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

[icouldtelltheworld]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think the solution to this is pretty straightforward, get back to pushing the policies that resonated with the electorate in 2017 with the more orthodox leader we have today. I think that's what people thought we were getting with Starmer but it's been very disappointing thus far.

I think that in terms of picking up and putting down flags, Starmer's leadership thus far has been so much focused on winning the Labour party that there's been a neglect of the electorate that's shown in these results. He's not just put down the flag of red populism, he's put down the flag of policy altogether - Labour don't stand for anything at the moment, there's nothing to vote for - Labour voters stayed home and the floating voters went with voting for something over voting for nothing.

I'm worried that the Labour Party as it stands are so misguided that they'll refuse to pick that flag up again, simply because it's associated with Corbyn. Those policies gave Labour the biggest bump they've had in fifteen to twenty years, they're the very heart of what the Labour party should be doing and I believe that they are what Labour voters want. I have a horrible feeling that instead Starmer will push even harder at the 'Tories with a heart' line and we'll end up with a party in irrelevance and another decade of Tory rule.

There are huge lessons to be learned from these elections, the opportunity is still there, but if the small group of people pushing the party to the right keep pushing, they'll push it into the void.

Agree massively with what you've put here. I can't help but read the party's rhetoric of "we haven't changed enough" as signalling a general intention to float along and see which way the wind blows before announcing any concrete policy proposals. If Labour can't articulate an alternative vision for the country and are simply aiming to try and piggy-back onto public opinion, then there really is very little point of them as a political party.

Despite being on the left of the party, I had high hopes for Starmer but it's all been very disappointing thus far.

Edited May 7, 2021 by icouldtelltheworld

[villakram]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

The Green Party is not a socialist party. Why would they want an influx of socialists? The Green Party needs an influx of people that believe in environmental issues, first and foremost. I very much doubt they want to become the new home for people who want to argue with their shadow and ally themselves with Trade Unions.

The 1990s called and wants their characterization of the Green party back.

[OutByEaster?]

Starmer has just said on the Beeb that "We've already changed, we need to go further".

He looks red faced, angry, confused and a little bit desperate.

 

 

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Starmer has just said on the Beeb that "We've already changed, we need to go further".

He looks red faced, angry, confused and a little bit desperate.

 

 

The hunt for policies is going well I see

 

[Chindie]

In before discovering Keith has had surgery to make himself look like the perfect amalgam of Toryism. Thatcher's nose, Churchill's jawline, Johnson's dick, Major's pallor...

[OutByEaster?]

I still had hopes that with the right policies that the calm competence that Kier radiates could bring Labour success.

in that five minute interview he's managed to convince me that he has no idea what those policies are and no hope of ever being reunited with them and at the same time managed to destroy his own image in a single flustered, stuttery, soundbite, flounder. 

It was a car crash.

 

[HanoiVillan]

Thank God the adults are back in charge

[bickster]

42 minutes ago, villakram said:

The 1990s called and wants their characterization of the Green party back.

So you are saying that the Green Party doesn't have it's primary focus on environmental Issues? Or are you saying it's a socialist party? Because those are the only two comments I made about them. The Greens may well be well left of centre but they are absolutely not a socialist party (this is to their credit)

[markavfc40]

I don't know where Starmer goes from here. I have said before I think sometimes a leader can be in opposition for too long as they can have that initial impact when they come in for the first year or so and then 4 years down the line come election time they have become stale. Starmer though seems to have missed out the initial bounce bit and gone straight into stale territory. 

He hasn't really laid a glove on the Tories in the last year other than brief moments in PMQ's. He seems scared to oppose anything the Tories have done in regards the pandemic and seems loathe to want to really ram home their many failings due to not wanting to be accused of playing politics. That has resulted in him/Labour being seen as a nothing party offering no alternatives and not opposing anything. They have failed in being an opposition so you can't expect people to see them as being able to govern.

I am pissed off with Labour to be honest as they have failed this country for the last decade by not getting their act together and allowing the Tories to get away with murder.

Edited May 7, 2021 by markavfc40

[Davkaus]

We're in for at least 19 years of tory rule, **** hell.

[blandy]

37 minutes ago, icouldtelltheworld said:

Agree massively with what you've put here. I can't help but read the party's rhetoric of "we haven't changed enough" as signalling a general intention to float along and see which way the wind blows before announcing any concrete policy proposals.

I've got a little bit of kind of strategic sympathy with them on part of that.

it seems to me like they don't know where the anchor is - the thing from which they have some freedom to move, but not so much freedom that they forget they've got an anchor, if that makes sense?  The anchor is a core, fundamental ethos.

It used to be they were the party that came out of the Unions and was there to look after the interests of the lower classes, the working man (and it was pretty much just man). They were a political extension of the union movement - better working conditions, job protection, protection from exploitation and so on. Then they did the post war rebuilding of the NHS and housing and stuff. And since then they've had a couple of spells where they caught the imagination - Harold Wilson and his "White Heat of technology" promising a new age, and then again with Blair and his "third way" appeal to aspirational working people, after a period where Thatcher had just stuffed the jobs and prospects of millions. Then he went all war-y and **** that right up.

Since then, nothing - Brown had the World financial crisis and suffered because of it. Milliband, Corbyn, Starmer - well the tories shamelessly nicked all Milliband's ideas and he was not very telegenic, a bit geeky. Corbyn - appealed to a minority because of his unconventional stances, but equally he had a huge amount of baggage for a lot of the Country, and was never going to win an election. AN anti-imperialist is not going to Triumph in a nation which is a bit imperialist by nature, or certainly has been. And as much as people liked some of his/Labour's policies, far too many hated others and his outlook, and his/Labour's take on Brexit was "interesting".

So now they're looking around - some saying we want Corbynism, but more so. Others saying we want less of it, because the voters like Toryism. Do they want a boring competent man in a suit, or a radical visionary to lead them? Do they look to the students in the South, or the factory workers in the North and midlands? Whichever they were to do they'd upset the other.

So waiting around to see which way the wind blows must have some appeal - "wait till the fog of pandemic and Brexit clears, and then come up with policies and solutions and ideas" - it is appealing, to them perhaps, but meanwhile the Tories are Torying and they're sort of lost in the wilderness, irrelevant in the present and arguing amongst themselves whose fault it is. Listen, it's all their fault - Corbyn, Starmer, lefties, centrists, decrepit Union leaders, Rotten city leaders, hubristic councillors and all the rest.

Oddly, Conservatism is supposed to be about keeping things like they always were, but it's Labour that's struggled with the changes the world has experienced, in jobs, the environment, finance, Europe, the US, China, pandemic, Brexit and so on. Change happened and they got left behind and out of date. The workers that sustained them have changed and seen that if they want Environmental stuff, there's the Greens. If they want Pro Europe there's the LDs, if they want to reduce immigration there's the Tories, if they want Brexit, there's the Brexit party and now the Tories again. Pandemic? "well, Johnson gave us the vaccine. Yeah people died last year and they screwed up the exams and they lie and stuff, but that was last year..I will be able to go on holiday and I got furloughed, not made redundant...what's Labour done for me? Nothing"

 

[Chindie]

The Hartlepool vote basically shows that Labour's vote just didn't bother going to the polls.

Which will probably be true across a lot of these constituencies. Yesterday was the first time I didn't bother to go just to spoil my ballot.

At the moment, there's not much to motivate the Labour vote. They embroiled themselves in a dirty campaign to bin the leader for years, which culminated in a successfully bad 2019 campaign, and the new guy is a empty suit who basically has been successful in crushing the hated elements of the party. But at the same time seems to have done nothing to encourage anyone to vote for him.

At this point Corbyn was getting pilloried.

[Jareth]

F*ck me this is as clown show as it first seemed

Labour head office was “obsessed with us getting a flag”, said one organiser, bemoaning what they felt was a lack of substance to justify it. “There was no fleshing out what the flag means, or what policies have changed because we’re now patriotic. It was just: bung a flag up.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/07/obsessed-with-the-flag-labour-recriminations-begin-in-hartlepool

[dAVe80]

3 hours ago, darrenm said:

Yep. If only there was some way to turn that apathy around. Like some policies that make you go 'wow' maybe?

Nah don't think so mate. Doesn't sound believable to me. There's not a magic money tree you know? Sounds like broadband communism to me. Etc. 

[icouldtelltheworld]

 

[Jareth]

Wales are keeping it real. Well done Drakeford. 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Jareth

[ml1dch]

46 minutes ago, icouldtelltheworld said:

 

 

By all accounts there are two things happening, a lot of the early results are from Tory areas (as much as they exist in London), so are more likely to be weighted towards Bailey compared to other areas, and also the supplementary vote system means that there are likely to be huge numbers of Green / Binface / Lib Dem first, with Khan second so he cleans up in the second round. 

Edit - although this sort of thing is pretty damn arrogant:

 

"Complacency from voters who believed it was safe to put a candidate from a smaller party as first preference"

[tinker]

Labour's completey  lost the plot , Starmer is so bland it's pathetic to see him up against Boris and expect anything more than voter apathy  to beat Boris and his well drilled media machine you.need to hit him head on and cause him issues . 

Any leader worth his or her salt would attack on ,Grenfill and the care home scandal that's still not spoke about now. The NHS underfunding the.list goes on and on, Labour moan about  flat renovation  when real issues are looked over, they then expect the electorate to back them , their a joke, a disgrace to the party they are supposed to represent.

One way around it , Jess Philips , she would destroy Boris and give a whole new battle field for labour to bring these self serving disgusting leaders who are going to get worse and worse while Labour sit there shit scared  to fight anything.

Edited May 7, 2021 by tinker

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, tinker said:

Labour moan about  flat renovation  when real issues are looked over,

I'm not sure you realise how massive that particular scandal is and how many people it affects

[Jareth]

3 minutes ago, tinker said:

One way around it , Jess Philips , she would destroy Boris and give a whole new battle field for labour to bring these self serving disgusting leaders who are going to get worse and worse while Labour sit there shit scored to fight anything.