BBC: Burnham on Corbyn: ‘People want politicians of conviction’
Veteran left-wing MP Jeremy Corbyn has been elected leader of the Labour Party by a landslide.
Mr Corbyn, who began the contest as a rank outsider, saw off a challenge from frontbenchers Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall.
Speaking after the result was announced, Andy Burnham said the public would welcome a politician like Jeremy Corbyn because “he has very deep beliefs, very strong principles”.
Burnham also said that the public were sick and tired of politicians always looking like they were reading off a soundbite script, which is so obviously true that it’s very rarely said, but it’s nice to hear someone of his seniority say it.
Fellow frontbencher & leadership challenger Yvette Cooper however has already announced that she will not serve in a Corbyn shadow cabinet, as have several more current shadow cabinet members, most of whom Corbyn wouldn’t want anyway, to be frank. There is already media speculation about a split between the left and right factions of the Labour Party, because of course there is.
Corbyn is far more optimistic:
The left-winger, who has spent his entire 32-year career in the Commons on the backbenches, promised to fight for a more tolerant and inclusive Britain – and to tackle “grotesque levels of inequality in our society”.
He said the leadership campaign “showed our party and our movement, passionate, democratic, diverse, united and absolutely determined in our quest for a decent and better society that is possible for all”.
“They are fed up with the inequality, the injustice, the unnecessary poverty. All those issues have brought people in, in a spirit of hope and optimism.”
He said his campaign had given the lie to claims that young Britons were apathetic about politics, showing instead that they were “a very political generation that were turned off by the way in which politics was being conducted – we have to, and must, change that”.
Meanwhile, the Australian Labor Party is still led by Bill Shorten.
What’s piqued your media interests lately?
As usual for media circus threads, please share your bouquets and brickbats for particular items in the mass media, or highlight cogent analysis elsewhere, on any current sociopolitical issue (the theme of each edition is merely for discussion-starter purposes – all current news items are on topic!).
Categories: media, parties and factions, social justice
QOTD: on the blaming of progressive scolds/shamers for the rise of Trumpists 
96th Down Under Feminists Carnival 
Media Circus: the “to no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay justice” edition 
Friday Hoyden: Gillian Triggs 
Hoyden About Town 
Europe is crossing by a severe ideologically changes in order to make sure that people really cares about government and inequality
A once-great political party decides that winning elections and governing Britain is all too hard, so it will spend the next decade sulking in the corner. Corbyn is not a social democrat, he is a relic of the ’70s far left. The people that elected Corbyn are obviously too young to remember the 1980s and the “longest suicide note in history”. He’s 66. He’ll be 71 at the next election. He’s been a backbench MP for 32 years. Putting him forward as an alternative PM is an insult to the electorate.
Firstly: chasing the Tories every further to the right has not been winning elections for the UK Labour party lately, so why not shake things up at this point? Secondly, everybody knows the next general election is five years away and Corbyn’s not all that likely to still be LOTO then, so the “alternative PM” idea is not on the radar at this point for most of the electorate, they just want an Opposition leader who will actually fight against a range of policies that are hurting ordinary voters.
Corbyn’s job over the next few years, which I expect him to do very enthusiastically and informedly, is to shift the Overton Window back from the right and more towards the centre-left than it has been for the last decade, and for the process of government to become more rigorous, transparent and properly representative as a result. Now I fully expect that I won’t agree with every stance he takes or every opinion he expresses, but it is necessary that someone be making these arguments at the highest level of government rather than meekly sticking to scripts that don’t startle the stockmarkets. Parliament is meant to govern a society, not just an economy.
How much do British voters trust Corbyn on issues? (YouGov poll): National Health 40%, government spending 28%, taxation 27%, immigration 24%, Europe 24%, the economy 23%, terrorism 22%, defence 20%. So the NHS is his only strong issue, and even there he’s only ahead 40-34%. (And of course any Labour leader would be ahead on that issue.) On every other issue he is totally toxic.
Round umpty ump of “breastfeeding in Federal Parliament” and the parties still cannot get it right. Kelly O’Dwyer instructed to pump more by the Liberal Chief Whip despite standing orders allowing for breastfeeding mothers to have proxy votes:
SMH: Liberal MP and new mum Kelly O’Dwyer told to express more breast milk to avoid missing votes in the chamber.
Huh, the proxy vote thing isn’t optional, breastfeeding is still not allowed in the House of Reps.
I call shenanigans on this line in that SMH article too:
Preferences would vary on that widely, and include the baby’s own preferences. Some breastfeeding mothers would not want to be filmed, others wouldn’t give much of a toss.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/chaplains-tender-to-break-dominance-of-generate-ministries-after-gayby-baby-ban-20150919-gjqefn.html