Why Is Corbyn Winning The Labour Leadership Election?

[Gromit]

//
The 66-year-old has attracted a growing fanbase of enthusiastic young people who have been turning his campaign events into what one attendee described as something “more like sell-out gigs than political meetings”.
One gathering, in Liverpool’s Adelphi hotel on Saturday night, saw hundreds of disappointed supporters turned away after the venue reached its 1,000 capacity.

There were similar scenes in Leicester and Coventry, with the warmth of his reception seeming to take even the candidate by surprise. In an entry on Facebook he wrote: “Hundreds and thousands of people packed into rooms and standing outside everywhere we go.
“Something quite extraordinary is happening. Thank you for being part of this great movement.” //

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11779294/Jeremy-Corbyn-on-rock-star-tour-of-Britain-as-bandwagon-grows.html

I confess I am surprised that Corbyn is seemingly doing so well. Are people fed up with the 3 parties being so similar occupying the middle ground?

[Ellipsis]

A better question would be "difference between Foot and Corbyn?"

Michael Foot, that is ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foot#Labour_leadership

[mikey4444]

Perhaps Corbyn is garnering such a lot of support because he is demonstrating clear blue water between what he sees should be the Labour position, and all the other Parties that are scrabbling around in the middle ?

Perhaps people like his plain speaking ?

[Ellipsis]

steg> I've only seen a couple clips of interviews of him, I had never heard of him before the other week and know very little about him, but the little I have seen of him he seems quite laid back and confident

Laid back? Really? ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOZZF5XCDBM

[Ric.ror]

Perhaps they do Mikey - but they are not going to vote for him - that much I do know.
I always believe that - despite what some people espouse - when it comes to the privacy of the ballot box people don't always vote the way they say they are going to

[mikey4444]

I can't disagree with you there Ric !

But if Corbyn does win next month, maybe the people will have a real alternative to vote for next time. Not all of what he says is unpopular.....he favours re-nationalisation of the railways for instance, a policy that would seeme to be garnering ever more support as time goes on.

[youngmafbog]

Well I would like to see that Mickey and he doesn't seem to like the eu either another favorite of mine. But I'm never going to vote for him.

[steg]

Ellipsis
watching that clip has not changed my mind, but thanks for showing me it I thought he done rather well

[Ellipsis]

steg> watching that clip has not changed my mind, but thanks for showing me it I thought he done rather well

No problem, but in it he can hardly be described as "laid back". "Bad tempered". maybe.

I like Corbyn but he seems like a pawn in this game. He's being set up to be leader for a few years, but not to fight the next election ...

[jourdain2]

He's honest. The Labour people I know like this.

[Ellipsis]

Michael Foot was also honest, honest enough to write "The Longest Suicide Note In History". Corbyn could write the sequel in a few years ...

Those Blair haters on the Labour left should ask themselves: apart from Tony Blair, who was the last Labour leader to win a General Election, and when?

The answer: Harold Wilson, 1974 ... 41 years ago! Since then its leaders have been Callaghan (lost 1979), Foot (lost 1983), Kinnock (lost 1987 and 1992), Smith, Beckett, Blair (won 1997, 2001 and 2005), Brown (lost 2010), Harman. Miliband (lost 2015) and Harman.

Only Blair won elections, and he won three. Is Labour listening to what the voters actually want? Has it learnt the lessons of history?

[Ric.ror]

http://www.theguardian.com/profile/pollytoynbee

The headline alone says it so much better than I could

[venator]

Corbyn is presenting a real alternative to the failed Labour establishment, and dragging the party back to its socialist roots.
His politics are new and attractive to many young people, and the scathing attacks from the failed right wing Tory clones lend credibility to his campaign.

Already we see leadership contenders adopting nationalisation, and if Labour uses the next 5 years to get back to the left, with an electable leader, they may just do well next time, do we think?

[Cryptomaniac]

Whatever the result of the leadership election, Jezza will have shifted Labour back closer to its founding principles. Maybe we'll see no more cowardly decisions to abstain on the vote on the government's benefits cuts, presumably made in fear of appearing to be fiscally irresponsible and anti-aspirational Looking forward to some real opposition to the toffs who seem to like to preserve the wealth of dead people!

[Jackdaw33]

I think that your last sentence has hit the nail on the head. Corbyn is Labour's equivalent of Thatcher 40 years ago. A fresh face for those sick of the same old tired consensus politics.