I have been offline all day today and have missed all the final posts going up! So taking the opportunity now to say - you are great! You are all great! This has been a truly wonderful site and community and I am devastated to see it go but also happy to see it go out on a high. So excited to see what you all do next.

LOVE YOU GUYS *bawls*

Are you David Cameron?

Also, let's just never forget that it's a hell of a lot easier to be ideologically pure when you're a white straight man.

Yes! Also, I don't actually want the leader to be ideologically pure - I want them to be effective. I'm infuriated by the way the far left have turned 'Blairite' into the worst possible insult instead of pointing out all the things that were done in the Blair years that were good. It's a gift to the other side when your own party is weirdly ashamed of its own period in government. Why not say 'Blair achieved lots of great things but was ultimately problematic. We're going to preserve the best parts of what was achieved under the Blair government but also build on them to have a fairer society'?

There is an important place for people who relentlessly police their own side and call then out on all the ways they fuck up. That's the place Corbyn has occupied for most of his career. However, that is not the job of the leader. (Obviously the leader should be able to acknowledge things which have been wrong - but they can't behave as if those invalidate any and all achievements.)

Yes, please, please just go. I get why he wants to hold another leadership election (which there is a high chance he'll win) but the fact is that a BIG part of being leader in a parliamentory system is being able to actually lead the party. So you may or may not think that the PLP should fall in line (I personally feel that they have a democratic right to express a lack of confidence just as much as members have a right to do the opposite) but given that they are OVERWHELMINGLY rejecting him he just can't do his job.

For me personally, his behavour over the EU ref has made me lose confidence in him - even more so since I discovered he didn't even vote on ANY reading of the referendum bill (when he could have been leading the way on constructive things such as extending the vote to 16 & 17 year olds). I did vote for him in the last leadership election but definitely won't be voting for him in this one (assuming there is one) and think he should have the grace to resign. (ETA - I think he should have the grace to resign because he can't lead the party and refusing to do so is dragging out a bad situation, not because of the behaviour in the referendum.)

They were traditionally the centre ground party, then in the Blair years Labour moved into this niche and the Lib Dems moved sort-of to the left, but not so much so that they couldn't form a coalition with the Conservatives. This is one of the problems they are having, basically - neither they nor anyone else is really sure where they fit.