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

[bickster]

22 minutes ago, El Zen said:

So, for an outsider, who would it take to unite and save Labour as a political party and electoral force? Andy Burnham, should he decide to return to national politics? Is there anyone else who is realistically up for the task? Is the task even possible at this point? 

For someone actively and emotionally involved in the (lower case l) labour movement, the current state of Europe’s traditional Labour parties is quite sad (even if my own party is, arguably, profitting from it.) 

I really don't think it is possible to unite the two main "sides" in the Labour Party. For clarity there are many sides but the Venn Diagram has two big circles that don't meet and the circle on the left is full of little overlapping circles, the big circle on the right has fewer but larger overlapping circles. There's a big gap between the two big circles

In Labour Party terms its actually two completely different and incompatible "Broad Churches."

Andy Burnham isn't the saviour, he's already failed twice to become the leader and to become the Leader, he'd have to resign as Mayor of Manchester after he found a safe seat to accept him (It really wouldn't be a good look to hold both positions.) Labour Party rules are that he must be an MP when the contest for leader begins.

[El Zen]

30 minutes ago, bickster said:

Andy Burnham isn't the saviour, he's already failed twice to become the leader and to become the Leader, he'd have to resign as Mayor of Manchester after he found a safe seat to accept him (It really wouldn't be a good look to hold both positions.) Labour Party rules are that he must be an MP when the contest for leader begins.

I knew that, hence my qualifier. So you don’t think it’s possible to, effectively, succeed as Labour leader? That’s sad. It may be true. But I hope not.

Edited September 5, 2021 by El Zen

[bickster]

17 minutes ago, El Zen said:

I knew that, hence my qualifier. So you don’t think it’s possible to, effectively, succeed as Labour leader? That’s sad. It may be true. But I hope not.

Unelectable with the left

Possibly unelectable without the left

One of Labour's problems is that it is utterly devoid of any political talent, there is no-one there with the charisma or he political will to unite both sides because sinceCorbyn reactivated the left, it's become too large a faction to be ignored. And the RWM absolutely will not ignore it.

It needs to split to even stand a chance, if it splits it's an even bigger mountain to climb. They all need to stop pretending this isn't the case

[Chindie]

35 minutes ago, El Zen said:

I knew that, hence my qualifier. So you don’t think it’s possible to, effectively, succeed as Labour leader? That’s sad. It may be true. But I hope not.

England likes to vote for Tories.

Labour's last time in power came from effectively becoming a Tory party with some social policies. They then got in bed with Bush and were holding the baby when the financial crash happened, torpedoing their image for a generation (my partner isn't that interested in politics but the things she can rattle off are Corbyns bad, Labour took us to war on false pretences and they bankrupted the country - which is mostly rubbish but the shit sticks).

They at the same time totally **** up their Scottish proposition and the SNP ate their lunch.

And then they had a faction crisis when they elected a left wing figure who the media committed a large scale ceaseless character assassination on (but we'll handwave that) and who was so hated by the right of the party that they were prepared to undermine the party's success to get rid of him - leading to years of briefing against, cynical political moves, high profile resignations, etc etc, culminating in actively undermining an electoral campaign and perpetuating a deeply, deeply nasty antisemitism 'scandal'. But we'll handwave that. 

Now they're reaping the whirlwind. They elected a Trojan empty suit, but the pandemic has let us handwave all of this.

They're ****.

The funny thing is, even before much of the grim shit at the end, they still couldn't get elected, because England loves Tories. But back then, that wasn't a popular thought, so all the other issues were the reason. Now the party needs to split because of the factionalism, but despite the dirty work to exacerbate the factionalism by the right, it's the lefts fault. And England still loves Tories.

[blandy]

2 hours ago, El Zen said:

So, for an outsider, who would it take to unite and save Labour as a political party and electoral force? Andy Burnham, should he decide to return to national politics? Is there anyone else who is realistically up for the task? Is the task even possible at this point? 

My guess would be a tory slump in the polls, giving Labour a sense of opportunity and focus, the exile of trouble makers (of whatever "side") and a clear set of policies (they still haven't set any at a conference because of Covid).. But even then it's a long shot.

[blandy]

34 minutes ago, Chindie said:

because England loves Tories

England does not love tories - when did 50% or more of the voters, let alone the population vote tory, last?

And those that do, some of them do it with no "love" just kind of resignation that (in their view) they're the best of a bad bunch and stuff.

Labour is in the same boat in that regard - more of the country dislikes them than likes them, but they are (in terms of the country) worse off, because the left wing of Labour is deeply unpopular with a mass of the country - it's a burden electorally. Obviously a smaller section of the country loves more left wing ideas and policies, but it's never enough to get Labour elected on a LW manifesto.

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, El Zen said:

So, for an outsider, who would it take to unite and save Labour as a political party and electoral force? Andy Burnham, should he decide to return to national politics? Is there anyone else who is realistically up for the task? Is the task even possible at this point? 

For someone actively and emotionally involved in the (lower case l) labour movement, the current state of Europe’s traditional Labour parties is quite sad (even if my own party is, arguably, profitting from it.) 

The boring - but I think correct - answer is that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them. As such, whoever is leader when the Tories finally press the self-destruct button will win.

[El Zen]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

The boring - but I think correct - answer is that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them. As such, whoever is leader when the Tories finally press the self-destruct button will win.

I don’t disagree entirely, but I’d like to think a fully functioning Labour with a popular leader could have beaten the utter **** ****ing ****s that are currently governing the country. Or am I giving the electorate too much credit? 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, El Zen said:

I’d like to think a fully functioning Labour with a popular leader could have beaten the utter **** ****ing ****s that are currently governing the country. Or am I giving the electorate too much credit? 

Spot on.

[ml1dch]

12 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

The boring - but I think correct - answer is that oppositions don't win elections, governments lose them. As such, whoever is leader when the Tories finally press the self-destruct button will win.

I think by any realistic metric, that self-destruct button has been smashed a hundred or more times in the last five years. 

Doesn't seem to be doing much good for the current guy or his predecessor. 

[HanoiVillan]

5 minutes ago, El Zen said:

I don’t disagree entirely, but I’d like to think a fully functioning Labour with a popular leader could have beaten the utter **** ****ing ****s that are currently governing the country. Or am I giving the electorate too much credit? 

Somewhat, yes, but also it's just the basic reality of politics in a country with a first-past-the-post electoral system and a huge government majority. The opposition cannot force the government to lose votes, and all the debate that matters happens within the Conservative party. Labour haven't even had a party conference that anyone noticed yet. In truth, there's just not that many opportunities for the opposition to make a big impression (I would agree Starmer has spurned some that have come his way, but I honestly don't think even if he had done everything absolutely perfectly that Labour would be all that close in the polls).

4 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

I think by any realistic metric, that self-destruct button has been smashed a hundred or more times in the last five years. 

Doesn't seem to be doing much good for the current guy or his predecessor. 

I don't agree. I think the evidence is that far from being self-destructive, Brexit was in fact a fantastic success as a political project that united the right of British politics behind the Conservative party.

[theboyangel]

The one major problem with the Labour Party is the party members themselves.
 

Too much in-fighting instead of rallying together and focusing on the job at hand of bringing blondie and his gobshites to task. 

[darrenm]

51 minutes ago, theboyangel said:

The one major problem with the Labour Party is the party members themselves.
 

Too much in-fighting instead of rallying together and focusing on the job at hand of bringing blondie and his gobshites to task. 

Have to disagree.

The members have every right to want their party to act in a certain way. The members are the ones who walk streets night after night in the cold and wet delivering leaflets, trying to elect an MP who then calls them Trots and antisemites.

The strength of the Labour Party is the members. The weakness is that the MPs have too much power over the members.

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Labour is in the same boat in that regard - more of the country dislikes them than likes them, but they are (in terms of the country) worse off, because the left wing of Labour is deeply unpopular with a mass of the country - it's a burden electorally. Obviously a smaller section of the country loves more left wing ideas and policies, but it's never enough to get Labour elected on a LW manifesto.

I think there's some wishful thinking in there. 

I think there's a big chunk of the country that the left wing of the labour party is deeply popular with, it's just that it's not a big enough chunk of people to win an election. It's by a distance the second largest group of voters in the country, but that distance stretches in both directions. I think it's probably about two thirds of the Labour party membership, but not necessarily of its MP's - MP's for the most part just want to win elections. 

Then there's the majority of the country that are centrist or right wing, say two thirds - and the problem the Labour party has is that two thirds of that two thirds will vote Tory, either because they do, or because they worry that Labour is run by its left wing section.

Which leaves a relatively small group in the middle that want to take the third of the Labour party they have, add some Tory voters to it, maybe drag some people across from the left who just don't like the Tories and win an election. They've got two problems - there aren't anywhere near enough of them to win an election and they don't actually believe in anything.

So you have two unelectable groups, one that's pretty big, but not quite big enough to win elections, one that's smaller, empty and unelectable and a perpetual Tory government. 

It's a very difficult situation for Labour, and one without an obvious solution - but it's pretty clear that the Starmer way has no chance of success at all.

 

[darrenm]

58 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think there's some wishful thinking in there. 

I think there's a big chunk of the country that the left wing of the labour party is deeply popular with, it's just that it's not a big enough chunk of people to win an election. It's by a distance the second largest group of voters in the country, but that distance stretches in both directions. I think it's probably about two thirds of the Labour party membership, but not necessarily of its MP's - MP's for the most part just want to win elections. 

Then there's the majority of the country that are centrist or right wing, say two thirds - and the problem the Labour party has is that two thirds of that two thirds will vote Tory, either because they do, or because they worry that Labour is run by its left wing section.

Which leaves a relatively small group in the middle that want to take the third of the Labour party they have, add some Tory voters to it, maybe drag some people across from the left who just don't like the Tories and win an election. They've got two problems - there aren't anywhere near enough of them to win an election and they don't actually believe in anything.

So you have two unelectable groups, one that's pretty big, but not quite big enough to win elections, one that's smaller, empty and unelectable and a perpetual Tory government. 

It's a very difficult situation for Labour, and one without an obvious solution - but it's pretty clear that the Starmer way has no chance of success at all.

 

Bang on.

The only way forward in everyone's but the Tories interests is to have an electoral pact for proportional representation passing through using a coalition. It's easily doable, it just needs all of the parties' leaders and members to get real about what the situation is.

[a m ole]

3 hours ago, darrenm said:

Have to disagree.

The members have every right to want their party to act in a certain way. The members are the ones who walk streets night after night in the cold and wet delivering leaflets, trying to elect an MP who then calls them Trots and antisemites.

The strength of the Labour Party is the members. The weakness is that the MPs have too much power over the members.

I think that was probably true in the past, I don’t think leaflets make the slightest bit of difference anymore. I’d advise members to stop bothering.

[bickster]

20 minutes ago, a m ole said:

I think that was probably true in the past, I don’t think leaflets make the slightest bit of difference anymore. I’d advise members to stop bothering.

Agreed, it's a campaigning tactic from the stone age. A very very small persentage of the population read them. All it is now is a big social media look at me I'm great opportunity of one-upmanship on their fellow party members. Just think, if they actualy used social media to get a message across instead of holding up leaflets and gurning for the camera.

"Great night out on the Labour Doorstep tonight delivering lots of paper that will go in the bin straight away but the three of us with no mates & gormless faces and the dog got to make this post on social media so we can feel self-satisfied, oh yeah polices erm..." - net gain 0% at best.

At least Jehovahs Witnesses are entertaining

[LondonLax]

5 hours ago, bickster said:

Agreed, it's a campaigning tactic from the stone age. A very very small persentage of the population read them. All it is now is a big social media look at me I'm great opportunity of one-upmanship on their fellow party members. Just think, if they actualy used social media to get a message across instead of holding up leaflets and gurning for the camera.

"Great night out on the Labour Doorstep tonight delivering lots of paper that will go in the bin straight away but the three of us with no mates & gormless faces and the dog got to make this post on social media so we can feel self-satisfied, oh yeah polices erm..." - net gain 0% at best.

At least Jehovahs Witnesses are entertaining

Isn’t the point of leafleting more about the chance to chat to constituents and gage their mood/key issues, not so much the handing over if the piece of paper when they are finished?

[blandy]

10 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think there's some wishful thinking in there. 

I think there's a big chunk of the country that the left wing of the labour party is deeply popular with, it's just that it's not a big enough chunk of people to win an election.

Wishful thinking?  Hardly. You seem to be projecting an assumed political stance of mine.

your second sentence quoted is saying essentially the same thing I am - Labour left cannot win an election.

[bickster]

2 hours ago, LondonLax said:

Isn’t the point of leafleting more about the chance to chat to constituents and gage their mood/key issues, not so much the handing over if the piece of paper when they are finished?

Nah most of the time, they are just bunging leaflets through doors without talking to anyone