Matthew's Journal

There was a comment somewhere when someone talked about a conflict between the PLP and the greater Labour party, and someone else said it's a four-way conflict - the leader, the PLP, the party+unions+registered supporters and the general electorate.

I am a habitual Lib Dem (and thereby disqualified from having a formal vote despite having a union affiliation) who occasionally tactically votes Labour. Reasons for me to vote Labour include - not letting the Tories in, not having a Tory-led coalition, having an effective opposition, etc. In terms of delivering those goods; Smith might do it, Corbyn won't. Conceivably, Corbyn might be able to lead a different PLP if he's able to get most of the current lot reselected at the next general, but that's quite a long way away - by May 2020 we could be out of the EU, and there's time to push through all sorts of other policies.

Of course, if you think that Smith is so lackluster that he's unable to do anything notable with the PLP, even if he can get them united behind him, then maybe that's not a consideration.

Put it like this: at the moment, Farron and the rest of the PLDP seem to be pretty happy with each other, but if Farron lost a vote of confidence of Lib Dem 2:6, I'd say he'd have to go, for manifestly being unable to do his job. Fortunately Farron does seem able to do his job, so this isn't an issue.

(I, err, might have voted Labour in the last general election. The polls suggested it was a lot closer than it really was, and I was worried about another coalition letting the Tories back in. If the polls had been accurate I'd have voted Lib Dem, largely on the strength of Julian Huppert. It was a very hard decision, one that was agonising to make, and one that I ended up regretting when the results became known.)