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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Labour’s paradox: The huge increase in members hasn’t led t
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Labour’s paradox: The huge increase in members hasn’t led to greater electoral success, rather the reverse
One of the most extraordinary phenomenon of modern UK political times has been the massive increase in Labour’s membership since GE2015. The figures are just astounding and there is no parallel.
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There is also a question of where they are. If Labour is piling up supporters in areas where it is already very strong or hopelessly weak (anecdotally, that seems possible), those numbers are going to be of limited value in a First Past The Post system.
Local elections next May should be fun - Corbyn’s Army, rampaging down a street near you…
I'm not sure they understand the knocking on doors bit.
Clinton 48 .. Trump 41
https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/08/09/yougoveconomist-poll-august-6-9-2016/
Clinton 39 .. Trump 44
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=048dcf9b-7e4e-4ca3-8da6-f0f3b7662e73
Con take Bootle.
Their membership per capita (Scotland to UK) is higher than Labour's. How are Nicola's army harnessing their recently acquired membership stength?
corbynistas banging on about the number of people at rallies! more than 600,000 people bought the first b*witched album.
That said this is a remarkable achievement as is the SNP in Scotland. A few years ago I think most assumed that the age of mass parties had gone forever. Labour has struggled financially since it fell out with Blair's cronies but should now be on a much more stable footing.
This article is very well worth a read, wrt to the thread.
"It is rather a simulation of a social movement — a form of clicktivism, of gesture politics based on an identification with ‘what Jeremy stands for’. It makes people feel like they are part of a ‘social movement’ without having to engage in the tricky, boring work of actually building one."
https://medium.com/@matatatatat/the-terrifying-hubris-of-corbynism-6590054a9b57#.8wkoby8fp
I hope that the UK finds a way forward that will benefit Europe as a whole in the end.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14671389.Nicola_Sturgeon_visits_Berlin_for_post_Brexit_talks_with_German_foreign_minister/?ref=mr&lp=1
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37029915
It's a paper strength that I doubt will have much impact on the ground, except possibly in places like London, Bristol and Manchester, although Labour will be grateful for the extra funds.
As the governing party regularly clocking 40%+ in the polls now GB-wide there really is no excuse for it to be the veterans club of the Shires it too often is.
All counts, you know.
Wonder if anyone has ever said that on the witness stand.
BMT state Eurostar workers will take 7 days of strike action in August over work / life balance.
That's right guys strike right at the point everyone is trying to get a break themselves. C***s
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37031386
Surprising stats, and another which caught my eye is that the SNP, which confines itself to 8% of the British population, has nearly as many members as the Conservatives.
And then there's the glorious, but almost certainly apocryphal deathbed story of Fields being found furiously leafing through the bible, when asked what he was doing, replied 'Looking for loopholes....'
Corbyn must be laughing his socks off.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/20/theresa-may-faces-brexit-grilling-angela-merkel-berlin
No, worries about upsetting the UK - one of Germany's largest car export markets.....
"Eurostar rail workers are to take seven days of strike action this month in a dispute over their work-life balance, the RMT union says.
Staff will walk out from 00:01 BST on 12 August until 23.59 BST on 15 August, and for three days over the Bank Holiday weekend from 27 August"
BBC News
TBH though the key factor is party image, and while it's "squabbling ferrets" no amount of member effort will make a big difference, beyond limiting the damage. The membership increase is pretty massive all over England (not sure about Scotland) - something like 80% in Broxtowe IIRC. I think the low poll for the West Mids was probably partly due to the one-sided contest - Simon is an experienced MP (who I rate highly for effective work, though some here disagree) and was up against a businessman who I think is entirely new to politics.
He is now just 2 golds behind host Brazil in the all time stakes.
I know this is controversial, but I really do think it is time to ban strike action for anyone who works on critical infrastructure.
There is no way a few should be allowed to cause harm to so many, just for their own internal dispute.
Instead, binding arbitration should be used.
These people simply don't share the LDs' obsession with council by elections. Maybe some of them can be persuaded to do some work in national elections, but I have my doubts.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin got assassinated.
His right-wing opponents just kept delegitimizing him as a “traitor” and “a Nazi” for wanting to make peace with the Palestinians and give back part of the Land of Israel. Of course, all is fair in politics, right? And they had God on their side, right? They weren’t actually telling anyone to assassinate Rabin. That would be horrible.
But there are always people down the line who don’t hear the caveats. They just hear the big message: The man is illegitimate, the man is a threat to the nation, the man is the equivalent of a Nazi war criminal. Well, you know what we do with people like that, don’t you? We kill them.
And that’s what the Jewish extremist Yigal Amir did to Rabin. Why not? He thought he had permission from a whole segment of Israel’s political class.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/opinion/trumps-ambiguous-wink-wink-to-second-amendment-people.html?_r=0
Now where was that new Union legislation that Dave put on the back burner in exchange for support for the Remain vote?
He kept on crushing anyone who was a threat to him between 1997-2007, thus draining Labour's talent pool.
For example just think Alan Milburn is just 58, which makes younger than Theresa May, there's several others, James Purnell...
This is in no way connected to my 66/1 bet on him as next Labour leader.
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/gateshead-mp-demands-know-virgin-11692873
Most of the new membership are people who have joined a political Party for the first time in their lives, inspired to do so by Corbyn. Previously a lot of these took little interest in politics. They had become disconnected from politics and felt that there was very little difference between the two major Parties and quite a few of them probably didn't even bother to vote at the last election because they felt there was little difference between the two major Parties.
Many are, or at least were, politically naive. They imagined that once Corbyn was elected, the PLP would unite and be more interested in taking the fight to the Tories than fighting their own democratically elected leader. The last year has been a bit of an eye-opener for them.
And you have to remember that a lot of these new members in Labour areas will have MP's who are opposed to Corbyn and therefore there is little motivation to do the hard work work of knocking on doors in support of an MP who is trying to undermine JC and (in their eyes) split the Party that they joined.
Where the new members can be useful at this stage is on social media. Yes, I know it's not as effective as the hard grind of pounding the streets, but times HAVE changed and social media has more of an effect in politics than it did 25 years ago. Use of social media is never gonna be a replacement for knocking on doors, but it would be wrong to totally ignore it's potential. indeed, I would say that a lot of the increase in membership is down to use of social media by JC's supporters. I have noticed it over the last 18 months on Facebook. Friends who had previously shown no real interest in politics and had never made political postings were posting in support of JC and getting involved in discussion with other friends and encouraging them to join the Labour Party. I know of at least 3 or 4 people in my own circle who did actually join up in this way.
Long term, depending upon the outcome of the current civil war, I think Labour will benefit from some of the new intake and they will take to the streets, knocking on doors and delivering leaflets.
I still can't believe that in Dave Cameron, we have a 49 year old former prime minister.
"barometer of party organisation and morale"
well, there you go.
The management, may I remind you, are not the ones causing misery to hundreds of thousands by being on strike.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-3732520/Media-bus-attacked-travelling-venues-Olympic-Games.html
He owns a vast amount of land around here, and allows access to it, I hope his Heir continues to act as decently.
Not everyone shares my view of him.
But that's all undermined by the fact that Corbyn is a unilateralist, has dubious friends, thinks (in common with most of his party) that the only problem with immigration is that there's not enough of it, while his opponents are fervently europhile, and much of the party advocates a strident and voter-repellent form of identity politics.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-polls-show-pennsylvania-back-in-clintons-firewall/
It's got to the point where the RMT are effectively blackmailing London constantly, with any attempts to modernise the service being met with a wall of anger, and threats to being the city to a standstill over the most trivial of details.
From a purely party political point of view, if the Conservatives want to increase their vote share in London they could do a lot worse than banning rail strikes.
Well exactly. We have now self driving cars for f##k sake & driver assistance is basically as standard now in most good cars & they are quibbling over who gets to press the big green button to open the doors.