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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Has Labour lost its momentum?
You can tell a lot about how well a party has done by where a leader goes to celebrate their election victories. Theresa May (no doubt unwittingly) re-emphasised her caution-first nature by travelling all the way to Wandsworth: a council the Tories have held since 1978. She could have gone to Nuneaton, where the Tories stripped Labour of a sizable majority (unlike Wandsworth, where it was the Tories losing seats), or to Redditch, Barnet or Basildon – but she didn’t.
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Opposition parties normally win local elections. Since records began, albeit only since 1982, the oppositions that have gone on to win the next general election have won double digit leads in all the preceding local elections, starting with those in the immediate post-election year. Not only is Labour far from having a 10-point lead, the fact that it has no lead at all should be deeply disappointing.
Some Labour supporters may comfort themselves with the observation that the 11 point Tory lead in the PNS at last year’s local elections collapsed within the space of a month to a 2.5 point general election lead. That experience was a salutary lesson that public opinion can change dramatically. But that does not mean that we should expect the Conservatives to run a similarly disastrous campaign in the future.
While Labour did poorly, the Conservatives cannot rest easy. Their performance does not indicate that they would most likely regain their majority at the next general election.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/local-elections-the-key-numbers-crunched
https://antisemitism.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Antisemitism-Barometer-2017.pdf
Rather than the Labour spun version which is often posted - and omits:
Labour Party supporters are less likely to be antisemitic than other voters, so the cause of British Jews’ discontentment with the Labour Party must be the way that it has very publicly failed to robustly deal with the antisemites in its ranks. This means that the Labour Party has fallen out of step with its core supporters, who are generally less likely to hold antisemitic beliefs.
Focussing instead on the first dozen words and ignoring the rest....
Among voters, yes - but in the party no. And if British Jews are any guide 83% of them think the Labour Party has a problem compared to 19% who think the Conservative Party has.
Edit: Also the statistics I posted were true, you can find them in the report, however distressing that might be.
Anyone expecting some kind of grand surge from last summer was disappointed and probably shouldn't have got so carried away.*
You couldn't describe Labour as any kind of run away freight train in momentum terms.
I said a while back when the polls were fairly even, much as they are now, that status quo isn't terrible for Labour at the moment. Going off the predicted national vote shares we would actually be largest party, obviously heavy caveats involved with that, which I am pretty pleased with, seems like good progress from that general election last year. Slow progress but if we could build on it then in a few years we could secure a majority.
I might be completely wrong but I don't buy into this idea that you need some incredible local election results otherwise you will lose the next general election.
Labour is probably more the tortoise than the hare at the moment, which I am more than happy with as long as it works out the same way as the story.
Edit: *I did laugh at Matt Zarb in his MAGA hat...
I didn't dispute the accuracy of your stats (even if you try to meld 'voters' into 'parties') - I was merely pointing out the original report presents a fuller picture including evidence the Labour spun one curiously omits.....
Opposition parties normally win local elections. Since records began, albeit only since 1982, the oppositions that have gone on to win the next general election have won double digit leads in all the preceding local elections, starting with those in the immediate post-election year. Not only is Labour far from having a 10-point lead, the fact that it has no lead at all should be deeply disappointing.
Of course the past is no guide for future performance - but it should certainly give pause for thought.
Agree on Matt Zarb-Cousin - tho he should have posted it himself, rather than leaving it to Guido...
https://theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/04/may-commons-defeat-fixed-odds-betting-terminals
The Liberal Democrats on average enjoyed a modest advance of three points on their 2014 vote. But the party’s performance in the local elections that year was one of its worst ever. Meanwhile, at 16 per cent, the party’s projected share is a couple of points down on its performance in last year’s county council elections. Such a modest tally can hardly be regarded as evidence that the party has finally begun to turn the corner following its disastrous loss of support during the years of coalition with the Conservatives.
However, what will particularly encourage the party is that it performed best in wards where four years ago it shared first and second places with the Conservatives and where therefore it had some prospect of making gains. In many such wards, it was seemingly helped by a tactical squeeze on the Labour vote. That said, there is still little sign that the party’s opposition to Brexit is helping it to gain ground across the board amongst Remain voters – on average the party’s vote increased just as much in Leave-voting areas as in Remain-backing ones.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/local-elections-2018-results-labour-tory-lib-dem-brexit-a8336736.html
https://ft.trib.al/aHv6T3S
I cannot see it changing much for present. Both May and Corbyn are wounded but secure, and Vince can soon step down with honour. Brexit may break the deadlock, and surely new leaders will contest the next GE. Picking new leaders and either could win.
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
The thing is they are basically Las Vegas on every High Street, and legalized by accident rather than design and suddenly the bookmakers are making billions of pounds from them.
Naturally they are resistant to change.
The thing is they are basically Las Vegas on every High Street, and legalized by accident rather than design and suddenly the bookmakers are making billions of pounds from them.
Naturally they are resistant to change.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/992535979868278784
https://twitter.com/philipjcowley/status/992633158431539200
Blair and then Cameron are the only changes of government, those changes of government also saw the governing party lose a substantial number of seats, Labour doesn't really need the Conservatives to lose that many seats.
If we want to see the kind of seat losses for the government and seat gains for the opposition that Blair and Cameron made, assuming the sample size of 2 give us an infallible rule, then we would need the kind of leads he is talking about.
For something like a Conservative drop of 50 seats and a Labour gain of say 70 seats we wouldn't need the leads of Cameron and Blair, that is for a majority government as well. If Labour fell short the SNP, PC and the Green MP would back a Labour government.
We'll agree to disagree on the other thing, starting to get a little circular.
(...and by the Tories, Owen......)
For Labour, the results should be worrying. Despite the government doing so badly, people aren't voting 'against' the government in local elections, so much as taking positions on the ongoing saga of Brexit. Labour is stuck on the Brexit fence and will lose support as soon as either of its feet approaches the grass on either side. Unless they can stay on the fence until Brexit goes pear shaped and restores the anti-government protest vote.
On antisemitism the issue is not so much individual racist party members, but that the party has sought to adopt the Muslim vote as a client group, and in so doing has bought into what it perceives as its agenda and interests, to the point that the distinction between the actions of Israel and of Jews is lost.
Any idea that they could be used as part of a narrative to change the leadership or direction of the Labour party is probably going to fail, if you are content with that then that is some common ground for us at least!
The majority of labour supporters (I'm going to read that as voters) probably don't even have much of an opinion on the local elections overall or much of an idea how they compare to previous ones.
Ed Miliband.
Ed Miliband did a couple of points better than Jeremy Corbyn. Against the Tories.
Let that sink in, Owen.
Con C- .. Lab C- .. LibDem B- .. Green C .. UKIP F
Having ingested the PB wisdom and lesser authorities (Curtice, BBC, Sky News and Mrs JackW) I have amended the scores on the doors accordingly :
Con C .. Lab D+ .. LibDem C+ .. Green C .. UKIP Expelled
I’m not sure that anti-Semitism is a binary state but I could see that someone who endorses 1 statement might be seen as having “unsavoury opinions” while someone who endorses all 6 is an out and out Jew hater.
It would be interesting to see if the parties have a similar spread of opinions. It’s a plausible hypothesis, for example, that the Tories have more 1/6 while Labour has more nutters on 5 or 6/6.
Is there a breakdown of the data anywhere?
JH. Are you saying you are dealing with so much knife crime that it's affecting your workload
Doctor. Yes. It's sometimes like a war zone.
JH. Really? A "war zone!"
Doctor. Well some of my colleagues who have woked in war zones have called it that.
JH. Well..well...
The Daily Mail then picked it up and wrote a story about it with a lurid headline........
.....The baton passed by the Mail was then picked up by Trump who included it in a speech which ended with the words 'there will never be gun control while I am President' ....
The damage to the UK's reputation though huge is as nothing compared to those who will be damaged by the guns that will now not be controlled (in part) because of the story.
A beautiful example of how the once honourable communications industry has now been twisted out of shape
I think a lot depends on (from Labour's side) how the claims of anti-Semitism etc are handled. Right now, the party looks less than wonderful for Jews, and Corbyn's preferred to side with the Russian state over the United Kingdom. These aren't good looks.
However, they may benefit from Conservative mediocrity and, critically, EU fallout, so it's very hard to try and call the next election.
In fairness he has improved a lot since he started, when his ramblings were mostly incoherent and inaccurate rubbish that would have been failed had they been submitted as second year essays at Northumbria University.
However, while he does clarify in his next tweet, giving the unfortunate impression that all Labour care about is London is merely reinforcing the idea that everyone outside London is seen as less important.
“You cannot seek to bribe or twist, thank God! the British journalist.
But seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s no occasion to.”?
Labour have made gains compared to 2014, which was a pre-election year when they were also in opposition. However, they do have a problem in the English Midlands (apart from Brum), where there are a large number of marginal parliamentary seats and where most of the urban areas are very non-cosmopolitan.
The only real failure is for UKIP, which is now "dead in the water", and can only hope to revive if Brexit isn't delivered or there is BINO.
Under those conditions, I'd expect Farage and Banks to form a new party, with a structure designed to minimise infighting and dissent. And, unlike the many other new parties we've seen, it'd have both a big hitter and funding right from the start.
The problem with this theory and I have seen cyclefree go down this left wing ideology equals anti semitic route, is just how many Jewish people there are involved. The Marx, Lenin and Trotsky trio for example all I understand are Jewish or have some Jewish heritage (happy to be corrected)
I'm not sure Corbyn or the rest of them are actually all that far left or going to impose some kind of communism in the UK but the people often linked to them or sometimes mentioned and used against them as part of this idea of them being really far left are often Jewish, or have Jewish heritage which I assume is Jewish enough for the sake of this debate.
Edit: I swear I posted this before I saw Ydoethur's reply
Given he was fighting for gay rights before most I'm pretty sure he'd be quite happy with them. If you want someone to demonise Muslims using the cover of gay rights you are probably after a Le Pen type.
Or that new UKIP split off party if you want something domestic.
I'm not sure either would really be Owen's cup of tea...
Any new right wing party will follow the same path, and ultimately it will be the downfall of Corbynism too.
That is one reason why anti-Communism was often bound up with anti-Semitism in the 1920s and 1930s - most notoriously in the case of rather too many supporters of a certain A. Hitler.
We will take your word for the edit!
These being net effects, obviously some churn.
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/bs0i5dmt7s/CampaignAgainstAntisemitismResults_170803_JewishOpinions.pdf
But they don't break out the data in the way you suggest. The highest single score among all parties voters on anti semitic statements was for British Jewish people chase money more than other British people". (Con 27, with Lab on 14 & Lib Dems on 19), but on other questions there was a tie: "Jewish people can be trusted just as much as other British people in business".(77 / 75 / 79).
Among British Jews their biggest concern is anti-semitism (primary and secondary concerns) is from Islamism (79%), followed by the Far Left (72%) then the Far Right (37%)
(Really!)
Karl Marx was resurrected and came to the USSR. He was shown factories, hospitals, cities and villages, etc. Finally, he requested to be allowed to make a speech on TV. The Politburo hesitated as they were afraid he might say something they wouldn’t approve. Marx promised he would say only one sentence. Under this condition, the Politburo agreed. Karl Marx uttered the following sentence: “Workers of all countries, forgive me."
As I am sure you are aware, I do not support attempts to halt Brexit, from July 2017 I supported WTO Brexit. Only when the promised fruits of Brexit prove to be illusory and the Brexiteers discredited, can we move on to a more constructive engagement with ourselves and the rest of the world.
The bitter dregs of Brexit are an essential part of the recovery process. Mostly Brexit will go with a whimper rather than a bang.
It doesn't make any substantial difference to the point either way, of course.
That wasn't Hitler's reason though I assume?
We saw Jeremy Corbyn in Plymouth yesterday, but Labour didn't win Plymouth back as a result of taking Tory seats - their one gain from the Tories would not have switched the council. What won Plymouth was the three seats they took from UKIP.
They want to bind us as closely as possible, in the customs union, and the single market too if they can achieve that. Such actions are not only dubious at best, contemptible at worst, after the referendum result, but create a new dark vision against which to unify. And it is not merely those who prefer we leave the EU, but those who prefer the electorate, and not the politicians (particularly those unelected), determine the political destiny of this country.
By attempting to dilute, delay and thwart our departure, the metropolitan political class are deepening already severe divisions, embittering an already poisonous atmosphere, and keeping united (and angering further) those who simply want the democratic decision we took to be enacted.
Teaching the electorate that democratic votes can be ignored at will if they contest the consensus of the political class in Westminster is deeply unwise.
Hitler himself said that he came to an 'understanding'(!) of the Jews some time before the First World War, in which case it might have been the fact that there was a Jewish element in Communism that turned him off it rather than the other way around, but then Hitler is not a man whose word I would trust.
He was a fabulously influential economist and philosopher, still fundamental for understanding society today. Some of the works are hardly light reading, but The Communist Manifesto is short and readable. There is this new film out on Young Marx that sounds worth seeking out.
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/film/2018/05/young-karl-marx-sparky-retelling-build-communist-manifesto
We are now (in the West) in a post industrial revolution, but many of the same issues are live today.
We have only just begun.
If we start from here going into the GE
Jezza will be PM his campaigning skills in a GE are legendary.
Of course Trump & his coterie know that, but no lie too big when it comes to tickling the love button of the gun nuts. Let's hope we hear no more crap about Trump being the person who's REALLY going to tackle gun reform.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/over-90-per-cent-of-uk-jews-give-to-charity-with-orthodox-and-over-60s-most-generous-report-finds-1.62160
Poverty and deprivation are problems in the haredi community:
http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/Key trends in the British Jewish community.pdf
Q: Is one permitted to ride in an airplane on the Sabbath?
A: Yes, as long as your seat belt remains fastened. In this case, it is considered that you are not riding, you are wearing the plane.
We voted to Leave. If the political class seeks to get a BINO situation, deliberately binding us closer to the EU than the electorate wants, then how can we tell if the departure was successful, when in truth we've merely lengthened the chain rather than left the prison?
Trying to keep our trade deals in the power of the EU, when we voted to Leave, is not respecting the vote. To suggest those who have a problem with the Lords and some MPs attempting to thwart the result of the referendum are 'not sensible' is a milder form of 'basket of deplorables'.
If the political class shows contempt for the electorate, the favour may very well be returned. As somebody who has grave concerns about the far left's capture of the Labour Party, and does not want a far right party to ascend on the other side of the spectrum, this worries me greatly.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/local-elections-what-the-results-mean-for-labour-vxvwhtzdr
https://twitter.com/DawnButlerBrent/status/992369679787323399?s=19
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/992369815917613056?s=19
It doesn’t logically follow that he will be able to convert a further 15% (or anything like it) in the next campaign
I suspect he’s converted all he can - now it’s up to people not voting Tory as those who weren’t convinced in 2017 aren’t likely to be convinced next tine round
A mother and her beloved son are walking on a beach, when a great wave breaks and sweeps the youngster out to sea. He disappears out to the sea, and gets lost to sight.
The mother cries out to God, "Save my son, and return him, and I will devote the entirety of my life to good works in your service. I shall observe the Sabbath strictly, and instruct him as one of the righteous. Please, save my son!"
Shortly afterwards another great wave breaks, and suddenly the boy is thrown ashore at her feet, soggy, but unharmed.
The mother stands in stunned silence for a few seconds, then raises her hand to Heaven. She shouts angrily "He had a hat, you know...!
Are the Lib Dems still the "clear winners"?
You may well label the HoC "The Political Class" frustrating the will of "The People" but if so, you are the vanguard of the far right party that you fear.