I’m not arguing either position, although I’m pretty sure that Corbyn has voted with the Tories more often than Blair given how often he’s voted against the party line.
Corbynistas have spent a lot of time and effort attacking Blair, much more than they’ve spent attacking the Tories. As far as I can see this is because the Tories are just the opposition, it’s the moderates and centrists that are the enemy.
This sounds hyperbolic, but Blair, Brown and Mandelson were part of the wing of the Labour Party fighting against the hard left Red Wedge/Militant Tendency lot back in the 80’s.
Things are always more complicated than they seem, and Corbyn isn’t half the politician Blair was. Against the government we currently have he should be dictating the narrative and looking like a government-in-waiting, which is what Blair was doing in the dying days of the Major government (and Major was in a stronger position than May).
Remember that the post you originally objected to didn’t say “Jezza is perfect”, it said (paraphrased) “there is a more significant ideological distinction between Labour and the Tories than there is between the Democrats and the GOP”.
With, admittedly, a side of “Blair was a douche”.
See the bit starting at two minutes in this:
Moderates are the linchpin. When they side with the right, they are part of the enemy, but they don’t always go that way.
Under Blair, they did. Thousands of Afghans and Iraqis paid the price for that.
As expected.
Unsurprisingly, my take on 1980’s UK politics has something of a Billy Bragg flavour to it. I doubt I’d have liked Blair any better back then, either.
I’m sure that Blair could beat Corbyn at parliamentary manoeuvre, manipulating the press, coercing the back bench, triangulating policy positions, etc.
But for mobilizing new voters, Corbyn seems an exceptional talent. Stuff like this is rocket fuel to the millenial left:
And, more importantly, the general thrust of his policy position is in the direction of what is required. Climate change, corruption, inequality and war require radical solutions.
As I’ve been saying for months: the clock is ticking towards when people start to really fight back. Peaceful options have an expiry date.
Actually, you were saying that there was a clear ideological division between Tories and Labour, except under Blair.
To suggest that Blair was a closet Tory requires significantly misrepresenting his position, and that of the Tories as well who were considerably to the right of Blair and have been moving further in that direction for some time.
The flip side is maintaining that Corbyn is ideologically different from the Tories. On the key issue facing this country right now (Brexit), an issue driven by the Tories, he appears to be a fellow traveller with them, although he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions to actually come out and say it.
As for bringing out the vote, Blair swept into power in 1997 with 418 seats from 13,518,167 Labour votes. Corbyn lost the 2017 election with 262 seats from 12,878,460 Labour votes. Blair got out the votes and he got them out where it mattered.
Corbyn is not the Messiah people are looking for, at best he’s a cut rate Tony Benn.
“But imagine if they did that to white people.”
Well, the cops could just scaremonger: “Sure, some of them are white people, but all of them hate Nazis. You can’t trust people who hate Nazis.”
headdesk
I’m confused about why anyone would buy what they’d be mongering, but unfortunately some people seem to buy that.
Strobe warning: re flashy police lights and things.
Blair wasn’t a Tory, he was an imperialist liberal. Whether or not that is significantly better than a Tory depends somewhat on your point of view.
Forgotten war:
He’s not a liberal, that’s something else in the British political landscape. For reference, Corbynistas also hate liberals (Liberal Democrats), mainly because we went into coalition with the Tories in 2010, rather than propping up a failing Labour government. It’s almost like we’re a completely separate political party and not part of Labour at all! /sarcasm
Rojava continues to be interesting.
https://itsgoingdown.org/radical-people-podcast-frontlines-of-the-fight-against-isis/
Some good Rojava content on this week’s RLR, too:
