How are party leaders selected: straight up party membership vote, MP's, or convention delegates chosen by backroom boys?

Different rules for each party. I think this is right...

The Conservatives have rounds of voting between MPs to shortlist the 2 MPs to go to the vote of the party members. MPs nominate themselves for leadership. In the case of Theresa May, she was in the final 2 but her opponent withdrew so May won by default.

For Labour, MPs nominate themselves for the leadership contest but they need votes of sitting Labour MPs to appear on the ballot. Once they reach the threshold they are one of the nominated. Then the vote goes to the MPs, party members and unions. Can't remember the proportions of which groups hold more sway.

The DUP sounds like a real piece of work.

What he said. The Labour process is one member or affiliate, one vote. Members are - well - people who have joined the party and are up to date with fees. Affiliates are a) members of a Trade Union that is affiliated with the Labour Party and pays the affiliation fee b) registered supported of the party who have paid the one-off supporter fee.

Corbyn first stood for the leadership under a National Executive Committee controlled by right wing Labour MPs who were astonished when he won. They immediately instigated both overt and covert schemes to undermine him, briefing the press with misinformation about him, staged press interviews, staged resignations from committees and shadow govt. posts, simple rumour spreading - anything and everything they could to damage his reputation. Finally he was challenged for the leadership after less than 12 months. The opposition campaign was marked by a wide range of dirty tricks. The covert relationship with the press continued and MPs such as Stephen Kinnock, Chuka Umuna, Hilary Benn and several others felt free to give interviews where they openly rubbished Corbyn's ability and authority and issued all kinds of threats about not working with him. He and his supporters were characterised as bullying left-wing thugs (which judging by the mild, rather innoffensive, rather ordinary people I met - oh, and me of course, didn't quite ring true). Members who joined within 6 months of the election were told they couldn't vote even though voting was expressly offered during sign up. Many members who expressed support for Jeremy Corbyn were actually expelled from the party (unbelievable but true). People registering as supporters had their applications declined usually for spurious reasons and the NEC raised the fee from £3 to £25. He won again, this time increasing his majority to >60%.

I've missed so much: the attempt to exclude him from the ballot paper when he was challenged for the leadership (wasting a fortune in High Court), the meeting to exclude 'new' members where an emergency motion was raised and voted on just after Corbyn had left the room - it goes on and on like a lunatic conspiracy story so wild that if you put it in a novel the publisher would throw it back at you as ridiculously far-fetched.

And these were the people on his side - the Labour Party. He was the leader, He had a huge majority. He had to put up with this before he even began to fight his corner with the opposition. That makes what he managed in this election even more astonishing.

Edit: and yes, the DUP are charming.

You've got to wonder if he'd have won a majority if it weren't for all the back-stabbing party hacks. Of course May probably wouldn't have called the election if she hadn't thought him extremely weak in the first place.

I would love to think that was the plan all along... There's a semi-alternative-universe script somewhere depicting the Labour infighting, and when the door closes it's all slapped backs and passing the teapot on the left side.

I'm still not ruling out the possibility of the Tories putting May in charge as the cleanest way to not have to deal with leaving the EU, but she's so fucking incompetent she can't even lose an election properly.

I think she's trying to paint a gloss of noble intent over her hubris by taking on the role of scapegoat.  She will take the approaching pain of Brexit upon her shoulder pads and head out into the wilderness, hopefully (in her terms) reducing the opprobrium hurled at the Tories.

The present lot seems pretty incompetent generally so I tend to favour the balls-up theories rather than the conspiracy ones.

As for conspiracies in Labour, the anti-Corbyn brigade were so clumsy about them that they hardly counted as secret. Having lived through the period when Michael Foot led the Labour party, I wasn't really surprised, except perhaps by the ferocity of the attacks on Corbyn and by the way that all sides piled in to help. Foot was a very different man from Corbyn and those were very different times. There was no social media to help Foot and he came across as an awkward public speaker, both in delivery and appearance. Although he was about the same age as Corbyn is now, he appeared far older. Clothes hung from his frame and his penchant for duffel-coats and donkey-jackets was a godsend for the press. Curiously, the fact that the content of his speeches was often erudite and beautifully argued - he was a superb writer - often counted against him as well. He was condemned as an intellectual, out of touch with reality. 

The Labour party is no different from any of the main UK parties in that it encompasses a wide range of views and spans so many political standpoints that there are often grey areas. It isn't as weird as the GOP or the Democrats in the US where you could question somebody, place them to the left of the Democrats, and then find out they are Republicans - and the other way round - but there are certainly some who could easily find a place in the Tory party, and those who would be comfortable in the UK Socialist party. In fact, what many people don't realise because it is never reported, is that when the Labour party is referred to, the designation is a shorthand for two different but distinct parties: the Labour party and the Co-operative party. The Co-operative party was founded in 1917 but since an electoral pact 10 years later, it works exclusively with and under shared banners with the Labour party in the UK. Nevertheless, it is a distinct party with its own constitution, rules, General Secretary, Chair etc. There are currently 28 Co-op MPs, although some are also members of the Labour party, which means that it's the 4th largest party in Parliament. Politically it is more centre-left than socialist and does not share the historical links to Fabianism or Marxism that Labour has. 

The connection between the Co-op MPs and an anti-Corbyn position is not so clear. Obviously there are no official lists of for and against, and the no-confidence vote before the last leadership election was a secret ballot. Nevertheless, these lists exist. Only 2 of the Co-op MPs supported Corbyn in the vote (there were 26 Co-op MPs then, with 2 elected since: one a supporter, one probably not). In spite of this, the well-know table of those clearly opposed to Corbyn only features 5 Co-op names. Had Ed Balls remained an MP he would probably be there as well. His wife, Yvette Cooper is not a Co-op member even though she is clearly not pro-Corbyn.

The truth is that JC has the pleasure of attracting criticism from across the party, or parties. Things will blur a bit now as the detractors rush to apologise for their 'little bit of naughtiness' and state how wrong they were to ever doubt him. But others will not budge. Hilary Benn will continue with his sad little rebellion against the politics of his father. Stephen Kinnock and Chuka Umunna will conspire - badly - because they believe they are entitled to run the party and no doubt Chris Leslie will continue to brief the press against Corbyn and the press will happily splash these views across their pages.

That was magnificently worded.

It all hinges on this week - if the DUP reject the 'confidence and supply' cooperation that Number 10 apparently jumped the gun on announcing  ( (fail) ) then I'm not quite sure what the Queen will have to say in her speech.

If she doesn't get her act together this week she's toast.

However, if the negotiations succeed and a Government is formed, then her next challenge is the Brexit negotiations, only a week away. I would put money on an EU "leak" about Theresa May's unchanged hard-Brexit views, or just an utterly calamitous meeting, and that will be her third strike.

Johnson's name has certainly come up to replace May, but I still see him as a long shot particularly since hard brexit just had its legs kicked out from under, and it's pretty clear the DUP won't stand for a hard border with Ireland.

As for Rob Ford, he only won the one election for mayor, (eventually) sidelined by Council after the crack scandal broke, and had to withdraw shortly after declaring for reelection due, as you said, to health reasons.

His brother Doug ran in his place, and lost decisively 33% to John Tory's 40%. Small consolation since Tory has carried on with the core Ford  executive committee and downtown-unfriendly policies, The amalgamated city is riven between downtown and suburban factions, with the "tax-and-spend" downtown consistently out-voted on key issues related to civic quality of life and the funding necessary for it.

So remind us again of how obvious it was? :'D

So remind us how that was such a genius move again. :'D

Gloat much?  LMAO

 :-O~~~

Wha? It was likely that May would call an election at some point, and the probability of her doing it was discussed frequently enough that when she did it wasn't surprising.

That side of things was obvious, but at no point will you find me agreeing it was a good idea or the result a foregone conclusion.

It was still 2..3 weeks out when I suggested "it'll be very close, with both parties around 40%, so anything could happen" in response to a tedius "Corbyn will never be PM" remark.

bojo a no go

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/15/tory-election-research-found-boris-johnson-was-deeply-divisive