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

[bickster]

1 hour ago, darrenm said:

With any other leader Labour would be 20 points ahead

 

 

So you are saying any other leader? Are you really sure about that? How about DIanne Abbott? or maybe Jess Phillips? Or even Wes Streeting? or even John McDonald? 4 names off the top of my head from both sides of the party that I'd wager would actually be doing worse. In fact I just looked up the former leaders ratings on YouGov for the sake of comparison, he was in the -60 territory

 

We also have a problem with what ther tweet actually says.It says this is Starmers lowest favourabilty ever even though the actual stats presented state that its exactly the same as last time except that 3% more people find him favourable than last time and 3% more people find him unfavourable, thats net exactly the same as last time

[blandy]

8 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

A good few months ago, we were all watching PM’s Questions, and Starmer would sort of land a point in a cool calm understated way. But he would never quite actually go in for the kill.

There was a theory that he was building a case, building a methodical list of well made calm killer points. That one day, when he was good and ready, he would bring all these points together and absolutely smash the shit out of Johnson.

Anybody still waiting?

Everyone is, because Parliament is in recess. You’re welcome.

[dAVe80]

9 hours ago, bickster said:

So you are saying any other leader? Are you really sure about that? How about DIanne Abbott? or maybe Jess Phillips? Or even Wes Streeting? or even John McDonald? 4 names off the top of my head from both sides of the party that I'd wager would actually be doing worse. In fact I just looked up the former leaders ratings on YouGov for the sake of comparison, he was in the -60 territory

 

We also have a problem with what ther tweet actually says.It says this is Starmers lowest favourabilty ever even though the actual stats presented state that its exactly the same as last time except that 3% more people find him favourable than last time and 3% more people find him unfavourable, thats net exactly the same as last time

I don't want to speak for him, and I may be wrong, but I think the point Darren was making is, that was the accusation labeled at the previous leader when he actually was ahead in the polls. I'd think Darren is saying it to point out how wrong that statement was, and how Labour missed an opportunity.

 

[blandy]

27 minutes ago, dAVe80 said:

I think the point Darren was making is, that was the accusation labeled at the previous leader

Me too. And to an extent it's fair comment.

Personally I think you've got to take into account the things that have happened (both under Catweazle and since). I don't think we can completely ignore what Starmer inherited, and I don't think we can ignore the corollafungus pandemic and vaccine and all of that, nor Brexit actually "being delivered", nor the switch from May to Johnson - all or most of those things kind of render the balance very different, and in favour of the tories (the exception being the mishandling of the pandemic, but even then many people think "well it's been horrible everywhere, I don't blame the guvmint").

Anecdotally, I get my hair cut at a local barbers. Papers are provided for the customers to read, while waiting - Sun, Express, Mail. The barber's a sound bloke, but a raving Tory (I think). Usual convo about where you going on holiday etc. I mentioned not really knowing the rules about tests and wotnot. He started talking about the cost of the test kits and all this and it being a racket and someone's making a load of money out of it, and I said "yeah, Tory donors and MPs families", to which he replied "Labour would be just the same".

He's a one man business, obviously had to close the shop during long stretches of the pandemic. Says he didn't claim any money off the government for it "as they'll only come after you for it back later".

The reason to mention all this is there are an awful lot of people like him. Self employed, work hard, they've got their views about politicians, immigration, Britain, get their news from right wing press and they're never going to change their mind, unless something massively catastrophic affects them  personally that they (or the press) pin directly on the government.

So a question for Labour is how to get people like him to not vote Tory, or do they just ignore that type of person as a lost cause?

 

[darrenm]

9 hours ago, bickster said:

So you are saying any other leader? Are you really sure about that? How about DIanne Abbott? or maybe Jess Phillips? Or even Wes Streeting? or even John McDonald? 4 names off the top of my head from both sides of the party that I'd wager would actually be doing worse. In fact I just looked up the former leaders ratings on YouGov for the sake of comparison, he was in the -60 territory

 

We also have a problem with what ther tweet actually says.It says this is Starmers lowest favourabilty ever even though the actual stats presented state that its exactly the same as last time except that 3% more people find him favourable than last time and 3% more people find him unfavourable, thats net exactly the same as last time

It's a meme. Here's roughly how it came about:

Labour have been on a downward trend since the 1950s, bucked massively by Blair in 1997 and less so by Corbyn in 2017. Every election since 1997 had them losing vote share until losing the elections in 2010 and 2015. Corbyn got the party back to parity in 2017 (around 40/40 with the Tories) and then inevitably slid back away when not in an election campaign.

Lots of people who are hailed as being political experts then realigned their expectations of where Labour had recently been and where they should be. According to them, 2017's hung parliament happened because there's 2 big parties who should be neck and neck, ignoring the entire last decade of Labour being behind the Tories almost all of the time. People like James O'Brien, Ian Dunt, Dan Hodges, all of the journalists and political commentators whose entire career is knowing how politics works were still convinced that Corbyn was the problem and that Labour would be wiping the floor with the Tories if they changed the leader. Some of them forcefully proclaimed: 

https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/james-obrien/passionate-listener-denies-labour-antisemitism/

Quote

 

(James O'Brien): "You are the reason why, because you've got a party led by a man who has the moral integrity of a Kit Kat and yet somehow has managed to persuade significant swathes of decent people that he speaks for decency.

"No he doesn't, he's a disgrace. And if the Labour Party was led by anybody else it would be 20 points ahead in the polls."

 

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/george-osborne-labour-would-be-20-points-ahead-of-the-tories-if-jeremy-corbyn-wasnt-leader

Quote

(George Osborne): "In my view for all his ability to connect to younger and more disillusioned voters, Jeremy Corbyn remains the biggest obstacle to Labour winning an election. If the party was led by a more moderate social democrat of even middling ability then they would now be 20 points ahead in the polls and on the cusp of power."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-41952976

Quote

Tony Blair: 'Labour should be 20 points ahead in polls'
Former prime minister Tony Blair has said that Labour should be much further ahead in the opinion polls than it is now, suggesting that Jeremy Corbyn isn't capitalising on the problems facing the government

(coincidentally, Labour were 6 points ahead when Tony made that 'rare' intervention above)

While all of these political heavyweights were saying this, lots of other people were saying 'hold on, it's not that simple. Labour's problems are decades in the making and the problem isn't the leader' but they were rebuffed. Even a lot of the left who were happy with Corbyn (myself included although I consider myself centrist) believed that with another leader with fewer targets on their back from their history of taking questionable sides, then Labour could pull ahead if they kept the right policies. Starmer could only have won the leadership election with the left believing this and voting for him with his 10 pledges/jokes.

Now that Starmer just keeps falling lower and lower in the popularity ratings (yes, nowhere near the previous leader yet but that's not the point) and the party is no better off in the polls, it turns out that the Twittersphere bubble shitposters had better insight than Tony Blair, George Osborne and James O'Brien and all of the others who said similar things about the previous leader being the problem. There's quite a bit of frustration at being ignored, then being proven right and then still being ignored. Hence the meme 'any other leader would be 20 points ahead'.

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Now that Starmer just keeps falling lower and lower in the popularity ratings

Sorry I haven't had time to read the whole post yet as I'm rather busy in work but this point is not true either. By the measure used in the tweet that started this conversation. The YouGov approval rating, Starmer's numbers have had a slight upturn since mid April, Which again makes the original tweet utter rubbish, its figures aren't correct and the latest data does not show his current approval rating to be at it's lowest, it isn't. Look it up on YouGov if you don't believe me.

[darrenm]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

So a question for Labour is how to get people like him to not vote Tory, or do they just ignore that type of person as a lost cause?

That's where I think Labour's strategy is old fashioned, over simplistic and doesn't account for modern populism.

People who've been in politics before the 21st century would say that yes, of course you have to try and encourage voters to vote for you by giving them what they want. I'd counter that people like that aren't saying what they want. They're saying stuff they don't really believe because they think it's what everyone else believes. Ask them if we should take in more refugees and they'll say no. Drive them to the south coast and get them to turn a dinghy around and they'll have a sudden change of heart.

So you shouldn't pander to views that aren't for the betterment of the country or the world even. You should never encourage 'legitimate concerns'. You shouldn't say 'a bit of racism is OK if it gets us elected'.

So, yes, ignore that type of person as a lost cause. Because while you try to chase them, they always will be. When you have a strong, positive message of change and hope, they'll come to you.

[darrenm]

9 minutes ago, bickster said:

Sorry I haven't had time to read the whole post yet as I'm rather busy in work but this point is not true either. By the measure used in the tweet that started this conversation. The YouGov approval rating, Starmer's numbers have had a slight upturn since mid April, Which again makes the original tweet utter rubbish, its figures aren't correct and the latest data does not show his current approval rating to be at it's lowest, it isn't. Look it up on YouGov if you don't believe me.

Yep, you're right that he has been lower and recovered but the trend is still "falling lower and lower" https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/keir-starmer-approval-rating

Edited August 26, 2021 by darrenm
url

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, darrenm said:

That's where I think Labour's strategy is old fashioned, over simplistic and doesn't account for modern populism.

People who've been in politics before the 21st century would say that yes, of course you have to try and encourage voters to vote for you by giving them what they want. I'd counter that people like that aren't saying what they want. They're saying stuff they don't really believe because they think it's what everyone else believes. Ask them if we should take in more refugees and they'll say no. Drive them to the south coast and get them to turn a dinghy around and they'll have a sudden change of heart.

So you shouldn't pander to views that aren't for the betterment of the country or the world even. You should never encourage 'legitimate concerns'. You shouldn't say 'a bit of racism is OK if it gets us elected'.

So, yes, ignore that type of person as a lost cause. Because while you try to chase them, they always will be. When you have a strong, positive message of change and hope, they'll come to you.

That's what's caused the dilemma, I think - "modern populism". It's what the Tories do (and UKIPS and others). It's also detectable that on the internets (as opposed to real life) a lot of the left-wing stuff is all about identity politics - so one party, the right, is appealing to and inflaming base instincts around Europe, Immigration, Refugees, scroungers and stuff, and then the other party is caught up in endless factional bickering about identity and what is pure (while indulging in some pretty hateful stuff against individuals - for example , seeing as we were talking about the Unite election, the winner got loads of vile misogynistic abuse from left wingers demanding she stand down for Steve Turner).

The notion that Starmer or anyone, frankly, can unify Labour is for the fairies - social media stuff around every world event or story is (on the left at least, I don't tend to look at the right wing stuff on it) utterly argumentative and fragmented into silos calling anyone who uses nuance, or who thinks differently all kinds of terrible names.

Personally, I think you're right that the Labour leader should set out a message of hope based on how things could and should be different, but with a big caveat, in that it needs to be credible. Everyone can promise apple pie and motherhood, but you need to show exactly how you can make the pie and that you can actually cook. I suspect that Starmer is emphasising the "I can cook" part, but is missing the sales pitch on the pie itself.

[blandy]

7 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Yep, you're right that he has been lower and recovered but the trend is still "falling lower and lower" https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/keir-starmer-approval-rating

The blue "do well" line is like a mirror map of how the pandemic has gone for the tories. Pandemic bad for tories - Labour leader gets boost. Pandemic vaccines come in Labour leader falls, pandemic starts to go wrong again, a bit and labour leader do well line starts to climb back up again.

The "doing badly" line is the inverse, obviously.

I'm not saying it's entirely a reflection of the pandemic, but it's a significant factor, IMO.

[darrenm]

27 minutes ago, blandy said:

That's what's caused the dilemma, I think - "modern populism". It's what the Tories do (and UKIPS and others). It's also detectable that on the internets (as opposed to real life) a lot of the left-wing stuff is all about identity politics - so one party, the right, is appealing to and inflaming base instincts around Europe, Immigration, Refugees, scroungers and stuff, and then the other party is caught up in endless factional bickering about identity and what is pure (while indulging in some pretty hateful stuff against individuals - for example , seeing as we were talking about the Unite election, the winner got loads of vile misogynistic abuse from left wingers demanding she stand down for Steve Turner).

The notion that Starmer or anyone, frankly, can unify Labour is for the fairies - social media stuff around every world event or story is (on the left at least, I don't tend to look at the right wing stuff on it) utterly argumentative and fragmented into silos calling anyone who uses nuance, or who thinks differently all kinds of terrible names.

Personally, I think you're right that the Labour leader should set out a message of hope based on how things could and should be different, but with a big caveat, in that it needs to be credible. Everyone can promise apple pie and motherhood, but you need to show exactly how you can make the pie and that you can actually cook. I suspect that Starmer is emphasising the "I can cook" part, but is missing the sales pitch on the pie itself.

I broadly agree. Just a couple of things. I haven't seen any abuse to Sharon Graham from the left. I saw plenty of people saying she should stand down for Steve Turner when Howard Beckett did. It was through a very real danger of splitting the left vote. Good for her she didn't, lots of egg on faces. I don't think (yes, Twitter is cesspit at all times, football Twitter is the absolute worst) there was anything beyond 'it looks like Turner has the best chance, please don't split the vote' which isn't misogynistic or abusive.

And the pie in the sky stuff is pie in the sky for some people, absolutely desperately needed for others. Climate change - most people might think carbon neutral by 2050 is credible, 2030 isn't. The reality is it's already too late and the crazy weather is only going to get crazier. Wealth gaps are growing at an alarming rate, housing crisis only getting worse all the time. What might be seen as radical is usually not enough. How does Joe Public know what's realistic or not? They have clueless political commentators telling them it isn't, exhibit a:

2 billion trees was perfectly reasonable and would have massively helped get us carbon neutral by 2030. 50,000 nurses was proven utter nonsense. People like Maitlis saying the 2 were comparable which means she thinks 2 billion trees was nonsense too is why people only look for 'credible' promises that the existing groupthink allows to be credible. 'Don't say what needs to be said, they won't vote for you' only leads to the world continuing to burn, the emperor continuing to think he's wearing clothes and the elephant continuing to stand there.

[blandy]

13 minutes ago, darrenm said:

I haven't seen any abuse to Sharon Graham from the left.

Female candidate to lead Unite union faced ‘disgraceful abuse’ | Unite | The Guardian

Quote

The only woman running to be the next leader of the powerful Unite union has revealed that she received “disgraceful” online abuse for refusing to stand aside for two more prominent male rivals.

 

[blandy]

27 minutes ago, darrenm said:

2 billion trees was perfectly reasonable and would have massively helped get us carbon neutral by 2030. 50,000 nurses was proven utter nonsense.

Nah. Maitliss is right. They’re both utterly fanciful, unfortunately. Do the maths. Do the area calculations. Do the logistics, the disease inspection, the watering, the pest control…

Even if you can’t find 50000 nurses, but you somehow found 50000 tree planters they’d each have to plant 14 trees a day every day of the year for the next 8 years. 

[darrenm]

4 minutes ago, blandy said:

Nah. Maitliss is right. They’re both utterly fanciful, unfortunately. Do the maths. Do the area calculations. Do the logistics, the disease inspection, the watering, the pest control…

Even if you can’t find 50000 nurses, but you somehow found 50000 tree planters they’d each have to plant 14 trees a day every day of the year for the next 8 years. 

Sorry mate, I'm going to break one of my rules and outright say you're wrong this one  

 

https://medium.com/uk-politics-today/can-labour-really-plant-2-billion-trees-by-2040-dc08c20425f

Quote

But if we were to look solely at the area available to plant trees, we could assume a maximum of 222,125 km² — that’s 91.6% of the total UK land area of 242,495 km². Obviously this is an extreme upper limit, which would take the UK’s forest cover back to pre-Neolithic levels. But it’s possible. If we go on the 3m x 3m grid for 2 billion trees, that requires an area of just 18,000 km², which would bring the UK’s forest cover up to 20.4%, still way behind the rest of Europe. 2 billion is actually looking very achievable. Of course, we won’t be planting trees in a perfect grid, and it’s actually better to be a little more random.

 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, darrenm said:

Sorry mate, I'm going to break one of my rules and outright say you're wrong this one  

 

https://medium.com/uk-politics-today/can-labour-really-plant-2-billion-trees-by-2040-dc08c20425f

 

I did it based on 2030, and 2 billion trees as per the date and quantity in your post. Yeah extend the timescale by 10 years and the numbers are less daunting. That tweet is not supporting what you posted. so back at ya!

seriously though we are short of seasonal agricultural workers, never mind full time, never mind that it needs to be done with soft ground, no frost, no raging heat etc. It’s sadly as pie in the sky as 50000 nurses
 

[Seat68]

British people, a number of British people, working that hard to plant consistently 100k trees a day. We struggle to get British people picking a punnet of strawberries. 

[Davkaus]

People not wanting to do the work is a solvable problem when you're working to the budget of a national infrastructure project rather than a farmer trying to keep their dwindling profit margin.

We'd find 700 people of we provided training and paid them well enough.

[darrenm]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

I did it based on 2030, and 2 billion trees as per the date and quantity in your post. Yeah extend the timescale by 10 years and the numbers are less daunting. That tweet is not supporting what you posted. so back at ya!

seriously though we are short of seasonal agricultural workers, never mind full time, never mind that it needs to be done with soft ground, no frost, no raging heat etc. It’s sadly as pie in the sky as 50000 nurses
 

2b by 2040 was always the promise. It really wouldn't be difficult to find and train up 1000 people across the UK to plant them.

1 minute ago, Seat68 said:

British people, a number of British people, working that hard to plant consistently 100k trees a day. We struggle to get British people picking a punnet of strawberries. 

Good job that Labour were promising either BRINO or no brexit through a 2nd ref and we've have plenty of EU workers then.

[HanoiVillan]

You could spend a year training people on a generous training program, and you are in no way limited to a maximum of 700 people. It's not impossible at all. The comparison to nurses is inappropriate, because the difference is the Conservatives never had any intention of trying to fulfil the target; that would also have been easy enough if they actually prioritised it (some combination of training and cash incentives for nursing migrants, for instance). 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

13 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

British people, a number of British people, working that hard to plant consistently 100k trees a day. We struggle to get British people picking a punnet of strawberries. 

The benefits though,  with that many trees about we could all live as Ewok's.