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

[HanoiVillan]

17 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Well Mandelson has just been on R4 explaining the defeat was wholly a hang over from Corbynism.

 

They've missed a trick, really. Should have reinstated him before the election, so they could performatively expel him afterwards. Surely if they did a few hundred times the British people would finally realise 'they've changed'.

[HanoiVillan]

30 minutes ago, darrenm said:

For every person who votes Tory because they're happy about the vaccine rollout, surely there's someone else unhappy about the 150,000 deaths compared to Norway, New Zealand, Australia? Why is it only a vaccine bounce and not an excess death drop? How about the loss for the Tories from those self employed who couldn't be furloughed?

I know you already know the answer to these questions, but the reason we're left talking about a 'vaccine bounce' rather than an 'excess death drop' is because the politics of the pandemic have been almost completely uncontested by the opposition. The only person who reliably challenged the government on the excess deaths we've suffered got fired from his job on breakfast television a couple of months back.

32 minutes ago, darrenm said:

I honestly think it's too easy to look at surface issues as a simple explanation. I think the reality is far more complex and is mainly around the 70 year decline of Labour within the working class, arrested in 1997 and 2017 by populism, inspiration and aspiration. 

Gonna hear a lot about 'long-term decline' in the next few days, all of which is going to ignore that the won more than 50% of the vote in this constituency four years ago. Awkward, but a fact.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

11 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

I think part of their problem is I couldn't tell you what their policies or strategy is right now

They couldn't tell you either I suspect.  

As soon as they jumped on the wallpaper thing with (Starmer) in a wallpaper shop,  I mean come on.  Utterly pathetic.  Where did all that get him really ? 130k + Dead from covid,  got them nowhere.

Shadow health bloke,  useless.  Nandy Pandy, utterly useless forgettable and not in a position to go up against the Tory machine and win as a group of people in my lifetime.

 

 

[Jareth]

Surely if Starmer is to be judged it should be on the votes Labour lost compared to last time out. Where did these people go? 

[darrenm]

They basically didn't bother coming out to vote

 

[icouldtelltheworld]

1 hour ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Could it be Labour are finished as a political force ? It was not even close,  the people who used to vote for them are either dead or are now Tories,  could it be as simple as that ?

They are never going to get a red wall back in this generation.  An opposition should win by-elections at ease historically also.

This result cannot be blamed on anythng but themselves surely ?

 

Under first past the post Labour could well be finished IMO. The party needs to get serious about electoral reform and work alongside other parties to campaign for it 

[blandy]

21 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Gonna hear a lot about 'long-term decline' in the next few days, all of which is going to ignore that they won more than 50% of the vote in this constituency four years ago. Awkward, but a fact.

And how many did they get last time - 2019 - 37% ? The Brexit lot got 10,000 odd votes (25%)  where did those votes go this time? - I think we can work that bit out pretty easily. The question to an extent is where did Labour's vote from last time go - they dropped 7000 odd votes. And it's also worth thinking about how the Brexit lot managed to get 25% of the vote last time out. The causes of that haven't gone away, the things that made people vote for Brexit haven't gone away magically.

At the moment I'd suggest that Labour is not remotely offering a solution to those things, whilst the tories have 2 things in their favour - firstly they gave the Brexiters what they wanted, and secondly the actual impact of Brexit is not really being felt yet, partly because the pandemic has masked it so massively and partly because it's going to become apparent over years and years.

This by election the result was Con 15,529, Lab 8,589 - Get some effing policies for the modern world, Labour and tell us what they are. Vaccine bounce won't last for long.

[desensitized43]

1 minute ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

They couldn't tell you either I suspect.  

As soon as they jumped on the wallpaper thing with (Starmer) in a wallpaper shop,  I mean come on.  Utterly pathetic.  Where did all that get him really ? 130k + Dead from covid,  got them nowhere.

Shadow health bloke,  useless.  Nandy Pandy, utterly useless forgettable and not in a position to go up against the Tory machine and win as a group of people in my lifetime.

 

 

He clearly thought he was being funny with that wallpaper thing. Like you, my reaction was initially to roll my eyes at what was a terrible "dad joke" then wonder why he was making jokes when 100,000+ people died before their time over the last 12 months.

I think they decided that initially they couldn't really go after the government over covid as it was a time of national emergency...but when in the autumn we had chaotic rules changing every day and sometimes people yards away in another post code following different rules, one of, if not the worst per capita death figures in the world at that point, I think they really should have been holding them to account every week. There's a narrative that they've allowed to emerge that "Boris has done alright" and it's complete and utter bullshit. He's gambled everything on the vaccine that no one knew whether we'd even get or how effective it would be and he got lucky, but while he was gambling on the vaccine he **** everything else up.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

4 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

He's gambled everything on the vaccine

Gamblers only tell you about their big wins as well.

[Jareth]

23 minutes ago, icouldtelltheworld said:

Under first past the post Labour could well be finished IMO. The party needs to get serious about electoral reform and work alongside other parties to campaign for it 

A million percent agree. Only issue is that Labour still contains the snakes that kyboshed the last leadership - Starmer should have ejected them but we all know he has no such ambition (shadow health secretary and wife amongst a few). Said snakes have shown they have no idea how to appeal to voters, other than to assume they're all idiots that'll be persuaded by a union jack and some cheap gags. Last time Labour lost a seat we saw Jess Phillips fist pumping and grinning - I wonder what her reaction was to this result. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, darrenm said:

For every person who votes Tory because they're happy about the vaccine rollout, surely there's someone else unhappy about the 150,000 deaths compared to Norway, New Zealand, Australia? Why is it only a vaccine bounce and not an excess death drop? How about the loss for the Tories from those self employed who couldn't be furloughed? All of the stuff ups that the Tories did over the pandemic? Have people just forgotten all of that now that the vaccine rollout is going well?

Brexit is done. Why would anyone vote for party based on it when it's now gone? And what about the 50% (30% in Hartlepool) of people who are remainers and would be seething at the brexit stuff ups? Even the leavers seeing all of the problems caused should be unhappy about it.

I honestly think it's too easy to look at surface issues as a simple explanation. I think the reality is far more complex and is mainly around the 70 year decline of Labour within the working class, arrested in 1997 and 2017 by populism, inspiration and aspiration. 

Good questions. I don't live in Hartlepools, but talking to people in shops and stuff, the answers appear to be that (genuinely) not a single soul has responded to me saying stuff about all the deaths with any kind of "yeah the tory bastards" - they've all said "vaccine. Yay" and "looking forward to going to the pub and on holiday, now, at last". SO the answer appears to be "yes, people have just forgotten all of that now that the vaccine rollout is going well"

The next question - "Why would anyone vote for a party based on Brexit it when it's now done? - is  (personal opiniom) because 1. "Thanks for doing it" +  2. "Labour tried to stop it, I'm not voting for them" and 3. "Stick it the foreign Monkeys - Hang 'em". As for the remainers in Hartlepools - well, did they stay at home? Did they stick with Labour or whoever they voted for last time? Dunno. No idea.

The thing with it all is it isn't (at voter level) complicated. All the TV vox pops and so on - you never get much more than (recent ones over the past few years) "I want Brexit" or "Johnson's funny, ha ha" even the stuff where they do panels of people and ask them questions - most of the answers are simplistic, and even if/when they come out with something more nuanced, they then say "but I'm still gonna vote for [them]".

[darrenm]

11 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

He clearly thought he was being funny with that wallpaper thing. Like you, my reaction was initially to roll my eyes at what was a terrible "dad joke" then wonder why he was making jokes when 100,000+ people died before their time over the last 12 months.

I think they decided that initially they couldn't really go after the government over covid as it was a time of national emergency...but when in the autumn we had chaotic rules changing every day and sometimes people yards away in another post code following different rules, one of, if not the worst per capita death figures in the world at that point, I think they really should have been holding them to account every week. There's a narrative that they've allowed to emerge that "Boris has done alright" and it's complete and utter bullshit. He's gambled everything on the vaccine that no one knew whether we'd even get or how effective it would be and he got lucky, but while he was gambling on the vaccine he **** everything else up.

This is why focus group politics doesn't work. 

It's really easy for a policy chief e.g. Claire Ainsley to watch Question Time over the last few years and hear time after time after time "why won't you work together!" about politicians.

It's a really common thing to hear. It's easy to think 'if we support the government during a national emergency we're doing what voters want' but again it's one dimensional thinking. It's doing a logical conclusion from 1 data point.

It should be obvious that it's wrong when you hear just as many people saying "you're the opposition, oppose!". Which is it, work together or oppose?

It turns out, people just like to shout nonsense. The only thing you can really do is be for something. Describe what you think is wrong and how you will fix it. Take voters with you, don't try to go towards voters who are phantoms and were never actually there. Forget focus groups, forget stereotypes of northern or working class voters, just say what you're here for and if it's exciting enough people will come with you.

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

Good questions. I don't live in Hartlepools, but talking to people in shops and stuff, the answers appear to be that (genuinely) not a single soul has responded to me saying stuff about all the deaths with any kind of "yeah the tory bastards" - they've all said "vaccine. Yay" and "looking forward to going to the pub and on holiday, now, at last". SO the answer appears to be "yes, people have just forgotten all of that now that the vaccine rollout is going well"

The next question - "Why would anyone vote for a party based on Brexit it when it's now done? - is  (personal opiniom) because 1. "Thanks for doing it" +  2. "Labour tried to stop it, I'm not voting for them" and 3. "Stick it the foreign Monkeys - Hang 'em". As for the remainers in Hartlepools - well, did they stay at home? Did they stick with Labour or whoever they voted for last time? Dunno. No idea.

The thing with it all is it isn't (at voter level) complicated. All the TV vox pops and so on - you never get much more than (recent ones over the past few years) "I want Brexit" or "Johnson's funny, ha ha" even the stuff where they do panels of people and ask them questions - most of the answers are simplistic, and even if/when they come out with something more nuanced, they then say "but I'm still gonna vote for [them]".

I refer the honourable gentleman to the earlier post re ‘populism’ by darrenm.

 

 

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I refer the honourable gentleman to the earlier post re ‘populism’ by darrenm.

If it 's the flag one., then no I totally disagree. (sorry if you mean a different one). The answer to right wing populism isn't left wing populism. Populism is a problem, left or right. It's dumbing down, lying, yes you can have your type of cake and not get fat, bullshit.

As Darren said later "The only thing you can really do is be for something. Describe what you think is wrong and how you will fix it. Take voters with you, don't try to go towards voters who are phantoms and were never actually there"

[darrenm]

Just now, blandy said:

If it 's the flag one., then no I totally disagree. (sorry if you mean a different one). The answer to right wing populism isn't left wing populism. Populism is a problem, left or right. It's dumbing down, lying, yes you can have your type of cake and not get fat, bullshit.

As Darren said later "The only thing you can really do is be for something. Describe what you think is wrong and how you will fix it. Take voters with you, don't try to go towards voters who are phantoms and were never actually there"

Then I suspect our definitions of populism are a bit different.

Populism doesn't have to be lies, it just has to be popular.

[desensitized43]

2 minutes ago, darrenm said:

This is why focus group politics doesn't work. 

It's really easy for a policy chief e.g. Claire Ainsley to watch Question Time over the last few years and hear time after time after time "why won't you work together!" about politicians.

It's a really common thing to hear. It's easy to think 'if we support the government during a national emergency we're doing what voters want' but again it's one dimensional thinking. It's doing a logical conclusion from 1 data point.

It should be obvious that it's wrong when you hear just as many people saying "you're the opposition, oppose!". Which is it, work together or oppose?

It turns out, people just like to shout nonsense. The only thing you can really do is be for something. Describe what you think is wrong and how you will fix it. Take voters with you, don't try to go towards voters who are phantoms and were never actually there. Forget focus groups, forget stereotypes of northern or working class voters, just say what you're here for and if it's exciting enough people will come with you.

Completely agree. Being in opposition isn't just about opposing everything the government is doing.

I like to think of it this way - we all have that person at work who always brings problems to the table but never any options/solutions.

Labour need to be presenting alternate options and alternate policies to the ones currently being pursued and at the moment they just aren't because we have no idea what they would do if they came to power. When they start to look like a credible (and that's the key word) alternative government they'll start to see some improvement.

[Jareth]

The only way forwards IMHO is for the UK to divide and I am hoping for the SNP to get their majority today. The tories are an English problem. By extension I hope for Wales to splinter off too and have every part of the British Isles moving forward as progressive little countries whilst England cracks on as Singapore on steroids with the widest inequality gap in the world. Best to contain that tory dream in England rather than let it infect the rest of this island. 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, darrenm said:

Populism doesn't have to be lies, it just has to be popular

Agreed...but it never not lies in reality. Almost by default, because "for the people against the elite" when championed by "the elite/the powers that rule" is never going to disadvantage the proponents, given they espouse it specifically in order to either hold on to, or win power.

There's never any stuff about the downsides of the "populist" policies being put forward. Never.

[Chindie]

Party that unleashed face eating tiger surprised at backlash to face eating felines being unleashed.

[darrenm]

8 minutes ago, blandy said:

Agreed...but it never not lies in reality. Almost by default, because "for the people against the elite" when championed by "the elite/the powers that rule" is never going to disadvantage the proponents, given they espouse it specifically in order to either hold on to, or win power.

There's never any stuff about the downsides of the "populist" policies being put forward. Never.

But I'd say that the 2017 and 2019 Labour manifestos were populist. And they would have done the policies and we would all have been better off for them (IMO) e.g. the Green Industrial Revolution, 2bn trees, 4% increase on health spending, net zero carbon by 2040. Even if they couldn't be done, they would have been attempted and possibly stopped by the Lords. They were still populist policies and I can't see a downside?