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| How can Labour defeat the Tories? Join our live look at the week for this and more | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 12.54pm BST | |
| 12:54 | |
| Debate of the week: a look at whether Labour can win with Corbyn | |
| Sarah Marsh | |
| We ran a discussion on Thursday about Labour’s chances of success under its current leader Jeremy Corbyn. We heard a variety of views on this (a few summarised below) and welcome more thoughts. | |
| The Guardian’s John Harris said: | |
| The Labour party will not win the next general election, but that isn’t the right way of looking at the problem. Labour is in the midst of the same crisis as its sister social-democratic parties across Europe, with one twist: as evidenced by all those new members, it is also home to the kind of new, insurgent politics we’ve seen with Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, the Bernie Sanders campaign in the US etc. Time spent this week at Momentum’s A World Transformed event in Liverpool reminded me that a great deal of Labour and the left’s future lies with some of the people involved (I’ve written a column about this, out later today), but a watershed moment is probably going to be a long time coming. | |
| Freelance journalist Abi Wilkinson said: | |
| I think there is hope. Corbyn’s conference speech was an attempt to reach out to his critics within Labour and many some to have responded in kind. There seems to be a growing awareness that different factions need to work together for the good of the party and the people it represents. | |
| One reader below the line even offered advice to Corbyn: | |
| Possible path to victory. 1. An electoral pact. The right win because they always vote together as one big monolith. Our turn. The scare of a small handful of Tories going over to UKIP was enough to panic Cameron into a Brexit referendum. I'm in a supposed Tory safe seat but the truth is that if you counted the Lib Dem and Labour vote together, we would comfortably win. That's repeated up and down the country. An electoral pact means not standing candidates against the most likely to win. It also means people can vote strategically yet maintain allegiance with the party of their conscience.2. Stand a Labour candidate in Northern Ireland to recover ground lost in Scotland3. Try and win over the 40% of non-voters.4. As far as immigration is concerned, it really isn't rocket science. Saying Labour will build 60k new council homes a year is great but it is also arbitrary. Labour should go a bit further and say "we will institute whatever policy is necessary and build however many homes are required to make sure that house and rent prices don't outstrip wages, and if we can't achieve that, we'll look to reduce immigration" | |
| Updated | |
| at 12.54pm BST | |
| 12.45pm BST | |
| 12:45 | |
| Away from politics, you may have spotted the blue GuardianWitness link above. We’re inviting you to contribute to our latest photography assignment, which has so far resulted in this lovely gallery of readers’ images | |
| 12.34pm BST | |
| 12:34 | |
| Your views are starting to shape the conversation below the line. | |
| Labour has to confront all the issues which lost it the 2010 and 2015 elections and are keeping people away from the party. A perceived economic incompetence, raising taxation, immigration, benefits abuse (no matter how small it may be it needs to be dealt with), and weak foreign/defence policies. | |
| These issues don't have to be dealt with by accepting all of the Tories arguments, but they have to be addressed. If you bury your head in the sand like Labour wish to do, they will lose again. | |
| how Labour can defeat the Tories | |
| By learning from the only Labour leader to defeat the Tories in the last 40 years? | |
| Correct - a Socialist government is unelectable as there will never be a majority for that. | |
| Things will also change post Brexit and Westminister politics will matter a lot more since so many EU directives and laws will cease to apply. For example like renationalisation of railways, subsidising steel the industry (illegal under EU rules). | |
| The only way Labour can win is to oppose the Tories from the left and the right. Make a case for lower taxes, less red tape and get business and hard working people on your side. | |
| This thread is a part of the problem - the whole focus is negative and on beating the Tories, when the message needs to be positive and how Labour can win. | |
| Blair didn't win by telling everyone how shit things were because to most people things aren't that bad. | |
| So called progressive alliances are also a non starter. | |
| Updated | |
| at 12.36pm BST | |
| 12.25pm BST | |
| 12:25 | |
| How can Labour defeat the Tories? A view from conference | |
| Hilary Wainwright | |
| Hilary Wainwright wrote a piece this week from Labour conference headlined The new politics isn’t just protest – it’s about change from the ground up. Here she shares some more thoughts. | |
| From participants to journalists, most people found that in Liverpool this week political life was at Momentum’s The World Transformed rather than the official Labour conference. I’d go further: the apparatus running the conference attempted to stifle the new life that Momentum’s diverse energy is infusing into the party. | |
| Party unity has always been an imperative prior to elections. The left has generally abided by this norm. The parliamentary right, it seems, has no such sense of obligation. It is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of electoral defeat. | |
| MPs who want to avoid the kamikaze logic of their colleagues should show that the left doesn’t have a monopoly on unity. It’s the only chance of defeating the Tories. | |
| What do you think? Tell us in the comments. | |
| 12.14pm BST | 12.14pm BST |
| 12:14 | 12:14 |
| The week's most read: from the man who brought you Brexit to tube chat | The week's most read: from the man who brought you Brexit to tube chat |
| Sarah Marsh | Sarah Marsh |
| Among our most-read this week was a letter from a man who hasn’t had sex with his wife for six years after she ignored his advice on weight loss. | Among our most-read this week was a letter from a man who hasn’t had sex with his wife for six years after she ignored his advice on weight loss. |
| Elsewhere, Stuart Heritage’s opinion article on owning his first home (and having buyer’s remorse) was popular with our readers. | Elsewhere, Stuart Heritage’s opinion article on owning his first home (and having buyer’s remorse) was popular with our readers. |
| There were also a lot of hits for the story about Sadiq Khan’s plans to launch an inquiry into into foreign property ownership. He told the Guardian he would carry out “the most thorough research on this matter ever undertaken” amid widespread concern over rising housing costs and gentrification. | There were also a lot of hits for the story about Sadiq Khan’s plans to launch an inquiry into into foreign property ownership. He told the Guardian he would carry out “the most thorough research on this matter ever undertaken” amid widespread concern over rising housing costs and gentrification. |
| Finally, everyone was keen to read about the man who brought us Brexit and tube chat badges, although not being completely well-received, have – ironically – got people talking. | Finally, everyone was keen to read about the man who brought us Brexit and tube chat badges, although not being completely well-received, have – ironically – got people talking. |
| 12.09pm BST | 12.09pm BST |
| 12:09 | 12:09 |
| Welcome to this week's social | Welcome to this week's social |
| Matthew Holmes | Matthew Holmes |
| Hello and welcome once again to Guardian Social, a place you’ve been coming back to for the last few weeks discuss the week’s news and views while we hover about posting links, posing and responding to questions while generally keeping things moving. | Hello and welcome once again to Guardian Social, a place you’ve been coming back to for the last few weeks discuss the week’s news and views while we hover about posting links, posing and responding to questions while generally keeping things moving. |
| We’re open to suggestions and always willing to take the conversations in ways you want them to go, so get involved below the line and we’ll see you down there! | We’re open to suggestions and always willing to take the conversations in ways you want them to go, so get involved below the line and we’ll see you down there! |