Bullseye wrote:You also have the less rabid Tory MPs applying the brakes occasionally. Let's be honest it's them that force any governmental U-turns rather than the official opposition.
Agree it's the membership that have kept Corbyn in. 80% of the PLP want him out. They could put Jesus himself up as a candidate and the left would call him Blairite scum.
The BBC isn't going to do anything to jeopardise its already dicey position re the license fee by offending the government, at least not while the opposition is looking so unlikely to win an election. Hence the type of coverage Corbyn gets.
The problem for Labour is that most of the adult population don see themselves as the type of person that Corbyn is "fighting" for.
Yes, of course, there are low (under) paid people in full time employment and plenty on zero hours contracts but, many are aspirational with hope of "bettering" themselves and this group felt that Blair was on their side, whereas Corbyn appears to be targeting only the very low end (in terms of earnings) of the working population and the vast majority of people dont believe that they are in that category.
All of this comes back to a lack of mass appeal and any party needs to have the backing of roughly half of the voting age public to gain power and Labour are so far away from this, that it's embarrasing.