And there are people who said Ed Miliband was not doing a good job. He increased the vote share of the party which lost the previous election the highest since 1950. Only Hague in 2001 even increased the vote share albeit slightly. All others, Labour 1955, Tories 1966, Labour 1974 F, Tories 1974 O, Labour 1983, their vote share actually fell.
I suspect that a Miliband-led Labour would be ahead in the polls right now. But that of itself tells a story.
Not convinced, though they'd be closer. Corbyn is a symptom as well as a cause.
There's a lot for a half-competent opposition to attack, from Brexit confusion to Boris. If Labour's front bench had anyone competent on it (and on the ball), Boris would be under immense pressure this morning. Think of what the likes of Robin Cook would have done. The government has a lot of balls in the air at the moment and it shouldn't be too hard to cause them to drop a few - or even to point out to the public when they do. At the moment, Corbyn and Co aren't even capable of that.
I disagree slightly. A competent opposition would have the Tories under pressure, it would take a strong opposition to have really carved them open.
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
Most of the smarter ones seem to have reached the obvious conclusion that there is no future anymore in Labour or in some wishy washy lefty party (see the ongoing LD slump) and are departing the field of politics completely.
Ahem. And the corresponding figure for the LibDems is ...?
1% higher ? But then again the Lib Dem support base is fairly nomadic.
In fact, none of the parties seems to have a content support base. Even 73% for the Tories must be lower than what you would get from historical statistics.
It's interesting that Labour still win 2016 Remain voters. That will surely change as they're forced off the fence.
Look at the 24% of Remain voters who are picking the Conservatives. That doesn't look a particularly securely housed group either, given the apparent government enthusiasm for hard Brexit.
It's also worth noting the substantial reweighting of the Remain/Leave support in the YouGov poll. Unweighted, Remain "won" 753: 735. Weighted, this became 655: 712.
I've no doubt that the reweighting is correct, of course.
@MJGoodwin: I suppose obsessing over possible clues in by-elections distracts from the FIFTY SEVEN pt favourability gap in Corbyn v May among over-65s!
Lowest Labour share in opposition since Sept 1983. Flirting with the lowest ever in opposition (which is 23% - June 1983). Some way to go to hit the 18% they achieved under Brown.
That 1983 score was immediately post-election, though. In context I think this is worse (though you do have to concede a new-PM bounce).
The 'new' PM bounce is more than four months old now. That's longer than Brown got in 2007 (3mths), and while Major's in 1990-1 lasted longer - probably about 7 months overall - it peaked around two months after he took over. The Tories under May, by contrast, are doing at least as well well now as at any time since she became PM.
The PLP won't do anything (and they have no where to go) but there are elements on the hard left who will try and take down Corbyn during 2017. Labour is about to get very messy.
It's also worth noting the substantial reweighting of the Remain/Leave support in the YouGov poll. Unweighted, Remain "won" 753: 735. Weighted, this became 655: 712.
I've no doubt that the reweighting is correct, of course.
Interesting. What was @rcs1000 saying about the need to upweight the Lib Dems prior to 2015 being the strongest indicator that their support had collapsed?
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
Most of the smarter ones seem to have reached the obvious conclusion that there is no future anymore in Labour or in some wishy washy lefty party (see the ongoing LD slump) and are departing the field of politics completely.
Labour wont go out with a bang - it's a whimper.
Indeed. If your a professional educated individual (laywer/Doctor etc level) then being an MP by itself is pretty rubbish. An MPs basic pay is £75k. Thats not much (relatively), especially if you have to work in London, and the public person you have to become.
It's also worth noting the substantial reweighting of the Remain/Leave support in the YouGov poll. Unweighted, Remain "won" 753: 735. Weighted, this became 655: 712.
I've no doubt that the reweighting is correct, of course.
Reweighting to the actual referendum result is incorrect (I think), it was not a GE and so ....
The turnout for the next GE will not be at referendum levels. The lower the turnout the more it favours remain I reckon.
You probably want to ratchet any poll slightly more to remain from the given VIs I reckon.
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
Most of the smarter ones seem to have reached the obvious conclusion that there is no future anymore in Labour or in some wishy washy lefty party (see the ongoing LD slump) and are departing the field of politics completely.
Labour wont go out with a bang - it's a whimper.
Indeed. If your a professional educated individual (laywer/Doctor etc level) then being an MP by itself is pretty rubbish. An MPs basic pay is £75k. Thats not much (relatively), especially if you have to work in London, and the public person you have to become.
And zero chance of forming a government for 9 years - at least.
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
I have a suggested name for the new party - Social Democrat Party.
So we're heading for another Labour leadership crisis ? And probably leadership challenge ?
Perhaps a winter of crossing the floor but the chances of Corbyn going before 2020 must be close to zero. He's a leech. If Brexit implodes there could be some interesting new alliances
Mr. Tyndall, if memory serves, Antigonus Monopthalmus was that age, or perhaps older, when he started rising to real prominence.
You do give me hope then. A friend and I were sat in a pub a few weeks ago discussing this. He is in his mid 50s, I in my early 50s, and we were trying to come up with examples of people in arts, music, literature or science who didn't really start to do their best work until they were in their 50s. In modern post war music I am inclined to the belief that all great work is done by the young, usually in their first 2 or 3 albums at most. The same seems generally to apply to literature and the sciences. I would love to hear of examples where people first became successful later in life but - perhaps with the exception of politics - they seem few and far between.
Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes) didn't start writing until he was 65....
I have a former work colleague who started writing in her late fifties....she's on her fifth novel....
What us older folk may lack in speed we can more than make up for in low cunning.....
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
Dunno, if you Baxter those numbers it's impressive how many of their seats Labour still hold. A split left isn't the obvious route to a quick election win, so I think you'd still be inclined to let Corbynism work itself through to its inevitable conclusion.
That depends on whether your aim is to have a seat in Parliament or to get into government. Too many rightwing Labour MPs seem to be more comfortable as MPs than as having any practical power.
Good result: 8/10 Tories. Derisory turnout and losing plenty of votes prevents a 9 or 10. 7/10 Lib Dems. Gained votes in a difficult area with a poor turnout..
Middling result 5/10 UKIP. No inroads made to the Tories, not that great a result in all honesty.
Poor result 2/10 Labour. Not as bad a vote share as some had forecast.
LibDems only found an extra 106 voters willing to put their heads above the parapet since 2015.... Real winner was the Can't Be Arsed Party. December is a particularly good month for them.
That's a stupid comment. Turnout was half that at the GE. I did predict it would be low. Real achievement to add voters in that situation.
Tories were always going to win. Lib Dems did ok given the scale of the campaign, which was tiny compared to Richmond Park. UKIP went backwards - yes, they were 2nd but soooooo far behind the Tories. As for Labour, oh dear, does not bode well.
All in all, it came out more or less as I anticipated.
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
I have a suggested name for the new party - Social Democrat Party.
Why not go for a continental style Christian Democratic Party? It could hark back to Labour's links to the temperance movement and would allow them to appeal more convincingly to working class nationalists.
The real mark of Labour's failure-by a mile the worst result of the night-is that if BREXIT was the most important question either for or against there were no circumstance where a vote for them could be the answer
I think that neatly encapsulates Labour's policy vacuum, their lack of appeal anywhere, and why there is no floor to their vote any more.
And still Twitter rings incessantly with Corbynites blaming everyone and everything else for Labour's ongoing self-immolation.
Mr. Tyndall, if memory serves, Antigonus Monopthalmus was that age, or perhaps older, when he started rising to real prominence.
You do give me hope then. A friend and I were sat in a pub a few weeks ago discussing this. He is in his mid 50s, I in my early 50s, and we were trying to come up with examples of people in arts, music, literature or science who didn't really start to do their best work until they were in their 50s. In modern post war music I am inclined to the belief that all great work is done by the young, usually in their first 2 or 3 albums at most. The same seems generally to apply to literature and the sciences. I would love to hear of examples where people first became successful later in life but - perhaps with the exception of politics - they seem few and far between.
First became successful when already in their fifties, that I am struggling with, though it depends on how you measure success, I suppose. If you ask the question slightly differently, who did their best work when past fifty. The most obvious example being Beethoven.
In the field of the sciences and mathematics, however, with the odd exceptions such as Euler most great ideas come from younger people and, I think, most of the people who produced those ideas are burnt out, or dead, long before they hit 50.
UKIP's share still respectable. If Nuttall doesn't get a grip, I could see it dropping to 8 or 9 points.
Nutall will be slightly re-positioning UKIP to get more ex Labour votes. So current polling is just a benchmark against which we should measure his performance.
And still Twitter rings incessantly with Corbynites blaming everyone and everything else for Labour's ongoing self-immolation.
@gabyhinsliff: Nb diehards still blaming awful Lab polling on media/blairite MPs; the MPs have gone quiet & papers barely bother attacking him any more.
It's also worth noting the substantial reweighting of the Remain/Leave support in the YouGov poll. Unweighted, Remain "won" 753: 735. Weighted, this became 655: 712.
I've no doubt that the reweighting is correct, of course.
Actually, this could be a cause for concern, given that the referendum saw a spike in turnout which was disproportionately Leave.
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
Dunno, if you Baxter those numbers it's impressive how many of their seats Labour still hold. A split left isn't the obvious route to a quick election win, so I think you'd still be inclined to let Corbynism work itself through to its inevitable conclusion.
That depends on whether your aim is to have a seat in Parliament or to get into government. Too many rightwing Labour MPs seem to be more comfortable as MPs than as having any practical power.
Well, both. But what I'm suggesting is that since Corbyn Labour would continue to exist, SDPv2 would have to split the vote with them in the next election so they wouldn't be getting into government then. So the decision is about what happens in the election after next: Either the SDPv2 having become the main opposition party and using that to crush Labour next time, or a single Labour Party defenestrating Corbyn and getting someone who might win an election. Both of these are hard, but the second one sounds less hopeless than the first.
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
Two polling notes before everyone on the left panics:
The recent polling that pitching for Soft Brexit is by a long way the least worst option for Labour at the moment - notwithstanding the disconnect between this sane middle pitch here and Corbynism elsewhere.
Again polling shows that new party = slaughter, which would be folly when the PLP have not yet lost control of the mechanics of the Labour party. A strategy of ceding Corbyn a good degree of freedom on policy and emphasis, but with no quarter given on party mechanics, and he may well ultimately put off the majority of soft Corbynistas and be the owner of his eventual defeat, so there is still hope. Plus possibility of building an alternate power base and policy platform in London / Manchester / &c - Burnham for all his jellyness may actually be the owner of an important strand of saving Labour!! At the moment, I cannot see a split gaining any momentum whatsoever prior to McClusky's re-election vote.
As someone who has always voted as best I could to advance the cause of a Social Democratic party of power, I'd say there are only least bad options at the moment, but that is still better than no options.
And still Twitter rings incessantly with Corbynites blaming everyone and everything else for Labour's ongoing self-immolation.
@gabyhinsliff: Nb diehards still blaming awful Lab polling on media/blairite MPs; the MPs have gone quiet & papers barely bother attacking him any more.
Even the papers have started feeling it's like kicking a puppy now.
It's also worth noting the substantial reweighting of the Remain/Leave support in the YouGov poll. Unweighted, Remain "won" 753: 735. Weighted, this became 655: 712.
I've no doubt that the reweighting is correct, of course.
Reweighting to the actual referendum result is incorrect (I think), it was not a GE and so ....
The turnout for the next GE will not be at referendum levels. The lower the turnout the more it favours remain I reckon.
You probably want to ratchet any poll slightly more to remain from the given VIs I reckon.
The referendum turnout was 72.2%. The last general election turnout was 66.1%. Where do you think turnout at the next general election will be?
For comparison, 2010 turnout in Scotland was 63.8%, the 2014 referendum turnout was 84.5% and the 2015 turnout was 71.1%.
A similar uplift might see turnout heading towards 68 or 69%. And much will depend on what the next general election is seen to be about.
Mr. Tyndall, if memory serves, Antigonus Monopthalmus was that age, or perhaps older, when he started rising to real prominence.
You do give me hope then. A friend and I were sat in a pub a few weeks ago discussing this. He is in his mid 50s, I in my early 50s, and we were trying to come up with examples of people in arts, music, literature or science who didn't really start to do their best work until they were in their 50s. In modern post war music I am inclined to the belief that all great work is done by the young, usually in their first 2 or 3 albums at most. The same seems generally to apply to literature and the sciences. I would love to hear of examples where people first became successful later in life but - perhaps with the exception of politics - they seem few and far between.
First became successful when already in their fifties, that I am struggling with, though it depends on how you measure success, I suppose. If you ask the question slightly differently, who did their best work when past fifty. The most obvious example being Beethoven.
In the field of the sciences and mathematics, however, with the odd exceptions such as Euler most great ideas come from younger people and, I think, most of the people who produced those ideas are burnt out, or dead, long before they hit 50.
Perhaps because people get into their chosen industry young, and by the time they've been in it for a couple of decades all their best ideas have been exhausted?
What you'd need is someone who swapped into another area of expertise later in life, and who excelled in that area. That's going to be relatively unusual; most people pick an industry and find it hard to swap for a whole host of reasons.
Also there's the matter of priorities. Twenty years ago I could work massively long hours because I didn't have any other commitments. If I was working now, I couldn't: my life has moved on and family time matters.
But I think it's going to become less unusual in the arts. In science it'll be harder; fewer discoveries are made by brilliant individuals like (say) Cavendish, and more by teams.
And still Twitter rings incessantly with Corbynites blaming everyone and everything else for Labour's ongoing self-immolation.
@gabyhinsliff: Nb diehards still blaming awful Lab polling on media/blairite MPs; the MPs have gone quiet & papers barely bother attacking him any more.
Even the papers have started feeling it's like kicking a puppy now.
The only worse thing than being hated is being ignored.
And still Twitter rings incessantly with Corbynites blaming everyone and everything else for Labour's ongoing self-immolation.
@gabyhinsliff: Nb diehards still blaming awful Lab polling on media/blairite MPs; the MPs have gone quiet & papers barely bother attacking him any more.
Even the papers have started feeling it's like kicking a puppy now.
But they'll be saving their stories for the election campaign, and people like Guido won't stop noting every time Corbyn dines with supporters of Islamic terrorism in the meantime.
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
Two polling notes before everyone on the left panics:
The recent polling that pitching for Soft Brexit is by a long way the least worst option for Labour at the moment - notwithstanding the disconnect between this sane middle pitch here and Corbynism elsewhere.
Again polling shows that new party = slaughter, which would be folly when the PLP have not yet lost control of the mechanics of the Labour party. A strategy of ceding Corbyn a good degree of freedom on policy and emphasis, but with no quarter given on party mechanics, and he may well ultimately put off the majority of soft Corbynistas and be the owner of his eventual defeat, so there is still hope. Plus possibility of building an alternate power base and policy platform in London / Manchester / &c - Burnham for all his jellyness may actually be the owner of an important strand of saving Labour!! At the moment, I cannot see a split gaining any momentum whatsoever prior to McClusky's re-election vote.
As someone who has always voted as best I could to advance the cause of a Social Democratic party of power, I'd say there are only least bad options at the moment, but that is still better than no options.
Completely agree. The left does not yet control the Labour party machine and with things going the way they are the likelihood it will do so is actually reducing. There is very little that the non-Corbynites can do currently other than wait for his support to fade away, as it will. If we have a different electoral system, of course, then it would all change.
The real mark of Labour's failure-by a mile the worst result of the night-is that if BREXIT was the most important question either for or against there were no circumstance where a vote for them could be the answer
I think that neatly encapsulates Labour's policy vacuum, their lack of appeal anywhere, and why there is no floor to their vote any more.
And still Twitter rings incessantly with Corbynites blaming everyone and everything else for Labour's ongoing self-immolation.
If Brexit is the defining feature of the next years as it looks to be, the Labour party is irrelevant, as it was during the referendum itself.
It all could have been so different, but history is littered with bad decisions.
Historically, most people were dead by 50, so it's a bit of a non-representative sample!
Most people who were alive at age 15 - when let's assume the first hint of genius is possible - would have survived to 50. Particularly if we assume that "great thinkers" came from disproportionately privileged backgrounds.
@MJGoodwin: I suppose obsessing over possible clues in by-elections distracts from the FIFTY SEVEN pt favourability gap in Corbyn v May among over-65s!
Some of them will be dead before the next election. I am 61.
...and some in the 60-65 cohort will join the 65+ cohort...remember the facts of life are conservative and people get wiser as they get older...
People get more selfish as they get older !
and sadly more suffer from dementia and Alzheimers symptoms of which may include a tendency to vote Conservative and UKIP
That's a deeply offensive comment. Alzheimer's is a horrific disease that shouldn't be made light of.
The real mark of Labour's failure-by a mile the worst result of the night-is that if BREXIT was the most important question either for or against there were no circumstance where a vote for them could be the answer
I think that neatly encapsulates Labour's policy vacuum, their lack of appeal anywhere, and why there is no floor to their vote any more.
And still Twitter rings incessantly with Corbynites blaming everyone and everything else for Labour's ongoing self-immolation.
If Brexit is the defining feature of the next years as it looks to be, the Labour party is irrelevant, as it was during the referendum itself.
It all could have been so different, but history is littered with bad decisions.
I have kept the faith with Corbyn, ever since hearing him speak locally just before he became leader. And I still believe that had some of the PLP not openly revolted against him since the day of his election, Labour could have won the next election under his leadership. However, we are where we are, the "Corbyn is unelectable" meme has stuck in both the conscious and subonscious of the British public and I believe that it is time for him to withdraw as gracefully as possible while he still has some respect from the members who elected him.
If he can negotiate a way to stand down whilst having his chosen successor, who the majority of the PLP feel they can work with, on the ballot paper, then I feel it is time to do so.
Surely Labour is REMAIN in principle but supporting BREXIT in practice?.
Indeed - they, like the Tories (officially), thought Remain was the best option, but unlike May are not acting like to act to express some reservations is anathema, while still acknowledging, as a policy, that Brexit needs to happen to follow the public vote. People don't seem to like that though.
Mr. Tyndall, if memory serves, Antigonus Monopthalmus was that age, or perhaps older, when he started rising to real prominence.
You do give me hope then. A friend and I were sat in a pub a few weeks ago discussing this. He is in his mid 50s, I in my early 50s, and we were trying to come up with examples of people in arts, music, literature or science who didn't really start to do their best work until they were in their 50s. In modern post war music I am inclined to the belief that all great work is done by the young, usually in their first 2 or 3 albums at most. The same seems generally to apply to literature and the sciences. I would love to hear of examples where people first became successful later in life but - perhaps with the exception of politics - they seem few and far between.
First became successful when already in their fifties, that I am struggling with, though it depends on how you measure success, I suppose. If you ask the question slightly differently, who did their best work when past fifty. The most obvious example being Beethoven.
In the field of the sciences and mathematics, however, with the odd exceptions such as Euler most great ideas come from younger people and, I think, most of the people who produced those ideas are burnt out, or dead, long before they hit 50.
What you'd need is someone who swapped into another area of expertise later in life, and who excelled in that area. That's going to be relatively unusual; most people pick an industry and find it hard to swap for a whole host of reasons.
.
How about the switch from B movie actor to US president - Ronald Reagan?
Mr. Tyndall, if memory serves, Antigonus Monopthalmus was that age, or perhaps older, when he started rising to real prominence.
You do give me hope then. A friend and I were sat in a pub a few weeks ago discussing this. He is in his mid 50s, I in my early 50s, and we were trying to come up with examples of people in arts, music, literature or science who didn't really start to do their best work until they were in their 50s. In modern post war music I am inclined to the belief that all great work is done by the young, usually in their first 2 or 3 albums at most. The same seems generally to apply to literature and the sciences. I would love to hear of examples where people first became successful later in life but - perhaps with the exception of politics - they seem few and far between.
First became successful when already in their fifties, that I am struggling with, though it depends on how you measure success, I suppose. If you ask the question slightly differently, who did their best work when past fifty. The most obvious example being Beethoven.
In the field of the sciences and mathematics, however, with the odd exceptions such as Euler most great ideas come from younger people and, I think, most of the people who produced those ideas are burnt out, or dead, long before they hit 50.
What you'd need is someone who swapped into another area of expertise later in life, and who excelled in that area. That's going to be relatively unusual; most people pick an industry and find it hard to swap for a whole host of reasons.
.
How about the switch from B movie actor to US president - Ronald Reagan?
That's a poor comparison.
1) There's an argument to be made he was an A list actor
2) He didn't go straight from acting to the Presidency, he went via being the Governor of America's second most populous state
The real mark of Labour's failure-by a mile the worst result of the night-is that if BREXIT was the most important question either for or against there were no circumstance where a vote for them could be the answer
I think that neatly encapsulates Labour's policy vacuum, their lack of appeal anywhere, and why there is no floor to their vote any more.
And still Twitter rings incessantly with Corbynites blaming everyone and everything else for Labour's ongoing self-immolation.
If Brexit is the defining feature of the next years as it looks to be, the Labour party is irrelevant, as it was during the referendum itself.
It all could have been so different, but history is littered with bad decisions.
I have kept the faith with Corbyn, ever since hearing him speak locally just before he became leader. And I still believe that had some of the PLP not openly revolted against him since the day of his election, Labour could have won the next election under his leadership. However, we are where we are, the "Corbyn is unelectable" meme has stuck in both the conscious and subonscious of the British public and I believe that it is time for him to withdraw as gracefully as possible while he still has some respect from the members who elected him.
If he can negotiate a way to stand down whilst having his chosen successor, who the majority of the PLP feel they can work with, on the ballot paper, then I feel it is time to do so.
It is clear that the Labour party has moved left and it is equally clear that the vast majority of the PLP accepts this. But Corbyn has shown that he is incapable of leadership and uninterested in bringing different strands of the Labour party together. What's more, it is now abundantly clear that he is utterly toxic as far as ordinary voters are concerned. Labour cannot win the next general election whoever is the party's leader, but it could play a part in denying the Tories a majority - and that has to be something worth aiming for.
If Corbyn did surprise us all by putting the good of the Labour party and the country before his own vanity and narrow ambition, there is no doubt that his successor would be from the left of the party.
Mr. T, I did say a long time ago (or so it feels) the PLP should resign en mass and form the new official opposition. Instead they've dilly-dallied themselves into a minefield. Any way they go might be explosively bad.
UKIP's share still respectable. If Nuttall doesn't get a grip, I could see it dropping to 8 or 9 points.
A LibDem/UKIP crossover remains possible, if not probable.
I'd say it was likely unless UKIP can get back into the mid-teens and stay there. Given Labour's problems, the Lib Dems ought to be polling 12-15 by the middle of next year.
Mr. Tyndall, if memory serves, Antigonus Monopthalmus was that age, or perhaps older, when he started rising to real prominence.
You do give me hope then. A friend and I were sat in a pub a few weeks ago discussing this. He is in his mid 50s, I in my early 50s, and we were trying to come up with examples of people in arts, music, literature or science who didn't really start to do their best work until they were in their 50s. In modern post war music I am inclined to the belief that all great work is done by the young, usually in their first 2 or 3 albums at most. The same seems generally to apply to literature and the sciences. I would love to hear of examples where people first became successful later in life but - perhaps with the exception of politics - they seem few and far between.
First became successful when already in their fifties, that I am struggling with, though it depends on how you measure success, I suppose. If you ask the question slightly differently, who did their best work when past fifty. The most obvious example being Beethoven.
In the field of the sciences and mathematics, however, with the odd exceptions such as Euler most great ideas come from younger people and, I think, most of the people who produced those ideas are burnt out, or dead, long before they hit 50.
What you'd need is someone who swapped into another area of expertise later in life, and who excelled in that area. That's going to be relatively unusual; most people pick an industry and find it hard to swap for a whole host of reasons.
.
How about the switch from B movie actor to US president - Ronald Reagan?
There are many famous exceptions. And in the arts, I think there'll be more as the power of traditional barriers to entry (e.g. publishers) are weakened.
As an aside, Reagan was more than a B movie actor; according to Wiki he was president of the Screen Actors Guild at 36, though he entered politics in his fifties.
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
But new parties fail under FPTP.
Which ever way they look, or turn, Labour MPs are stymied.
They can either resign themselves to defeat and irrelevance or they can try to change the nation's politics - very firmly against the odds, but try.
As it happens, their message has a very ready audience if it can find the right home. There are two overlapping groups: centrist/centre-left voters who believe in redistribution; and Remain voters, both of whom have no plausible home at present. With Britain's electorate fracturing regionally, it should be more possible for a new party to build regional bases under FPTP than ever before.
So while I see it as an odds-against endeavour, it's not a charge of the light brigade.
The real mark of Labour's failure-by a mile the worst result of the night-is that if BREXIT was the most important question either for or against there were no circumstance where a vote for them could be the answer
I think that neatly encapsulates Labour's policy vacuum, their lack of appeal anywhere, and why there is no floor to their vote any more.
And still Twitter rings incessantly with Corbynites blaming everyone and everything else for Labour's ongoing self-immolation.
If Brexit is the defining feature of the next years as it looks to be, the Labour party is irrelevant, as it was during the referendum itself.
It all could have been so different, but history is littered with bad decisions.
I have kept the faith with Corbyn, ever since hearing him speak locally just before he became leader. And I still believe that had some of the PLP not openly revolted against him since the day of his election, Labour could have won the next election under his leadership. However, we are where we are, the "Corbyn is unelectable" meme has stuck in both the conscious and subonscious of the British public and I believe that it is time for him to withdraw as gracefully as possible while he still has some respect from the members who elected him.
If he can negotiate a way to stand down whilst having his chosen successor, who the majority of the PLP feel they can work with, on the ballot paper, then I feel it is time to do so.
That might have been the position a year back - although I have my doubts - but I genuinely think Labour's problems are more fundamental now. Under anyone else they would still be facing the pincer movement from the other parties and different parts of their base, and would still be struggling to find something relevant to say, and to assemble a consensus behind it, on any of the big issues of the day. They can't even work out whether Heathrow needs a new runway ffs.
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
But new parties fail under FPTP.
Which ever way they look, or turn, Labour MPs are stymied.
Under FPTP you need a way of concentrating support in a given area.
Perhaps they should embrace Kezia Dugdale's federalist idea and create a separate English Labour Party with an English leader, and Corbyn can just preside above the fray as a symbolic figurehead for the movement.
Mr. Tyndall, if memory serves, Antigonus Monopthalmus was that age, or perhaps older, when he started rising to real prominence.
You do give me hope then. A friend and I were sat in a pub a few weeks ago discussing this. He is in his mid 50s, I in my early 50s, and we were trying to come up with examples of people in arts, music, literature or science who didn't really start to do their best work until they were in their 50s. In modern post war music I am inclined to the belief that all great work is done by the young, usually in their first 2 or 3 albums at most. The same seems generally to apply to literature and the sciences. I would love to hear of examples where people first became successful later in life but - perhaps with the exception of politics - they seem few and far between.
First became successful when already in their fifties, that I am struggling with, though it depends on how you measure success, I suppose. If you ask the question slightly differently, who did their best work when past fifty. The most obvious example being Beethoven.
In the field of the sciences and mathematics, however, with the odd exceptions such as Euler most great ideas come from younger people and, I think, most of the people who produced those ideas are burnt out, or dead, long before they hit 50.
What you'd need is someone who swapped into another area of expertise later in life, and who excelled in that area. That's going to be relatively unusual; most people pick an industry and find it hard to swap for a whole host of reasons.
.
How about the switch from B movie actor to US president - Ronald Reagan?
There are many famous exceptions. And in the arts, I think there'll be more as the power of traditional barriers to entry (e.g. publishers) are weakened.
As an aside, Reagan was more than a B movie actor; according to Wiki he was president of the Screen Actors Guild at 36, though he entered politics in his fifties.
And two term Governor of California (starting age 56...)
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
But new parties fail under FPTP.
Which ever way they look, or turn, Labour MPs are stymied.
They can either resign themselves to defeat and irrelevance or they can try to change the nation's politics - very firmly against the odds, but try.
As it happens, their message has a very ready audience if it can find the right home. There are two overlapping groups: centrist/centre-left voters who believe in redistribution; and Remain voters, both of whom have no plausible home at present. With Britain's electorate fracturing regionally, it should be more possible for a new party to build regional bases under FPTP than ever before.
So while I see it as an odds-against endeavour, it's not a charge of the light brigade.
They need to get on with it now, however. If this realignment happened in the current parliament, it would probably have 150-200 MPs, be the official opposition and have a chance to use that platform to build its constituency base so that it could win FPTP elections in 3 years time. The redrawing of the parliamentary borders would help in this.
ABZ LOVE has stuck the knife into his former 5ive band mates, accusing them of treating him “like a tramp in the park”.
The singer and rapper has penned a new single about his feelings towards Scott Robinson, Richie Neville and Sean Conlon and claims the lads “left him in a ditch” while they “got rich”.
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
But new parties fail under FPTP.
Which ever way they look, or turn, Labour MPs are stymied.
They can either resign themselves to defeat and irrelevance or they can try to change the nation's politics - very firmly against the odds, but try.
As it happens, their message has a very ready audience if it can find the right home. There are two overlapping groups: centrist/centre-left voters who believe in redistribution; and Remain voters, both of whom have no plausible home at present. With Britain's electorate fracturing regionally, it should be more possible for a new party to build regional bases under FPTP than ever before.
So while I see it as an odds-against endeavour, it's not a charge of the light brigade.
They need to get on with it now, however. If this realignment happened in the current parliament, it would probably have 150-200 MPs, be the official opposition and have a chance to use that platform to build its constituency base so that it could win FPTP elections in 3 years time. The redrawing of the parliamentary borders would help in this.
Honestly I don't see this happening before 2020. Never say never given the way 2016 has gone, but I think Labour people will hope it will all somehow work out and most MPs will be spending the next couple of years totally focussing on their local patch and trying to buck the slaughter.
Right wing Labour MPs should be looking at these polling figures, looking at the leadership election over the summer and concluding that it's time to move on and start a new party. If they aren't already, of course.
But new parties fail under FPTP.
Which ever way they look, or turn, Labour MPs are stymied.
They can either resign themselves to defeat and irrelevance or they can try to change the nation's politics - very firmly against the odds, but try.
As it happens, their message has a very ready audience if it can find the right home. There are two overlapping groups: centrist/centre-left voters who believe in redistribution; and Remain voters, both of whom have no plausible home at present. With Britain's electorate fracturing regionally, it should be more possible for a new party to build regional bases under FPTP than ever before.
So while I see it as an odds-against endeavour, it's not a charge of the light brigade.
They need to get on with it now, however. If this realignment happened in the current parliament, it would probably have 150-200 MPs, be the official opposition and have a chance to use that platform to build its constituency base so that it could win FPTP elections in 3 years time. The redrawing of the parliamentary borders would help in this.
The are two chances of Labour coming close to the Tories at the next election:
1. Get rid of Corbyn ASAP - he's completely unelectable.
2. Split off *more than half* the PLP into a single new party, such that they become the official opposition and leave Corbyn sitting next to Farron and Salmond.
They tried 1. this summer and it didn't work, so unless they think it can work again they need to do 2. and do it quickly.
My view. They don't have the cojones to do what's necessary. Maybe a few more polls like today's YouGov might focus their minds a little.
The real mark of Labour's failure-by a mile the worst result of the night-is that if BREXIT was the most important question either for or against there were no circumstance where a vote for them could be the answer
I think that neatly encapsulates Labour's policy vacuum, their lack of appeal anywhere, and why there is no floor to their vote any more.
And still Twitter rings incessantly with Corbynites blaming everyone and everything else for Labour's ongoing self-immolation.
If Brexit is the defining feature of the next years as it looks to be, the Labour party is irrelevant, as it was during the referendum itself.
It all could have been so different, but history is littered with bad decisions.
I have kept the faith with Corbyn, ever since hearing him speak locally just before he became leader. And I still believe that had some of the PLP not openly revolted against him since the day of his election, Labour could have won the next election under his leadership. However, we are where we are, the "Corbyn is unelectable" meme has stuck in both the conscious and subonscious of the British public and I believe that it is time for him to withdraw as gracefully as possible while he still has some respect from the members who elected him.
If he can negotiate a way to stand down whilst having his chosen successor, who the majority of the PLP feel they can work with, on the ballot paper, then I feel it is time to do so.
It is clear that the Labour party has moved left and it is equally clear that the vast majority of the PLP accepts this. But Corbyn has shown that he is incapable of leadership and uninterested in bringing different strands of the Labour party together. What's more, it is now abundantly clear that he is utterly toxic as far as ordinary voters are concerned. Labour cannot win the next general election whoever is the party's leader, but it could play a part in denying the Tories a majority - and that has to be something worth aiming for.
If Corbyn did surprise us all by putting the good of the Labour party and the country before his own vanity and narrow ambition, there is no doubt that his successor would be from the left of the party.
I think that is the biggest problem with Corbyn. He's just a disorganised hippy. McDonnell might be better.
But but, I totally thought it was just a few bad apples and it was unfair to ban even the few who were
Are they naming names? Was one of the athletes Yelena Isinbayeva?
I bloody hope not! I think she was training in Europe by 2013, after a couple of years off to have a baby.
But was still banned from Rio. So even if the numbers were high, a total ban on anyone born in Russia from competing at the games could still be argued to have been harsh.
*The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive incapacity, on the part of those with low ability, to recognize their ineptitude and evaluate their competence accurately.
Mr. Tyndall, if memory serves, Antigonus Monopthalmus was that age, or perhaps older, when he started rising to real prominence.
You do give me hope then. A friend and I were sat in a pub a few weeks ago discussing this. He is in his mid 50s, I in my early 50s, and we were trying to come up with examples of people in arts, music, literature or science who didn't really start to do their best work until they were in their 50s. In modern post war music I am inclined to the belief that all great work is done by the young, usually in their first 2 or 3 albums at most. The same seems generally to apply to literature and the sciences. I would love to hear of examples where people first became successful later in life but - perhaps with the exception of politics - they seem few and far between.
Come to think of it, a lot of military men have been well into middle age, or even old age, when they pulled off their greatest achievements, eg Fabius Maximus, Caesar, Genghis Khan, Marlborough, Blucher, Wellington, Kutusov.
Comments
Ed achieved this despite a wipe-out in Scotland.
Labour wont go out with a bang - it's a whimper.
In fact, none of the parties seems to have a content support base. Even 73% for the Tories must be lower than what you would get from historical statistics.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/38261608
Whining Blairite...
I've no doubt that the reweighting is correct, of course.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/38261608
Edit: beaten by Mr Urquhart!
https://twitter.com/gsoh31/status/807184799463051265
The temptation for the PM to call an election must be getting considerably stronger.
Brexit secretary talks down transition deal
https://www.ft.com/content/56211190-bd5f-11e6-8b45-b8b81dd5d080?ftcamp=published_links/rss/world_uk_politics/feed//product
The turnout for the next GE will not be at referendum levels. The lower the turnout the more it favours remain I reckon.
You probably want to ratchet any poll slightly more to remain from the given VIs I reckon.
I have a suggested name for the new party - Social Democrat Party.
I have a former work colleague who started writing in her late fifties....she's on her fifth novel....
What us older folk may lack in speed we can more than make up for in low cunning.....
https://twitter.com/gsoh31/status/807165142639198208
Tories were always going to win. Lib Dems did ok given the scale of the campaign, which was tiny compared to Richmond Park. UKIP went backwards - yes, they were 2nd but soooooo far behind the Tories. As for Labour, oh dear, does not bode well.
All in all, it came out more or less as I anticipated.
If you voted Leave, do you think Labour are with you?
If you voted Remain, do you think Labour are with you?
Labour have targeted the 0% with incredible precision. It's almost art.
And still Twitter rings incessantly with Corbynites blaming everyone and everything else for Labour's ongoing self-immolation.
In the field of the sciences and mathematics, however, with the odd exceptions such as Euler most great ideas come from younger people and, I think, most of the people who produced those ideas are burnt out, or dead, long before they hit 50.
Nutall will be slightly re-positioning UKIP to get more ex Labour votes. So current polling is just a benchmark against which we should measure his performance.
EDIT: I see Pulpstar has made this point already
The recent polling that pitching for Soft Brexit is by a long way the least worst option for Labour at the moment - notwithstanding the disconnect between this sane middle pitch here and Corbynism elsewhere.
Again polling shows that new party = slaughter, which would be folly when the PLP have not yet lost control of the mechanics of the Labour party. A strategy of ceding Corbyn a good degree of freedom on policy and emphasis, but with no quarter given on party mechanics, and he may well ultimately put off the majority of soft Corbynistas and be the owner of his eventual defeat, so there is still hope. Plus possibility of building an alternate power base and policy platform in London / Manchester / &c - Burnham for all his jellyness may actually be the owner of an important strand of saving Labour!! At the moment, I cannot see a split gaining any momentum whatsoever prior to McClusky's re-election vote.
As someone who has always voted as best I could to advance the cause of a Social Democratic party of power, I'd say there are only least bad options at the moment, but that is still better than no options.
Trading models — Big spectrum of models, looking at somewhere in the middle of the models for Turkey, Switzerland and Norway.
For comparison, 2010 turnout in Scotland was 63.8%, the 2014 referendum turnout was 84.5% and the 2015 turnout was 71.1%.
A similar uplift might see turnout heading towards 68 or 69%. And much will depend on what the next general election is seen to be about.
What you'd need is someone who swapped into another area of expertise later in life, and who excelled in that area. That's going to be relatively unusual; most people pick an industry and find it hard to swap for a whole host of reasons.
Also there's the matter of priorities. Twenty years ago I could work massively long hours because I didn't have any other commitments. If I was working now, I couldn't: my life has moved on and family time matters.
But I think it's going to become less unusual in the arts. In science it'll be harder; fewer discoveries are made by brilliant individuals like (say) Cavendish, and more by teams.
If Brexit is the defining feature of the next years as it looks to be, the Labour party is irrelevant, as it was during the referendum itself.
It all could have been so different, but history is littered with bad decisions.
Washington Post caught out.
If he can negotiate a way to stand down whilst having his chosen successor, who the majority of the PLP feel they can work with, on the ballot paper, then I feel it is time to do so.
1% of GE2015 Tory voters prefer Jeremy Corbyn as PM over Theresa May
https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/807186226331717633
1) There's an argument to be made he was an A list actor
2) He didn't go straight from acting to the Presidency, he went via being the Governor of America's second most populous state
If Corbyn did surprise us all by putting the good of the Labour party and the country before his own vanity and narrow ambition, there is no doubt that his successor would be from the left of the party.
As an aside, Reagan was more than a B movie actor; according to Wiki he was president of the Screen Actors Guild at 36, though he entered politics in his fifties.
As it happens, their message has a very ready audience if it can find the right home. There are two overlapping groups: centrist/centre-left voters who believe in redistribution; and Remain voters, both of whom have no plausible home at present. With Britain's electorate fracturing regionally, it should be more possible for a new party to build regional bases under FPTP than ever before.
So while I see it as an odds-against endeavour, it's not a charge of the light brigade.
Perhaps they should embrace Kezia Dugdale's federalist idea and create a separate English Labour Party with an English leader, and Corbyn can just preside above the fray as a symbolic figurehead for the movement.
http://www.politico.eu/article/how-to-win-a-referendum-brexit-inside-story-vote-leave-campaign/
ABZ LOVE has stuck the knife into his former 5ive band mates, accusing them of treating him “like a tramp in the park”.
The singer and rapper has penned a new single about his feelings towards Scott Robinson, Richie Neville and Sean Conlon and claims the lads “left him in a ditch” while they “got rich”.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/2361485/abz-love-sticks-the-knife-into-his-former-5ive-bandmates-in-new-rap-song/
1. Get rid of Corbyn ASAP - he's completely unelectable.
2. Split off *more than half* the PLP into a single new party, such that they become the official opposition and leave Corbyn sitting next to Farron and Salmond.
They tried 1. this summer and it didn't work, so unless they think it can work again they need to do 2. and do it quickly.
My view. They don't have the cojones to do what's necessary. Maybe a few more polls like today's YouGov might focus their minds a little.
Davis is surely a case study for the Dunning–Kruger effect*
*The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. Dunning and Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive incapacity, on the part of those with low ability, to recognize their ineptitude and evaluate their competence accurately.