, and that he received such backing from most affiliated unions last time (and a few unaffiliated, but important, unions like the RMT, and the then, FBU). </p>
<p>But beyond this, the situation is more complex. Union support does not now readily translate into guaranteed votes for their chosen candidates. Ed Miliband’s <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ed-miliband-labour-party-reforms-will-bring-people-back-into-politics-9162294.html">reforms</a> abolished the electoral college (where affiliated unions held one third of the votes) for electing the leader and meant that unions could no longer affiliate members en masse. Now union members wishing to be affiliated party members have to individually and explicitly opt in to membership. </p>
<p>This reform saw the number of union affiliated members fall drastically but that does not mean that unions have lost their influence in Labour. As business supporters have <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11862424/Labours-biggest-individual-donor-to-stop-funding-party-after-Jeremy-Corbyns-victory.html">deserted Labour</a>, the party has become more dependent upon union financial donations, and especially from the biggest union, Unite. (Milibands’s reforms also created the new category of registered supporter, allowing those paying £3 and supporting Labour policies, to have a vote in electing the party leader.) </p>
<p>Indeed, individual unions, whether affiliated or not, can still provide funding, resources and activists for Corbyn’s leadership campaign. This ultimately means hard cash donations in order to hire meeting venues and staff, and pay for transport; facilitating access so that campaign material gets to members’ email and home addresses; as well as phonebanks to call members and activists to pound the streets.</p>
<h2>Shifting pattern of support</h2>
<p>The key question is then what impact does this have: will individual and affiliated members vote; and will individual members and affiliated members – as well as registered supporters – be swayed by what their unions tells them?</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/sep/26/labour-leadership-results-election#data">evidence</a> from the 2010 Labour leadership contest suggested that the vast majority of affiliated members did not vote. Of those that did, many did not vote the way their unions suggested they should, with not all affiliated unions supporting Miliband. The more left wings unions supported Diane Abbott.</p>
<p>But the 2015 leadership contest, conducted under the new rules and with a clearly emerging shift to the left, exhibited a different pattern. Overall <a href="http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/labour-leadership-election-results-live-10039865">turnout</a> was up from 71% to 76% and the electorate was vastly enlarged. Individual members and registered supporters now vastly outnumbered affiliated members (that is, most of the union members eligible to vote).</p>
<p>If the same pattern is followed in 2016, the greatest help unions can give Corbyn will be to provide the resources not to target their own affiliated members but rather those of individual members and registered supporters (who may or may not be members of affiliated unions), given how plentiful individual membership and registered support now are in contrast to the shrivelled number of affiliated members. </p>
<p>Given that Corbyn is likely to win, the battle to advance union influence in his project for a radical left politics will then enter a new stage after the result is announced on September 24. He will need not only continuing union support to round on his critics but also union help – where unions sponsor a majority of Labour MPs – to move against his opposition in the Parliamentary Labour Party. In other words, unions will need to organise their party activists to help deselect the mutinous MPs as prospective parliamentary candidates and put in their place “Corbynistas”.</p>
<p>More than this though, a critical and wide-ranging battle needs to be fought. This is to speak to the wider electorate (including the 7m union members) and convince them of Corbyn’s case as a Labour prime minister in waiting that is worth voting for. In the <a href="http://www.billybragg.co.uk/music/album.php?albumID=10">words of left-wing singer-songwriter, Billy Bragg</a>, unions need to do much more than <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZaYEniPaJg">“be active with the activists”</a> and “reach to the converted”. If they want the “Great Leap Forward”, they need to recognise the revolution they seek is much more than just “an activists’ T-shirt away”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63483/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregor Gall is editor of the Scottish Left Review and director of the Jimmy Reid Foundation. He is not a member of a political party.</span></em></p>Despite attempts to curb union power, they still exert a huge amount of influence over the Labour Party.Gregor Gall, Professor of Industrial Relations, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/628502016-07-22T11:02:43Z2016-07-22T11:02:43ZLabour leadership election: meet the candidates<p>Jeremy Corbyn’s unexpected victory in the party leadership contest last year moved Labour to the left, and the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/11/labour-jeremy-corbyn-clear-alternative-tory-austerity-needs-presented">rejection of austerity</a> that came with it has helped to stop the “Tory-lite” and “they’re all the same” accusations being levelled at the party.</p>
<p>But now that former shadow business secretary Angela Eagle has triggered a leadership contest (before stepping aside for Owen Smith), Labour members have to consider whether somebody else should carry its new leftist banner.</p>
<p>As leader, Corbyn has successfully challenged the Tories’ austerity narrative, overseen a dramatic growth in party membership and changed Labour’s outlook. The party’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/13/revealed-how-jeremy-corbyn-has-reshaped-the-labour-party">leftward shift</a> means that this year’s leadership contest is being fought by two socialist candidates, albeit of different shades of red. The end of the New Labour era is upon us.</p>
<h2>The incumbant</h2>
<p>Early indications are that the incumbent leader Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North since 1983, starts in the strongest position. His promise to deliver a “new kind of politics” is being credited for the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/29/labour-corbyn-membership-momentum-movement-voters">huge increase</a> in party membership.</p>
<p>He is maintaining his position on the key issues, believing that members who voted overwhelmingly for him last time expect the party to continue to fight for the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36778135">“things that matter”</a>: rejecting austerity, battling poverty and protecting the NHS.</p>
<p>And as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/chilcot-inquiry">Chilcot report</a> hangs heavily over some in the party, Corbyn’s principled opposition to the Iraq war may feature in foreign policy debates.</p>
<p>Corbyn won significant support last year and appears to still have the backing of the membership and <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/07/major-unions-pledge-their-support-jeremy-corbyn-leadership-challenge-looms">trade unions</a>, although there is some suggestion that this may be <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/20/labour-supporters-have-cooled-on-corbyn-guardian-survey-finds">changing</a>.</p>
<p>However, losing the support of the parliamentary party remains a significant problem and he still has work to do to convince the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-jeremy-corbyn-labour-tories-poll-all-time-low-general-election-a7134761.html">wider electorate</a>.</p>
<h2>The challenger</h2>
<p>Owen Smith is less well known than Corbyn. He has only been MP for Pontypridd for six years. This opens him up to the charge of not having the necessary experience to be leader. However, David Cameron had less parliamentary experience before he became Tory leader.</p>
<p>His relative newness could even be an advantage. Smith can portray himself as the “change” candidate who will move Labour on from the past as he is untainted by the Iraq War and was not in parliament during the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown years.</p>
<p>Smith was Corbyn’s shadow work and pensions secretary, voted for increasing welfare payments and against the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/bedroom-tax">bedroom tax</a>. And his campaign has put tackling inequality at the heart of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/17/smith-focus-labour-leadership-campaign-tackling-inequality">Labour’s programme</a>.</p>
<p>His past role as head of policy for a drugs company and his vote to renew nuclear weapons system <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-british-politicians-find-it-so-hard-to-vote-against-nuclear-weapons-62655">Trident</a> will not play well with left-wingers. His experience outside parliament, however, could be an advantage with an electorate that has grown sceptical of MPs who have only ever been part of the “Westminster bubble”. Smith won the support of 90 Labour MPs to stand in this contest, even when Eagle was still in the running, but as yet party members <a href="http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9737">aren’t convinced</a>.</p>
<h2>The issues</h2>
<p>Both Corbyn and Smith agree that fighting inequality must be central to Labour policy, and both are against the Tories’ austerity policies. Smith wants a £200 billion <a href="http://leftfootforward.org/2016/07/watch-owen-smiths-barnstorming-speech-about-inequality-and-his-british-new-deal/">new deal</a> to build social infrastructure, such as hospitals and education facilities. </p>
<p>Corbyn, meanwhile, has made fighting austerity an integral part of his leadership. He has forced the government into <a href="http://labourlist.org/2016/07/jeremy-corbyns-letter-to-labour-members/">u-turns</a> over aspects of welfare policy.</p>
<p>One of the main differences between the two candidates at this point is their approach to Brexit. Corbyn has been widely criticised for not committing to the Remain campaign ahead of the referendum and, the day after the vote, called for Article 50 to be immediately invoked, so that negotiations on leaving the EU could begin.</p>
<p>Smith, on the other hand, has promised to hold a referendum on Brexit negotiations, arguing that many people feel they made a mistake in voting to leave and should be given another chance to decide if they want to go ahead with leaving after seeing the terms on offer for Britain’s future relationship with the union.</p>
<h2>The big question</h2>
<p>A broader philosophical question also needs answering: what’s the point of the Labour Party? Careful consideration of this could allow Labour to move on from some of its more divisive issues. If members decide that it is to effect change – radical or gradual – from the top down when in government, then Smith will win. If they believe that building a mass movement which stays true to its principles at all costs is just as important, then Corbyn will continue as leader.</p>
<p>Members must now decide who is best placed to unite the parliamentary party and the wider Labour movement. They must also consider who will appeal most to non-Labour voters. In short, which of the candidates looks most like a potential Prime Minister to the wider electorate?</p>
<p>Both Corbyn and Smith now have an opportunity to show that Labour has a coherent vision for the party and the country. This will need to capture the imagination of supporters as well as non-Labour voters if the party is to return to power. They must make Labour’s identity clear, demonstrate what it believes in and what it is for, and ultimately prove that the Labour Party still matters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62850/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Owen Smith, a relative newcomer to parliament, is taking on Jeremy Corbyn. But which one can fix their broken party?Jonathan Davis, Principal Lecturer in History, co-director Labour History Research Unit, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627282016-07-19T16:35:50Z2016-07-19T16:35:50ZHere’s what we know about Labour’s £3 supporters – and whether they’ll pay £25 to help Corbyn again<p>Forces on both sides of the Jeremy Corbyn debate are apparently trying to make the most of the 48-hour window within which anyone can register as a supporter of the Labour Party and have a vote in the impending leadership election. Both pro and <a href="http://labourlist.org/2016/07/saving-labour-tells-supporters-it-is-last-chance-to-sign-up-and-topple-corbyn/">anti-Corbyn campaigners</a> are hitting the phones and the streets to convince people to pay £25, either to get the current leader out, or keep him in. </p>
<p>The committed Corbynistas of Momentum are apparently doing their best to <a href="http://labourlist.org/2016/07/dont-be-silenced-momentums-anger-over-reforms-to-labour-leadership-election/">re-establish contact</a> with people who joined as registered supporters during the last leadership contest at the bargain price of just £3. The aim is to get as many Corbyn backers as possible to pay the increased fee of £25. That way, Momentum hopes, they will deliver another victory for Labour’s sitting leader. </p>
<p>The battle for these £3 supporters is so intense because so little is known about who they are and why they signed up last time. Were they hardline Corbynistas, hard-up party loyalists, or simply troublemakers willing to fork out a few quid to troll Labour? And, just as importantly, what might they do this time?</p>
<p>We surveyed nearly 900 of them a couple of months ago in May 2016, so we thought it would be interesting to take a look at what sort of people they are. Why did they take that cheaper, lower-commitment option rather than going the whole hog and becoming full members of the Labour Party? The answer to this question may, perhaps, tell us something about the £25 supporters who might be clamouring to sign up for a vote now – and whether their interest is good or bad news for Corbyn.</p>
<h2>The three quidders</h2>
<p>The first thing to say about the £3 supporters is that they weren’t very different from those who joined Labour as full members after the 2015 general election. Although they were slightly more likely to be male rather than female than those who went the whole hog, some 74% fell into the ABC1 category (roughly middle or upper class) and 56% of them were graduates. That’s very similar proportions to full members.</p>
<p>Since they were, on average, 51-years-old, they were also around the same age as the full members. In other words, although high social grade does not necessarily always equate with high social income, the majority of those people are not going to find it too difficult to pay the £25 required to express their support and vote for the leader again.</p>
<p>Interestingly, those who joined as supporters (and remained as such without upgrading, as it were) were slightly less likely to belong to a trade union (17%) than those who joined as members (23%). They were also less likely, ironically enough, to consider themselves members of Momentum (3%) than those who joined as full members (9%). That suggests that Momentum’s ability to get them to pay up again to save Corbyn may be rather more limited than some imagine.</p>
<p>Another difference between those who registered as supporters after the general election and those who joined as full members is that the former were less likely to have voted Labour in 2015 (64% vs 72%) and more likely to have voted Green (19% vs 13%). One reason why they chose a lower level of commitment may well have been because, quite simply, they felt less partisan loyalty toward Labour in the first place. Or maybe they just felt less politically engaged than those who chose to join as full members. Whether Corbyn has upped that level of engagement enough to see them take up the same offer but at a much higher price will be interesting to see.</p>
<p>It is also true – although here we are talking about very fine differences of degree – that those who registered as £3 supporters were ever so slightly less left wing, socially liberal and pro-immigration than those who joined the party as full members.</p>
<p>But, like those full members, this means they were still very left-wing, very socially liberal and very pro-immigration compared with most voters – even most Labour voters. So all in all, if they can be persuaded to re-register to vote in this election – or if the people who register for the first time today and tomorrow are anything like them – that’s likely to favour those hoping to keep Corbyn rather than ditch him.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Bale receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monica Poletti receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Webb receives funding from The Economic & Social Research Council.</span></em></p>They signed up in their droves to vote in the last leadership election, but will they back Corbyn again?Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of LondonMonica Poletti, ESRC Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Queen Mary University of LondonPaul Webb, Professor of Politics, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/624542016-07-13T16:14:38Z2016-07-13T16:14:38ZSaving Labour: a four-point checklist for eager leaders<p>Having argued about it constantly since the EU referendum, the Labour Party now, finally, has a leadership contest underway. For the moment, there are three potential candidates. Current leader Jeremy Corbyn is being challenged by two former members of his shadow cabinet – Angela Eagle and Owen Smith. If any of them are to survive the turmoil they will need four things:</p>
<h2>Courage</h2>
<p>The Labour modernisers of the 1980s and 1990s believed what they were doing. Whatever may be said against Corbyn, he usually does, too. Anyone hoping to be leader has to sound authentic.</p>
<p>The first problem is that nobody is even listening to the party right now. The unfortunate moment when journalists marched out of Eagle’s leadership <a href="http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/the-unbearably-awkward-moment-angela-eagle-realises-all-the-journalists-have-already-left-her-leadership-bid-launch--Z1l6g04t5BZ">campaign launch</a> for a more interesting engagement was just the tip of the iceberg. The party has got to do something.</p>
<p>We can quibble on the details but some of the reforms brought in by the 2010-2015 Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government were nods in the right direction. Devolution, elements of open public services, and parts of welfare reform, are all examples. The past year has certainly seen the Conservative government veer off course, but if all Labour can offer is blanket opposition and a belief that it can beat the new prime minister, Theresa May, <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/07/angela-eagle-will-need-do-better-if-she-beat-jeremy-corbyn">“because she’s a Tory”</a>, then, frankly, it deserves to lose.</p>
<p>This is not appeasement of Toryism. It is strategic communications management. When the opposition agrees with the government on something, it should have the courage to say so. That only helps amplify those areas of genuine disagreement. The low-hum of “nasty Tories” emitted by Labour during Cameron’s tenure has just lost all meaning.</p>
<p>The last five British general elections have been won by the prime ministerial candidate who appears decent enough and willing to build on, rather than just tear down, previous achievements in office. No doubt, some of what Cameron learned from New Labour was for presentation, but not all of it. In any event, whatever can be held against him, any criticisms of Cameron come after six years in Downing Street – not ten months of oppositional bedlam.</p>
<p>Parties which exist in a bubble, only talking to themselves, almost inevitably pay the political price. Labour is currently very much trapped in its bubble. Its leader needs to emerge from it. </p>
<h2>Fresh ideas</h2>
<p>On foreign policy, it would be great if the Labour leader could actually have a sensible one that accords to the party’s values. Even after Brexit, there are probably new diplomatic “friends” higher up the queue than Cuba and Hamas. Corbyn may have been misquoted on <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/labour-party-leader-jeremy-corbyn-regrets-calling-hamas-friends-hezbollah-anti-semitism/">some of this stuff</a>, but the things he gets in trouble for shouldn’t issues at all. The bar isn’t high right now.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130441/original/image-20160713-12392-udhkls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130441/original/image-20160713-12392-udhkls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130441/original/image-20160713-12392-udhkls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130441/original/image-20160713-12392-udhkls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130441/original/image-20160713-12392-udhkls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130441/original/image-20160713-12392-udhkls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130441/original/image-20160713-12392-udhkls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Eagle’s Labour leadership bid.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dominic Lipinski/PA</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>On domestic affairs Labour needs a sacrificial lamb to show it is ready to make some tough decisions. This could be the 50p top rate of income tax, it could be corporation tax, or it could be something else. New Labour got this. At the moment the only debate within Labour seems to be between a John Smith-esque desire to tax and spend, and a Corbynista programme of tax and spend plus increased nationalisation.</p>
<h2>Better advice</h2>
<p>Back in 2015, Labour had an image for being well meaning but bumbling. Now it simply has an image for being toxic. In its own way this transformation is rather impressive. But it means the next leader’s job is more difficult. Commissioning Labour grandee X to conduct a review into areas of policy – <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/background/pastelec/ge92lab.shtml">as Neil Kinnock attempted</a> in the late 1980s – won’t cut it.</p>
<p>If the next leader is to save Labour’s electability, the party needs an initial push. It needs to seek new ideas post-haste. This was actually something Ed Miliband did rather well, but the next leader needs to cast their net wider when looking for contributors – into the City and into business, small and large.</p>
<h2>Charisma</h2>
<p>On a basic level, the next leader should be able to read out his or her questions at PMQs without stumbling over their pre-prepared words each week. They should recognise that the “mainstream media” is mainstream because, well, people watch it and read it, and act accordingly. And they should be pleasant to everyone – friend or foe. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-gives-david-cameron-the-cold-shoulder-and-completely-ignores-his-joke_uk_573c51d0e4b058ab71e60019">Refusing to chit-chat</a> to the prime minister at the state opening of parliament frankly made Corbyn look plain odd.</p>
<p>And they should speak like a normal human. Farage’s pint-in-hand shtick is obviously somewhat contrived, but better than Miliband’s imagined world of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/23/labour-party-conference-gareth-ed-miliband">chats with strangers in the park</a>.</p>
<p>I’m sure there is a lot to disagree with here but the alternative is chaos and then collapse. Whoever plans to stand in this leadership election, the very best of luck to them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62454/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Carr is a member of the Labour Party, a Senior Visiting Fellow at the think tank Localis, and a Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University. He writes in a purely personal capacity.</span></em></p>Whoever the next Labour leader is, they’ll need to crack on with doing something if the party is to shed its increasingly toxic label.Richard Carr, Lecturer in History and Politics, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.