The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[chrisp65]

Stephen Kinnock. He’s one of my favourites.

Car plant closures, steel work closures, land purchases for super prisons, trinity university land deals, Swansea bay hydro electric project, scrapping electrification of the railway, wasted money on Valleywood, M4 relief road, nationalisation of the airport, nationalisation of transport for Wales, possibly wasted money on Aston Martin... not a thing to say or contribute.

Criticism of the Labour Party - he’s there offering a rent a quote for anyone that will talk to him and get his face on the telly.

[Davkaus]

Wrong-Daily and Burgon want Corbyn in their hypothetical shadow cabinets. Is this match fixing? Why are they trying so hard to appear to poor at politics?

[bickster]

57 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Wrong-Daily and Burgon want Corbyn in their hypothetical shadow cabinets. Is this match fixing? Why are they trying so hard to appear to poor at politics?

They are appealing to a certain demographic and are absolutely unaware of the negative effect that has on every other demographic. Sound familiar?

[HanoiVillan]

Another way of saying the same thing is 'they're trying to win an internal party election, not a General Election'.

[chrisp65]

34 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Another way of saying the same thing is 'they're trying to win an internal party election, not a General Election. Where the party appear determined to select the best dressage pony as their entry in the freestyle snowboarding.’

It’s the best I could do in a rush.

[HanoiVillan]

6 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

It’s the best I could do in a rush.

I don't really get it.

Is this harder than it appears to understand? Two candidates who are trying to appeal to the left of the party, appear to be behind in the polling, and so are trying to come up with ideas to increase their support. The purpose of an internal party election is to win control of the party, not (directly) to win a General Election. People in this thread seem consistently surprised that candidates are coming up with ideas that are pitched to Labour party members, rather than the median voter, and I don't understand why.

[chrisp65]

6 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I don't really get it.

Is this harder than it appears to understand? Two candidates who are trying to appeal to the left of the party, appear to be behind in the polling, and so are trying to come up with ideas to increase their support. The purpose of an internal party election is to win control of the party, not (directly) to win a General Election. People in this thread seem consistently surprised that candidates are coming up with ideas that are pitched to Labour party members, rather than the median voter, and I don't understand why.

If their aim is to be leader of the Labour Party, they’ve got their tactics absolutely bang on. There should be enough internal support to achieve that.

If their aim, their long game, is to be leader of the Labour Party in order to win an election and stave us from the tories. Not so much.

Can you see a scenario, where Corbyn is Labour spokesperson in some shadow ministerial position and it would not be harmful to Labour’s vote share?

 

I’m saying this as an outside observer looking in. I’m an ex Labour voter in a seat that used to be a marginal that used to return Labour MP’s. I agreed to lend them my vote at the last election. I should be the soft target that’s most easily won back. Will I be won back by RLB, Burgon, Corbyn?

It feels unlikely at this stage. It’s not even that I dislike his politics. It’s just that he is literally a proven loser. Twice. 

Perhaps it might be Labour membership sacrificing the electable good for the unelectable perfect?

Anyway, it’s possibly a long way off, unless the tories contrive another election in 18 months when they convince the herd that France has created an economic emergency we couldn’t possibly have predicted.

[HanoiVillan]

I feel like we're talking at cross-purposes. 

19 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Can you see a scenario, where Corbyn is Labour spokesperson in some shadow ministerial position and it would not be harmful to Labour’s vote share?

No, I can't. I think appointing Corbyn to a shadow ministerial position would be a very bad idea, for three reasons: 1a] He's really really unpopular and divisive, and so 1b] he would take too much attention away from whoever the new leader is; 2] He doesn't appear from where I'm sitting to have much of a particular interest in any one department and I can't see where he would logically go; and 3] He's really quite old, and the sensible thing to be doing when in the political wilderness is to be blooding the politicians of the future, rather than drawing fire for having yesterday's guy in place.

22 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

If their aim is to be leader of the Labour Party, they’ve got their tactics absolutely bang on. There should be enough internal support to achieve that.

If their aim, their long game, is to be leader of the Labour Party in order to win an election and stave us from the tories. Not so much.

My point is that this is a two-stage process. We know what their aim is, we don't have to guess: it is first to win an internal party election, and then to win a General Election as party leader. In order to achieve the second of those steps, they need to win the internal party election first. 

Contrary to your point in that first sentence, they probably haven't got their tactics 'bang on' at all; as far as I'm aware, all current indicators suggest Starmer will win the leadership and Rayner the deputy leadership. So, when behind in a race you will probably lose, it's not illogical to make a hostage-to-fortune promise that might get you some attention and votes. 

The key point is that the tone of exaggerated surprise in this thread every time a Labour politician in a Labour election comes up with a promise to appeal to Labour voters is silly. 

26 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’m saying this as an outside observer looking in. I’m an ex Labour voter in a seat that used to be a marginal that used to return Labour MP’s. I agreed to lend them my vote at the last election. I should be the soft target that’s most easily won back. Will I be won back by RLB, Burgon, Corbyn?

It feels unlikely at this stage. It’s not even that I dislike his politics. It’s just that he is literally a proven loser. Twice. 

It certainly makes sense that someone who doesn't dislike the politics would nevertheless be turned off Corbyn because he's 'a proven loser', but it doesn't really make sense to dismiss RLB or Burgon on the same lines. Particularly in Burgon's case, anyway - nobody ever votes for a party or not based on who its deputy leader is. 

[chrisp65]

For me, it’s frustration more than exaggerated surprise. Frustration at the lack of learning curve on what has turned people off previously. I can understand that from a random MP or a supporter or a VT contributor. But when that lack of learning is displayed in someone that wants a crack at being Prime Minister it either shows a lack of something more steely that’s needed to win.

I can’t think of many Labour policies I didn’t like in the last election, but they just kept on coming in waves. They should have picked a couple of proven popular policies and just relentlessly repeated them. Not what they did, here’s our list of Tuesday policies don’t worry if they’re not for you there will be more on Wednesday you might like.

I don’t know that much about RLB, other than she appears to want to be very closely aligned with Corbyn, which is sweet, but maybe not smart. Burgon I haven’t heard too much of but what I have heard he sounds about as thick as a current tory minister, which is a very low bar.

Nandy I’ve taken a dislike to.

Starmer by default at the moment. 

[bickster]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I don't really get it.

Is this harder than it appears to understand? Two candidates who are trying to appeal to the left of the party, appear to be behind in the polling, and so are trying to come up with ideas to increase their support. The purpose of an internal party election is to win control of the party, not (directly) to win a General Election. People in this thread seem consistently surprised that candidates are coming up with ideas that are pitched to Labour party members, rather than the median voter, and I don't understand why.

Because what they say now, will be brought up and used against them at a later date, regardless of the context of why they said it. If they said it they must mean it

Say RLB wins. The media will constantly ask her the Corbyn Question at every opportunity.

"You haven't got rid of Corbyn yet will be the headlines, or you know, something similar

What I don't get is why people don't see that whatever is said now has a wider context regardless of its current indented context

[blandy]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

The purpose of an internal party election is to win control of the party, not (directly) to win a General Election

It is, you're right. And appealing to the voters in that internal election is ultimately what has to happen to win.

Nevertheless it's also the case that appealing to a particular subset of labour members has just led to the second step becoming almost out of reach for the next 10 years. Even many of that subset of members have now realised and had their "doh! - what were we doing" moment. I mean even Corbyn's local party went for Starmer, rather than the malfunctioning CGI machine code that is RLB. Another Corbynite would be absolute suicide.

Of the 3 remaining candidates, I think Nandy's been the best at appearing "straight and honest" - though she's gone a bit mad yesterday/today with her Trans thing. Starmer appears as the kind of competent type just trying not to say anything at the moment, as it's his to lose and RLB appears to be an inadequate with an iffy relationship to full honesty.

the Deputy candidates - Burgeon is thick, the Dr (Rosina Khan) is really good and Angela wotsit seems OK.

For the Labour party electing a leader to control the party cannot be the aim. It has to be to elect a leader to win a GE. Otherwise, there's just no point.

 

[blandy]

10 minutes ago, bickster said:

What I don't get is why people don't see that whatever is said now has a wider context regardless of its current indented context

I agree with all of your post.

Starmer does.

The others, to an extent have had to more kind of introduce themselves as more unknowns. And that means saying more things which will be used against them by various oppponents - whether it's the tories, the press, the cultists - as well as be useful in gaining them supporters. Risk and reward, I guess.

[HanoiVillan]

Little bit of data-y stuff, based on this sheet which looks at all the seats in Great Britain and compares Labour's 2015 result to their 2019 result, in terms of raw votes and vote shares:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Myl8IpeobHwTJQv4GPKHHIi5JrRXPgwOYh9Xl3uzh-E/edit#gid=0

The biggest shifts to Labour in raw numbers was in Bristol West (+24,128 votes) and in % terms in Portsmouth South (+29.11%). The biggest shift away, in both raw numbers and %, was in East Renfrewshire (-12,440; -21.63%)

I was interested to see what that meant in regional terms:

(The three columns are raw votes in 2015 and 2019, and the difference between them; the line shows the % increase or decrease - I know it's a shit graph)

Also interesting to see how the vote share changed, this time in counties, excluding London:

The increases in vote share greater than 5% are in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, the Isle of Wight, West Sussex, Avon, Cornwall, Dorset and South Glamorgan. The decreases greater than 4% are in Durham, Tyne & Wear, Scotland, Humberside and South Yorkshire.

[chrisp65]

I don’t know who did that chart, but the only bit I can sense check is that there is no such seat as South Glamorgan.

If they mean Vale of Glamorgan the other opposition parties withdrew their candidates to try and get the tory out, but the Labour vote share still went down.

On a quick google, Labour’s overall vote share in Wales went down by slightly more than 6%

Possibly bollocks?

 

**ok I can see they’re calling the Vale of Glamorgan, South Glamorgan though that was abolished about 25 / 30 years ago.

Their figures for 2015 are just weirdly wrong. 

Edited February 18, 2020 by chrisp65

[HanoiVillan]

5 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I don’t know who did that chart, but the only bit I can sense check is that there is no such seat as South Glamorgan.

If they mean Vale of Glamorgan the other opposition parties withdrew their candidates to try and get the tory out, but the Labour vote share still went down.

On a quick google, Labour’s overall vote share in Wales went down by slightly more than 6%

Possibly bollocks?

I did the chart, which is just from the dataset linked. The name 'South Glamorgan', which I have simply taken from the dataset, doesn't refer to a single seat, but covers the aggregate of 5 seats: Cardiff Central, Cardiff South & Penarth, Cardiff West, Cardiff North, and Vale of Glamorgan.

[chrisp65]

What can be gained from amalgamating Data for 5 very different seats to represent an extinct county, in an election where parties stood aside for Labour?

The Vale of Glamorgan election numbers, Labour got an almost identical vote 2017 and 2019, the data for VoG shows 7000 extra votes, the vote actually went down very slightly. (I’ve worked it out now, we’ve skipped a GE)

 

**the reason I find it fascinating - I’ve recently been presented with something very similar. A chart showing a massive labour vote gain in VoG. Is there some rogue website out there with duff raw data that people are using?

Weird I should see that twice from two very different sources.

 

OK sleepy me is working it out, you’ve skipped the middle election, gone from 2015 to 2019, missing out 2017 AND amalgamated 5 seats.

I’m still not sure what that achieves? 

Not least as other parties stood aside, giving a false gloss to losses.

 

Edited February 18, 2020 by chrisp65

[HanoiVillan]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

What can be gained from amalgamating Data for 5 very different seats to represent an extinct county, in an election where parties stood aside for Labour?

The amalgamation is because a graph with 560 data points on it would be absurd, and I wanted to see results at a county level. I'm only taking the county name from the dataset.

As far as other parties standing aside for Labour, there will of course be weird circumstances in individual seats.

8 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

The Vale of Glamorgan election numbers, Labour got an almost identical vote 2015 and 2017, the data for VoG shows 7000 extra votes, the vote actually went down very slightly.

The info above is comparing 2015 and 2019. 2017 is not included in the data. The result in VoG in 2015, per Wiki:

And in 2019:

32.6 to 43.3 is a 10.7% increase; on the spreadsheet it is 10.71%. It all looks correct to me.

[tonyh29]

Maybe I’ve missed this but why ignore 2017 in the data ?

Portsmouth south who you cite as the biggest % change went Labour in the 2017 election , incidentally although it turned labour in 2017 the Tory vote in both 2017 and 2019 was higher than the  amount of votes they received to win it in 2015

labour benefitted more from the Lib Dem collapse is about the only conclusion one can draw form Portsmouth South 

[chrisp65]

Yeah I was being particularly thick as you missed out the middle election, so 2017 was tripping up a sleepy brain.

But I don’t think you can easily bunch those 5 seats together, I don’t think they could be much more diverse. 2015 VoG had Chris Elmore running a spectacularly poor campaign, 2019 Plaid and the Lib Dem’s stood aside, lending Labour (as a very crude measure) 3,000 votes. I think its more telling that what I would consider a viable candidate for Labour can get more votes than a poor candidate.

The selected numbers are correct, I’m just not sure what the selection achieves, is it simply to compare Miiliband / Cameron against Corbyn / Johnson?

 

[HanoiVillan]

5 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

Maybe I’ve missed this but why ignore 2017 in the data ?

 

4 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

The selected numbers are correct, I’m just not sure what the selection achieves, is it simply to compare Miiliband / Cameron against Corbyn / Johnson?

Yes, essentially it's just looking at where Labour stood prior to Corbyn compared to where they stand as he leaves; the interesting part of the data is the confirmation it provides that the party regressed most badly in the North East and Scotland, and progressed (without really winning very much) in some of the home counties and the South West.

It's not trying to prove a point, just out of interest really.