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

[HanoiVillan]

The *horrendous* polling keeps pouring in:

 

[blandy]

19 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

*If* that poll were right - and as I said before, it's so bad that I have a hard time believing it will be close to right - then that would suggest 95%+ of the Brexit vote going to the Tories, and 0% net going to Labour, with Labour also leaking votes to other parties.

By contrast, when the UKIP vote collapsed in 2017 in Hartlepool, it split about 60:40 in Labour's favour.

Again, that would be absolutely dire. It's also not any kind of an excuse, because fundamentally you are not on track to win an election - to put it mildly - if you are nearly 200 seats behind and are losing one of the ones you do have, or if you are failing to gain net *any* voters from the Brexit party in the north of England.

Similar happened when Corbyn was leader - in terms of losing a held seat to the government - somewhere up in Cumbria IIRC. It was the first time ever. Brexit and dislike of the Labour leader were the factors then, too.

This time, whatever happens, the vaccine thing and places that wanted Brexit, getting their Brexit is bound to be a massive factor for the party that gave them those things.

In my little world at least, this past few years has been a warp in the field of "normal" political carryings on. Some kind of normal will return sooner rather than later and it's at that point that the longer term future of Labour will be decided. It'll either split in two or or recover as the mess that will follow from what the tories have done with the Brexit they negotiated comes into people's lives more prominently. 

[HanoiVillan]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

Similar happened when Corbyn was leader - in terms of losing a held seat to the government - somewhere up in Cumbria IIRC. It was the first time ever. Brexit and dislike of the Labour leader were the factors then, too.

Yes, Copeland in 2017 (though it wasn't the first time ever, the previous was Mitcham & Morden in 1982 - these are very rare events though, I think there's only been something like 3 in the last 50 years or so).

[OutByEaster?]

I think Street will win mayor on a number of factors, but two are key, one stupid and one clever.

The clever one is that he's managed to become a thing on his own, he's been 'The Mayor' during his tenure and not 'The Tory Mayor' he does a very good job of separating himself from the government and creating the idea that he's a sort of independent, a mayor for a city, not a politician like the ones you see on TV. The stupid one is that he's now semi-famous, people have heard of him, so therefore he must be the best. I think the two go together to create the image of the figurehead mayor who is nothing to do with the government against a bunch of faceless nameless people from the political parties.

Between that and "I promise to keep the police station open" I think he'll romp it.

 

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

he does a very good job of separating himself from the government and creating the idea that he's a sort of independent

Yeah. But I don't think it's an act. He doesn't like Johnson at all. And is one of the old style of very moderate tories, quite some distance from the likes of Patel and all the other weapons.

[HanoiVillan]

6 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think Street will win mayor on a number of factors, but two are key, one stupid and one clever.

The clever one is that he's managed to become a thing on his own, he's been 'The Mayor' during his tenure and not 'The Tory Mayor' he does a very good job of separating himself from the government and creating the idea that he's a sort of independent, a mayor for a city, not a politician like the ones you see on TV. The stupid one is that he's now semi-famous, people have heard of him, so therefore he must be the best. I think the two go together to create the image of the figurehead mayor who is nothing to do with the government against a bunch of faceless nameless people from the political parties.

Between that and "I promise to keep the police station open" I think he'll romp it.

 

Looking at the polling for Street and Houchen, I can't help wondering if there are big incumbency advantages to these elections as well. I guess you get the chance to create your own brand, control a pot of funding, and you have a personal mandate as well. If you're a Tory, you have a sympathetic national government who want to help out with some of your asks at the margins. By contrast, it's pretty difficult for the opposition to get any attention or introduce themselves to the electorate.

[Seat68]

5 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think Street will win mayor on a number of factors, but two are key, one stupid and one clever.

The clever one is that he's managed to become a thing on his own, he's been 'The Mayor' during his tenure and not 'The Tory Mayor' he does a very good job of separating himself from the government and creating the idea that he's a sort of independent, a mayor for a city, not a politician like the ones you see on TV. The stupid one is that he's now semi-famous, people have heard of him, so therefore he must be the best. I think the two go together to create the image of the figurehead mayor who is nothing to do with the government against a bunch of faceless nameless people from the political parties.

Between that and "I promise to keep the police station open" I think he'll romp it.

 

This is all true. Ask me who his predecessor was or if there was one, I would struggle. Ask me about any west midlands politician and he is top of my list. He is on BBC west midlands today most weeks. People know him and he doesnt appear to be trumpeting tory policies. Also he seems, and I stress seems as I am sure someone can post examples, he seems to distance himself from the more toxic tories.  

[Chindie]

I think sometimes about the reaction if the great Satan was still leader, and how much less reason there would be.

And then I realise it makes me a combination of angry and despondent, and I think about something else.

[icouldtelltheworld]

26 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Looking at the polling for Street and Houchen, I can't help wondering if there are big incumbency advantages to these elections as well. I guess you get the chance to create your own brand, control a pot of funding, and you have a personal mandate as well. If you're a Tory, you have a sympathetic national government who want to help out with some of your asks at the margins. By contrast, it's pretty difficult for the opposition to get any attention or introduce themselves to the electorate.

The incumbency advantage is a massive factor IMO. Particularly when you consider that Street is the first Metro mayor that the West Mids has had, he can point to things which he's actually be doing in the job, whereas Labour have no history of filling the position.

It's interesting in a way that this is being used as a barometer of Labour's national performance TBH. The West Midlands is the type of area Labour needs to do well in, but it certainly isn't somewhere you'd absolutely expect them to win. While large parts of the region may be young and ethnically diverse, a lot of the metro area is old, white and Brexity as well. I certainly don't think that losing the West Mids mayoral election is as much of a problem for the party as losing in somewhere like Hartlepool would be.

[HanoiVillan]

27 minutes ago, icouldtelltheworld said:

The incumbency advantage is a massive factor IMO. Particularly when you consider that Street is the first Metro mayor that the West Mids has had, he can point to things which he's actually be doing in the job, whereas Labour have no history of filling the position.

It's interesting in a way that this is being used as a barometer of Labour's national performance TBH. The West Midlands is the type of area Labour needs to do well in, but it certainly isn't somewhere you'd absolutely expect them to win. While large parts of the region may be young and ethnically diverse, a lot of the metro area is old, white and Brexity as well. I certainly don't think that losing the West Mids mayoral election is as much of a problem for the party as losing in somewhere like Hartlepool would be.

Agree with your first paragraph, but not so much the second.

The standard Labour are inevitably going to be held to is 'do they look like they're on track to seriously compete in a general election'. As you say, to do that they would likely need to win widely in the West Midlands conurbation, not just in the highly-diverse inner-Birmingham seats. I know that age polarisation - and perhaps increasingly education polarisation - make eg winning back the Dudley seats and holding on to the Coventry seats an increasingly hard ask. But unless there's evidence of a big shift in the South East and South West in local election results, Labour just have to find a way to win again in the W Mids.

[icouldtelltheworld]

18 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

 But unless there's evidence of a big shift in the South East and South West in local election results, Labour just have to find a way to win again in the W Mids.

You're completely right in what you say here, and I agree with you. My point was more that losing the West Mids mayoral election isn't on the same scale as some of the losses Labour could (and probably will) suffer this week. There does seem to be an element of London-based journalists who don't understand the political dynamics of anywhere north of Watford lumping the West Mids election in with their red wall commentary, when the comparison doesn't really work

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, icouldtelltheworld said:

You're completely right in what you say here, and I agree with you. My point was more that losing the West Mids mayoral election isn't on the same scale as some of the losses Labour could (and probably will) suffer this week. There does seem to be an element of London-based journalists who don't understand the political dynamics of anywhere north of Watford lumping the West Mids election in with their red wall commentary, when the comparison doesn't really work

I completely agree, especially with the bolded. In fact, I would go further, and say that most journalists are extremely confused about what 'the red wall' is or was on its own, even without the comparison to the Midlands.

[Jareth]

Starmer is an arch remainer - it has been absolute folly to pursue the leave voters in the way that they have

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Starmer is an arch remainer - it has been absolute folly to pursue the leave voters in the way that they have

So Labour should be lead by a Brexity Whopper to get elected?

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

Starmer is an arch remainer - it has been absolute folly to pursue the leave voters in the way that they have

It's interesting. I wrote something then deleted it before posting. But your comment makes me write it all out again

Basically apart from that London and a couple of other places, the rest of England (and Wales) voted for Brexit. That an awful lot of seats voted Brexit. Labour can't just ignore that if it wants to win seats. He's been smart in saying "Brexit's done, it's over as an issue, it's resolved, it's happened."

To me Labour seems to have this problem of three sets of potential voters - your lefty studenty, Corbyny, Londony types that seem to view Starmer as beyond the pale, then there's the Red Wall people - working class northerners who wanted Brexit and live in not the best places that have been ignored for decades and taken for granted, and finally there's potential centre-ish floating voters without a (political) home.

Labour won't win going after the student Corbyny types - they can't, there's not enough of them. SO they have to try and get the centre and others to vote for them. I dunno if that's possible with the party pulling in different directions, and they might just implode, who knows. He's got a very hard job, having inherited a massive defeat to the tories from the last election. Oppositions tend not to come back in one fell swoop from huge defeats.

[blandy]

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

So Labour should be lead by a Brexity Whopper to get elected?

That already failed

[darrenm]

12 minutes ago, blandy said:

That an awful lot of seats voted Brexit. Labour can't just ignore that if it wants to win seats. He's been smart in saying "Brexit's done, it's over as an issue, it's resolved, it's happened."

 

12 minutes ago, blandy said:

He's got a very hard job, having inherited a massive to the tories from the last election

So what you're saying is that whoever was in the last shadow cabinet pushing remain onto a 2nd referendum outside of party policy was being a bit reckless?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-conference-second-referendum-brexit-keir-starmer-a8554086.html

Quote

 

Labour's Brexit row deepens as Keir Starmer declares in speech 'nobody is ruling out Remain'
The Independent understands comments were not approved by Jeremy Corbyn's office in advance

He went on: “That must include campaigning for a public vote.

“It is right that parliament has the first say, but if we need to break the impasse, our options must include campaigning for a public vote and nobody is ruling out Remain as an option.”

The final words of the sentence were not included in the copy of the speech pre-briefed to journalists, while insiders said that it had been ad-libbed by the frontbencher from the stage.

With all speeches having to be cleared with Mr Corbyn’s office first, it will mean that the words were not approved by the leader’s aides.

 

It's good that he's learned to be responsible now it's not someone else's leadership he's undermining.

[blandy]

19 minutes ago, darrenm said:

So what you're saying is that whoever was in the last shadow cabinet pushing remain onto a 2nd referendum outside of party policy was being a bit reckless?

No, you tinker

I may have mentioned once or twice that Labour's Brexit position was seen as "Leave" by remainers, and "remain" by Leavers - it was an abomination of a non-policy, a fence sitting fudge. God knows how many times I argued for them to pick a horse and go with it, that either position could be credibly argued for once they made their mind up, but trying to straddle both sides was lunacy. Labour, the Party, got it horribly horribly wrong. Starmer bears some of that responsibility as one of the shadow Cabinet, but ultimately more lies with the previous leader, in my view.

But you knew that you scamp

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

So Labour should be lead by a Brexity Whopper to get elected?

I thought we'd agreed that it was okay for Starmer to pretend to be anything in order to get elected, because once he was in power he'd magically turn into the type of leader he's secretly wanted to be all along?

 

[icouldtelltheworld]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

To me Labour seems to have this problem of three sets of potential voters - your lefty studenty, Corbyny, Londony types that seem to view Starmer as beyond the pale, then there's the Red Wall people - working class northerners who wanted Brexit and live in not the best places that have been ignored for decades and taken for granted, and finally there's potential centre-ish floating voters without a (political) home.

The real issue is that Brexit has completely destroyed the electoral coalition between these disparate groups that Labour requires to win an election. Its an issue with no obvious fix, and could IMO end Labour as electoral force (combined with the loss of the Scottish vote to the SNP). Either way, I think Labour are a long way from power - it may be a case of needing to wait out a few years yet for the consequences of Brexit to become apparent, or for the current discourse around Brexit to completely die down - I agree with you that Starmer trying to move on from Brexit and treating it as a done deal is about the best strategy available

Edited May 4, 2021 by icouldtelltheworld