Have we hear from the Ex MP for Broxtowe this morning?
he was posting about 0500 if you look back, presumably having a nap now.
Yep, back now.
FPT: The difficulty for the centre-left is illustrated by the fact that even if we assume that EVERY LibDem voter would have been a Labour voter if we'd had a centrist leader (which clearly isn't the case),and that every Labour voter would have stayed on board, we'd still have lost. The sober fact is that the Tories are reasonably popular at the moment, and that's a problem for Corbyn but would also be a problem for any other Labour leader.
This Labour leader is uniquely unpopular. Could it be that in failing to leave his comfort zone in order to engage with voters and to offer an accessible, coherent critique of the government is a part of the problem? Corbyn has just presided over the worst defeat of the official opposition in any by-election since 1945.
The Left's problem is that they no longer represent the working man and woman. They find their nationalism disgisting, and the fact they like football and eat meat. And the eschelons of Labour love the money they get so they must protect the jobs of the Liberal Elite, which in turn have the role of sneering at the workign man adn woman.
To get Labour right:
1) Stop being a metropolitan elite - elect a common man like Harold Wilson 2) Stop thinking that the working man is a racist for wanting to protect his job, his family and his country 3) Stop thinking that drinking shit lager and going on holiday to Spain to get a red lobster tan is uncouth 4) Stop hating The Sun newspaper and all it and its readers stand for. 5) Have efficient policies that put service not self serving, overpaid civil servants like Doctors and Council officers first who pocket more than 100 grand a year. 6) Stop putting a religion first that is racist and sexist. 7) Stop treating every white man as a homophobe, racist, sexist Neanderthal. 8) Stop loving the EU and hating anyone that thinks the EU could be better. 9) Stop talking more about immigrants at Calais more than people in Stoke. 10) Stop going on about Trump getting democratically elected. That was the will of the people. Lots of your uncouth, white, lager swilling Neanderthal voters fucking love the scumbag Trump...and Le Pen. 11) Stop talking about transgender people rather than fat Northern slags. There are more of the latter.
Incidentally, I claim some PB credit on predictions this time - I said that my canvassing suggested that Stoke was seen as a choice of least bad party, and Labour would probably edge it - and I was consistently downbeat about Copeland. Selling UKIP in Copeland on SPIN made me and I hope others who saw my tip a decent sum, which really was free money as they were hardly even trying there.
Makes up a bit for the hopeless canvass-based predictions in Broxtowe in 2015...
Incidentally, I claim some PB credit on predictions this time - I said that my canvassing suggested that Stoke was seen as a choice of least bad party, and Labour would probably edge it - and I was consistently downbeat about Copeland. Selling UKIP in Copeland on SPIN made me and I hope others who saw my tip a decent sum, which really was free money as they were hardly even trying there.
Makes up a bit for the hopeless canvass-based predictions in Broxtowe in 2015...
In 2015 many voters either weren't telling the truth in the run-up, or changed their minds at last minute when they thought about the whole Lab-SNP thing. I'm guessing that this time around people were more forthcoming about what they planned to do.
Have we hear from the Ex MP for Broxtowe this morning?
he was posting about 0500 if you look back, presumably having a nap now.
Yep, back now.
FPT: The difficulty for the centre-left is illustrated by the fact that even if we assume that EVERY LibDem voter would have been a Labour voter if we'd had a centrist leader (which clearly isn't the case),and that every Labour voter would have stayed on board, we'd still have lost. The sober fact is that the Tories are reasonably popular at the moment, and that's a problem for Corbyn but would also be a problem for any other Labour leader.
This Labour leader is uniquely unpopular. Could it be that in failing to leave his comfort zone in order to engage with voters and to offer an accessible, coherent critique of the government is a part of the problem? Corbyn has just presided over the worst defeat of the official opposition in any by-election since 1945.
The Left's problem is that they no longer represent the working man and woman. They find their nationalism disgisting, and the fact they like football and eat meat. And the eschelons of Labour love the money they get so they must protect the jobs of the Liberal Elite, which in turn have the role of sneering at the workign man adn woman.
To get Labour right:
1) Stop being a metropolitan elite - elect a common man like Harold Wilson 2) Stop thinking that the working man is a racist for wanting to protect his job, his family and his country 3) Stop thinking that drinking shit lager and going on holiday to Spain to get a red lobster tan is uncouth 4) Stop hating The Sun newspaper and all it and its readers stand for. 5) Have efficient policies that put service not self serving, overpaid civil servants like Doctors and Council officers first who pocket more than 100 grand a year. 6) Stop putting a religion first that is racist and sexist. 7) Stop treating every white man as a homophobe, racist, sexist Neanderthal. 8) Stop loving the EU and hating anyone that thinks the EU could be better. 9) Stop talking more about immigrants at Calais more than people in Stoke. 10) Stop going on about Trump getting democratically elected. That was the will of the people. Lots of your uncouth, white, lager swilling Neanderthal voters fucking love the scumbag Trump...and Le Pen. 11) Stop talking about transgender people rather than fat Northern slags. There are more of the latter.
Only then do the Left have a chance.
Most enjoyable post of the day so far, regardless of whether one agrees with it or not.
Labour 1/10 - They held Stoke, I guess but the internals of that result are horrifying psephologiclly speaking for them. That's before we even get to Copeland. UKIP 1/10 - Didn't come close enough in Stoke to indicate to me that they can win ANYWHERE. Candidates weren't an issue imo, poor ones in Stoke; good ones in general in Copeland, beaten by the Lib Dems into 4th in Copeland Lib Dems 5/10 - Neither a serious target seat but the trend of increasing vote in a BE from GE levels occurred in both seats, so a continuation of that decent trend. Middling. Tories 9.5/10 - Just miss out on the 10/10 due to not beating UKIP in Stoke, the Copeland result was off the charts good.
The LibDems should have done much better in Stoke.
They had a good candidate opposed to two crap ones and an unsupported novice and yet they got less than half the votes they did in 2010.
It was exactly the type of by-election where they've cleaned up on in the past.
"Exactly the type"? Sorry, but that is nonsense.
In the past LibDems tended to clean up in Tory held seats where they started in second place and Labour were not in contention.
All these were gains from Labour during Conservative governments:
And there are others - Newcastle-Under-Lyme in 1986 for example - where the LibDems have had huge vote increases after starting third in Labour held seats.
It seems facts don't fit the LibDem narrative.
There's a thread header in the cluster of problems for the Lib Dems that you touch on. Do you mind if I borrow some thoughts out of that and put one together in the next week or two?
Don't mind at all - please feel free to borrow away.
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Makes up a bit for the hopeless canvass-based predictions in Broxtowe in 2015...
Copeland: Green Jack Lenox 515 1.7% -1.3
Stoke: Green Adam Colclough 294 1.4% -2.2