The same sort of governments grappling with populist movements either in opposition (Italy, Germany, Spain) or in power (Hungary, Poland, Spain, Italy).
No, coalition government leads to everyone feeling like losers and pushing them towards the no compromise parties. Look at how the SPD have been hollowed out in Germany and how the CDU is losing votes to AfD.
In fairness, we have populists in government AND opposition.
No, Boris is pretty middle of the road compared to Vox or AfD.
Interestingly Boris has a larger majority than the coalition, it could end up being a very stable 5 years, which would be nice.
Yes. Even the coalition was about compromise. I think we’ve all forgotten quite how much power a united Government with a good majority has in this country. To pick two examples, Select Committees no longer matter and all Secondary Legislation can go through on a whim.
Many of the Northern communities that have just gone Tory remember the last Tory Government with a big majority - so the Tories will have to do a lot to break with the past.
I really hope this isn't representative of much of the membership because if it is, Labour is doomed.
Be very depressing to know Labour is doomed in a few months time. What a depressing prospect.
Yeah I would wait a bit before giving up.
A lot of this is very emotional early reactions, after an epochal and bruising election, a proper kulturkampf
I experienced the same from the other side, I was deliriously happy, and relieved, and proud of my country for not being bribed. I was also quite keen to rub the noses of the Left in their squalid defeat, their good name smeared with racism...
But I am calming down now,
Give it a few weeks and if they are still like this, then yes, it's probably terminal.
"A vocal Corbyn cheerleader ventured into a council estate in Worksop , the former coal mining town at the centre of Bassetlaw seeking votes.
On his fleeting sojourn from his expensive converted farmhouse opposite his quaint village church, he proceeded to pursue a miners widow, making her way to the shops with the aid of her zimmer frame, lambasting her for her refusal to vote Labour because of Jeremy Corbyn.
The arrogance and detachment of Corbyn’s middle class fan club was a factor in every seat that Labour lost"
Lansman on election night was really quite incredible in every sense. Even as his world collapsed around him the delusions went on. The Postie tried but reality was just not allowed to impinge, no matter what.
Postie was understandably livid. These are the decent Labour people, the types that the Labour party need stearing things going forward. All the evidence is they will be smeared (as Jack Straw was) as war-mongering Tory-lite types, who are has been's, who need to get with the programme.
To be fair it's not all of my Labour friends, but it is a couple, and they are the most politically committed (they go on marches and demos). So they are the people who will elect the new leader.
It's grim for Labour.
One of them is a smart artist in her 50s. Very well read. Phd. Etc.
She was convinced that Corbyn would win, even though I spent 20 minutes over drinks, recently, trying to show her the plentiful evidence that he was likely to lose. She just kept shaking her head and saying things like "youthquake".
Now she tells me she is in "shock".
I mean, what can you do?!
Had the same experience. Perfectly nice decent people generally - the sort of generally would be horrified at being associated with Jew baiters - are just in denial about the reality of the polling figures, and the nature of the people who are the praetorian guard of the party. They seem too intelligent to be just 'useful idiots' but that is how they seem. Feels more like fundamentalist religion to me.
Yes, it's religiosity without God. A faith.
The parallels with Leavers are obvious.
And ultra-Remainers like you. Who lose all common sense, become hysterically upset over everything, see evil heretics everywhere, and believe in miracles like the Second Coming, sorry, Referendum.
This “ultra-Remainer” has for a very long time been stating that two things are required before this country can move on: Remainers to accept that they lost and Leavers to accept that Brexit is a shitshow. Remainers are showing signs of their bit. Leavers are showing none of theirs, despite precisely none of the touted benefits of a Leave vote having emerged and many vices having crept out of the woodwork.
One upside to Brexit is that Northern voters have abandoned their devotion to a useless Labour party, and are trying new tastes and flavours. This can only be good for democracy, and might even be good for northern voters. Because, Brexit.
By the way this is EXACTLY what sovereignty Leavers predicted: that Brexit would pump fresh blood into our moribund body politic. And so it is.
What would be good for democracy would be not having a Prime Minister with untrammelled power who led a direct assault on Parliamentary democracy this year. Because Brexit.
It's just boring now. Sorry. Move on, mate.
You can say it is boring but pretty soon Rejoiners will be the plucky anti-establishment rebels.
The same sort of governments grappling with populist movements either in opposition (Italy, Germany, Spain) or in power (Hungary, Poland, Spain, Italy).
No, coalition government leads to everyone feeling like losers and pushing them towards the no compromise parties. Look at how the SPD have been hollowed out in Germany and how the CDU is losing votes to AfD.
In fairness, we have populists in government AND opposition.
No, Boris is pretty middle of the road compared to Vox or AfD.
And Francois? Or Patel?
Yes, afaik none of them think the Holocaust was a hoax.
The same sort of governments grappling with populist movements either in opposition (Italy, Germany, Spain) or in power (Hungary, Poland, Spain, Italy).
No, coalition government leads to everyone feeling like losers and pushing them towards the no compromise parties. Look at how the SPD have been hollowed out in Germany and how the CDU is losing votes to AfD.
In fairness, we have populists in government AND opposition.
No, Boris is pretty middle of the road compared to Vox or AfD.
And Francois? Or Patel?
Boris has all the power. The Tories know they won BECAUSE of him (and Cummings). The members universally love him. A lot of voters love him.
He is lord of all he surveys like no one since Blair. Indeed as a proper Tory he's in a better position than Blair. He is untouchable for a few years now.
Burgon and RLB IIRC have to get the support of at least 35 Labour MPs to even get to the membership. After 2015, I don’t see Labour MPs backing candidates that they couldn’t live with as leader of the party.
.
Depends on what the make-up of the PLP is this time. Must have been a lot more momentum backed candidates. On Merseyside for instance, Ellman, Berger and Field and Twigg are gone from 2017 and replaced by Momentum minded Labour MPs. Similarly Charlotte Nichols replaces Helen Jones in Warrington North. Am less familiar with other areas, but may well be that the PLP has shifted in a Corbynite direction.
I haven't looked at it in seat by seat terms, but remember MRP #1 was majority 58. MRP #2 was taken at height on photogate, the day before they still had Tory majority I think at 50.
MRP 2 had a Tory majority of 28. It over-estimated the Labour vote share by 2%, which appears to have been enough to do the damage.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
The Lib Dems have a path back to the highs of Kennedy, they have 100 targets for 2024. And I wonder if now Brexit is out the way whether some votes in the SW might not return to them.
Have you SEEN those majorities in the SW? North Cornwall, North Devon - supposedly nip-and-tuck marginals last week, both now with 14k majorities for the blues. The supposedly in-the-bag St. Ives - a 4k Tory majority. Elsewhere in Cornwall, they are a very distant third place to Labour.
Devon and Somerset are little better.
Revoke has Ratnerised the LibDems down here. That - and a side-order of Swinson. It's going to take multiple elections before the LibDems get a hearing down here again.
Not so sure about that, Mr Mark. First we have the County elections. I gather that all over Devon the Tory councillors are getting their excuses in early. Their plea is that the Council has no money - it is not their fault for their bad management of the Council`s finances, of course, and certainly not the fault of the incompetent Conservative government at Westminster. I have the feeling that quite shortly, your boys are going to get thrashed.
No, the first MRP had it spot on, the issue was that the input of a 9 point lead in the second one. YouGov incorrectly measured the Con lead, in the end we had a 12 point lead which the MRP would have had at a majority of about 80.
Sorry, but you're simply not addressing the point I am making concerning individual seats. How could YouGov possibly been so far adrift in the case of the examples I have provided, where the Tories were rated as having as low as a 10% chance of winning. Some of us were betting on individual seats such as these and were relying on some semblance of accuracy from YouGov.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
I would love to see him as Labour leader. It would keep Boris on his toes, bring forward practical policies that help the people Labour claims to care about (as opposed to, say, WASPI women).
I would love to see him as Labour leader. It would keep Boris on his toes, bring forward practical policies that help the people Labour claims to care about (as opposed to, say, WASPI women).
Not Northern - but I'd like to see him in a senior position.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
Just stunned by the proportional representation graphic on the previous thread. A party that was absolutely hammered under a FPTP system would have had under PR....9 more seats. If anyone had any doubt the extent to which the current boundaries favour Labour to an almost unbelievable extent surely that is the answer. If anyone has any doubt about how much steeper the hill Labour will have to climb in 2024 will be they should also reflect on that.
In contrast the Lib Dems would have 75 more seats giving them a somewhat larger pool to fish in.
Their challenge, as in the remainer Parliament of 2015-17, is going to be getting heard. For me, that means they need someone who is articulate, experienced and informed to make an impact on the odd occasion the media are willing to listen. Surely that can only be Ed Davey. His economic policies in the last election may not have won many votes against the fantasies being offered by both of the main parties but we are now returning, somewhat reluctantly, to the real world where what he says makes a lot of sense.
Agree,the coalition government will be 10 years ago by the time of the next election, & in any case Davey has a record of success at Energy & Climate change,more importantly unlike Swinson, Moran & co he has gravitas.
We can point to the EU Elections and council elections as being good indicators of future performance based on this year's election, so if Labour/Lib Dems start to make progress (RIP EU Elections), that's a good sign. But I fear they won't.
You can say it is boring but pretty soon Rejoiners will be the plucky anti-establishment rebels.
Or they'll be like Republicans, a passionate yet tiny and ignored rump.
We don't know for sure, but I doubt that most of the public is in the mood for being assailed by activists waxing lyrical about the joys of the European Union, nor will be for many years.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
No, the first MRP had it spot on, the issue was that the input of a 9 point lead in the second one. YouGov incorrectly measured the Con lead, in the end we had a 12 point lead which the MRP would have had at a majority of about 80.
Sorry, but you're simply not addressing the point I am making concerning individual seats. How could YouGov possibly been so far adrift in the case of the examples I have provided, where the Tories were rated as having as low as a 10% chance of winning. Some of us were betting on individual seats such as these and were relying on some semblance of accuracy from YouGov.
Yes, in that case I would not use it. I didn't because I was looking at an 11 point lead and applied UNS which I think has become an underrated way of projecting seat counts. I sort of hope YouGov release a model of it so we can play with the inputs because it would have been very useful if we could stick in Con 44 Lab 33 (which is where I thought we were heading), that would have been really useful for betting purposes rather than relying on YouGov to get the underlying picture correct.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
Just stunned by the proportional representation graphic on the previous thread. A party that was absolutely hammered under a FPTP system would have had under PR....9 more seats. If anyone had any doubt the extent to which the current boundaries favour Labour to an almost unbelievable extent surely that is the answer. If anyone has any doubt about how much steeper the hill Labour will have to climb in 2024 will be they should also reflect on that.
In contrast the Lib Dems would have 75 more seats giving them a somewhat larger pool to fish in.
Their challenge, as in the remainer Parliament of 2015-17, is going to be getting heard. For me, that means they need someone who is articulate, experienced and informed to make an impact on the odd occasion the media are willing to listen. Surely that can only be Ed Davey. His economic policies in the last election may not have won many votes against the fantasies being offered by both of the main parties but we are now returning, somewhat reluctantly, to the real world where what he says makes a lot of sense.
On the FPTP vs PR argument, I think there are clearly arguments for both. There are successful countries with PR (like Germany, Israel or Switzerland) and successful ones with FPTP (like the US or Australia). I don't think either is some panacea that brings good governance.
One problem with FPTP is that it can hide growing dissatisfaction with some part of the status quo. Opposition to the EU was growing, but never got the parliamentary representation it needed. And it became all too easy - in the pre-2016 era - for both main parties and the LDs to support the status quo.
I therefore wonder if isam's suggestion of a small PR contingent to add to the FPTP seats mightn't be a good one. So, you'd go with (say) 600 parliamentary seats elected by FPTP, and then you'd add 50 elected by PR. In this way, minority views like Euroscepticism would have gotten into parliament earlier. Now, these fifty "party listers" would have an easy life, with no constituency business, so I'd suggest not giving them an office budget, and maybe only a salary of (say) £25,000/year. But they'd be like regular MPs in other ways.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
I would love to see him as Labour leader. It would keep Boris on his toes, bring forward practical policies that help the people Labour claims to care about (as opposed to, say, WASPI women).
Not Northern - but I'd like to see him in a senior position.
There are also poor working class people in the south being ignored by Labour, that's the next red wall that the Lib Dems could try and break through.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
Just stunned by the proportional representation graphic on the previous thread. A party that was absolutely hammered under a FPTP system would have had under PR....9 more seats. If anyone had any doubt the extent to which the current boundaries favour Labour to an almost unbelievable extent surely that is the answer. If anyone has any doubt about how much steeper the hill Labour will have to climb in 2024 will be they should also reflect on that.
In contrast the Lib Dems would have 75 more seats giving them a somewhat larger pool to fish in.
Their challenge, as in the remainer Parliament of 2015-17, is going to be getting heard. For me, that means they need someone who is articulate, experienced and informed to make an impact on the odd occasion the media are willing to listen. Surely that can only be Ed Davey. His economic policies in the last election may not have won many votes against the fantasies being offered by both of the main parties but we are now returning, somewhat reluctantly, to the real world where what he says makes a lot of sense.
Agree,the coalition government will be 10 years ago by the time of the next election, & in any case Davey has a record of success at Energy & Climate change,more importantly unlike Swinson, Moran & co he has gravitas.
Moran is Swinson mark 2.
The response to climate change is going to be a very big news story over the next 4-5 years. He can point to kick starting the wind revolution and a whole series of policies that actually worked.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
No, the first MRP had it spot on, the issue was that the input of a 9 point lead in the second one. YouGov incorrectly measured the Con lead, in the end we had a 12 point lead which the MRP would have had at a majority of about 80.
Sorry, but you're simply not addressing the point I am making concerning individual seats. How could YouGov possibly been so far adrift in the case of the examples I have provided, where the Tories were rated as having as low as a 10% chance of winning. Some of us were betting on individual seats such as these and were relying on some semblance of accuracy from YouGov.
But the Tories should win one-in-ten of the 10% chances. Which, on balance, they did.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
You can say it is boring but pretty soon Rejoiners will be the plucky anti-establishment rebels.
Or they'll be like Republicans, a passionate yet tiny and ignored rump.
We don't know for sure, but I doubt that most of the public is in the mood for being assailed by activists waxing lyrical about the joys of the European Union, nor will be for many years.
English Republicans in particular are an excellent group for comparison, though I suspect Rejoin will would have more numbers/force. Others might be libertarians and anarcho-syndicalists (the full-blown hardcore ones, not the small-state Tories or socialist Labourites who get called those names as insults), Georgist Land Taxers, Universal Basic Income advocates and Cornish nationalists. That's an ever-shifting scale though. Welsh Independence has gone from utterly fringe to the edge of mainstream. And Brexit as a cause completely smashed through the Overton Window...
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
1974 bucks the trend somewhat but I think that's always a special case (2 elections etc)
and recessions of 1975, 1961 and 1956 are all 3-4 years ahead of the next election.
2010 helped? We ended up with the Tories gaining 100 seats, the only reason they didn't win was the Lib Dems, we saw that in 2015.
Not sure you can count to 2010 helping the Government of the day.
1992 Labour made big progress.
If after the next recession, if Labour does not make substantial progress they are doomed probably for good.
Labour were on 20 % in some polls in 2009 and early 2010. They pulled it back, mostly with the message based around not affecting the recovery.
But you then say 1992 Labour made big progress - so did the Tories in 2010!
How about:
"Recessions do not have the effect of killing governments that you might think they have"
How about, recessions start Governments on the path to losing?
Not really, as then you've got 1992 and 1983 as very firm counter points.
Beware of extrapolation from small data sets.
Would the Conservatives have won in 1983 if it hadn't been for the Falklands War? I don't know, but we can't remove it from history and try again. We also need to remember that the Conservative opposition was split in '83. Could we go back, make Dennis Healey leader of the Labour Party, prevent the SDP split, and see what happens...
Almost every country in the world* switched governments in the election that followed the GFC. That's a much larger dataset than two or three elections in the UK.
Just stunned by the proportional representation graphic on the previous thread. A party that was absolutely hammered under a FPTP system would have had under PR....9 more seats. If anyone had any doubt the extent to which the current boundaries favour Labour to an almost unbelievable extent surely that is the answer. If anyone has any doubt about how much steeper the hill Labour will have to climb in 2024 will be they should also reflect on that.
In contrast the Lib Dems would have 75 more seats giving them a somewhat larger pool to fish in.
Their challenge, as in the remainer Parliament of 2015-17, is going to be getting heard. For me, that means they need someone who is articulate, experienced and informed to make an impact on the odd occasion the media are willing to listen. Surely that can only be Ed Davey. His economic policies in the last election may not have won many votes against the fantasies being offered by both of the main parties but we are now returning, somewhat reluctantly, to the real world where what he says makes a lot of sense.
On the FPTP vs PR argument, I think there are clearly arguments for both. There are successful countries with PR (like Germany, Israel or Switzerland) and successful ones with FPTP (like the US or Australia). I don't think either is some panacea that brings good governance.
One problem with FPTP is that it can hide growing dissatisfaction with some part of the status quo. Opposition to the EU was growing, but never got the parliamentary representation it needed. And it became all too easy - in the pre-2016 era - for both main parties and the LDs to support the status quo.
I therefore wonder if isam's suggestion of a small PR contingent to add to the FPTP seats mightn't be a good one. So, you'd go with (say) 600 parliamentary seats elected by FPTP, and then you'd add 50 elected by PR. In this way, minority views like Euroscepticism would have gotten into parliament earlier. Now, these fifty "party listers" would have an easy life, with no constituency business, so I'd suggest not giving them an office budget, and maybe only a salary of (say) £25,000/year. But they'd be like regular MPs in other ways.
The Scottish top up system works reasonably well but I would put more emphasis on the Constituency element, ie not a full top up.
Boris has all he wants for now. A crushed opposition, at least in England, a totally unified party behind him, the good will of people who have never voted Tory in their lives, and furthermore, he is what Napoleon described as a lucky general. He has at times floundered but here we are with a very substantial Tory majority after 9 years of power.
Yes, we know there are factors involved in the victory, but as the old sporting analogy goes, you can only beat what's in front of you. Boris has pulverised the Labour party and kicked the LDs back to their default position of irrelevance.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
if you want a game, try to remember what caused all the other step changes. There's a small one before the expenses scandal - what other scandal happened in Spring 2009?
Sky just done Vox Pops at Burley football match. Flat Cap Fred very angry that Jezza doesn't sing the national anthem, not liking the Queen and terrorist sympathiser.
I think a lot of these Maomentum types forget that the working man in the North is strongly patriotic and of old Liz.
We can point to the EU Elections and council elections as being good indicators of future performance based on this year's election, so if Labour/Lib Dems start to make progress (RIP EU Elections), that's a good sign. But I fear they won't.
EU elections tell you that all governments are unpopular, a significant chunk of the population want to leave the EU and might show that an opposition is not breaking through. In that order.
Sky just done Vox Pops at Burley football match. Flat Cap Fred very angry that Jezza doesn't sing the national anthem, not liking the Queen and terrorist sympathiser.
I think a lot of these Maomentum types forget that the working man in the North is strongly patriotic and of old Liz.
See John Mann's destruction of middle class momentum activists, posted earlier.
This, with Friedland's excoriation of Corbyn and his ego, should be required reading for all Lab members.
The Lib Dems have a path back to the highs of Kennedy, they have 100 targets for 2024. And I wonder if now Brexit is out the way whether some votes in the SW might not return to them.
Have you SEEN those majorities in the SW? North Cornwall, North Devon - supposedly nip-and-tuck marginals last week, both now with 14k majorities for the blues. The supposedly in-the-bag St. Ives - a 4k Tory majority. Elsewhere in Cornwall, they are a very distant third place to Labour.
Devon and Somerset are little better.
Revoke has Ratnerised the LibDems down here. That - and a side-order of Swinson. It's going to take multiple elections before the LibDems get a hearing down here again.
Not so sure about that, Mr Mark. First we have the County elections. I gather that all over Devon the Tory councillors are getting their excuses in early. Their plea is that the Council has no money - it is not their fault for their bad management of the Council`s finances, of course, and certainly not the fault of the incompetent Conservative government at Westminster. I have the feeling that quite shortly, your boys are going to get thrashed.
North Norfolk
May 2019 district council vote: Lib Dems 30 seats, Tories 6 seats, Others 4 seats Dec 2019 general election: Con Maj 14,395
The Liberal Democrats might keep motoring along quite nicely in local government, but that doesn't necessarily imply that they'll be in contention when Parliamentary votes roll around in the same places. Indeed, the whole notion of the South West as a Liberal powerbase may be behind us. Look at where their target seats are disproportionately concentrated: out of the top 20, 13 are in London and the commuter belt.
The Lib Dems have a path back to the highs of Kennedy, they have 100 targets for 2024. And I wonder if now Brexit is out the way whether some votes in the SW might not return to them.
Have you SEEN those majorities in the SW? North Cornwall, North Devon - supposedly nip-and-tuck marginals last week, both now with 14k majorities for the blues. The supposedly in-the-bag St. Ives - a 4k Tory majority. Elsewhere in Cornwall, they are a very distant third place to Labour.
Devon and Somerset are little better.
Revoke has Ratnerised the LibDems down here. That - and a side-order of Swinson. It's going to take multiple elections before the LibDems get a hearing down here again.
Not so sure about that, Mr Mark. First we have the County elections. I gather that all over Devon the Tory councillors are getting their excuses in early. Their plea is that the Council has no money - it is not their fault for their bad management of the Council`s finances, of course, and certainly not the fault of the incompetent Conservative government at Westminster. I have the feeling that quite shortly, your boys are going to get thrashed.
North Norfolk
May 2019 district council vote: Lib Dems 30 seats, Tories 6 seats, Others 4 seats Dec 2019 general election: Con Maj 14,395
The Liberal Democrats might keep motoring along quite nicely in local government, but that doesn't necessarily imply that they'll be in contention when Parliamentary votes roll around in the same places. Indeed, the whole notion of the South West as a Liberal powerbase may be behind us. Look at where their target seats are disproportionately concentrated: out of the top 20, 13 are in London and the commuter belt.
On the other hand, the LibDems were held back by Brexit (and in particular Bollocks to Brexit) in the South West. That won't be a millstone round their neck again.
I would love to see him as Labour leader. It would keep Boris on his toes, bring forward practical policies that help the people Labour claims to care about (as opposed to, say, WASPI women).
Not Northern - but I'd like to see him in a senior position.
There are also poor working class people in the south being ignored by Labour, that's the next red wall that the Lib Dems could try and break through.
If you look at the class breakdown, it's notable how much the Lib Dems are a middle-class party whereas Labour and Tories have fairly similar support all the way through the class spectrum. The Lib Dems really do seem to be the party by and for urban socially-liberal graduate professionals. And to be fair that would be the group you'd expect to share more of their wokier values, but I wonder if that is really all they want to limit themselves to? If they do, they can be at best a minor coalition partner and act as a bit of check-and-balance in parliament. They do give the impression of a small group of people talking to themselves, and perhaps this gets them out of tune with how most people see things - see their candidate foot-in-mouth woes in Devon (and then again) and the way they seemed to think gender self-id would be a major national cut-through issue that could help propel Swinson to PM...
The MRP told us a lot that we couldn't have learnt from national figures alone to be fair.
It told us how Labour were crushing Lib Dems in Lab/LD seats, it told us about the remain seat/leave seat split, how well Labour were doing in University seats and that the Tories were knocking on the door in Labour seats outside their top 100 targets.
You can say it is boring but pretty soon Rejoiners will be the plucky anti-establishment rebels.
Or they'll be like Republicans, a passionate yet tiny and ignored rump.
We don't know for sure, but I doubt that most of the public is in the mood for being assailed by activists waxing lyrical about the joys of the European Union, nor will be for many years.
I think more and more people are going to believe in international solidarity and people being people as the years pass. Sure, baby boomers might see Greeks as profligate wastrels that don't deserve our money, but Millenials will see them as people in a bad economy needing a little support.
OK, if the Tories lose 50 seats next time then we can have a Labour PM. We don't even have to gain all of those seats.
That is doable.
Assuming Scotland is still in the union by then.
Boris won't allow a Sindy referendum. Why? Because most Scots don't want one, not yet.
If there is another SNP govt at Holyrood I reckon he will suggest a royal commission to investigate devomax (which was itself being discussed by Sturgeon). It will punt the next vote (which is coming) into the back end of the 2020s
Absolute and utter bollox , best stick to the male modelling. We will not wait , worst case scenario is majority in next Holyrood election and then out.
I would love to see him as Labour leader. It would keep Boris on his toes, bring forward practical policies that help the people Labour claims to care about (as opposed to, say, WASPI women).
Not Northern - but I'd like to see him in a senior position.
There are also poor working class people in the south being ignored by Labour, that's the next red wall that the Lib Dems could try and break through.
If you look at the class breakdown, it's notable how much the Lib Dems are a middle-class party whereas Labour and Tories have fairly similar support all the way through the class spectrum. The Lib Dems really do seem to be the party by and for urban socially-liberal graduate professionals. And to be fair that would be the group you'd expect to share more of their wokier values, but I wonder if that is really all they want to limit themselves to? If they do, they can be at best a minor coalition partner and act as a bit of check-and-balance in parliament. They do give the impression of a small group of people talking to themselves, and perhaps this gets them out of tune with how most people see things - see their candidate foot-in-mouth woes in Devon (and then again) and the way they seemed to think gender self-id would be a major national cut-through issue that could help propel Swinson to PM...
Perhaps they'll be a bit more realistic next time and actually campaign on tempering the Tories and Labour as opposed to trying to be the Government.
On the FPTP vs PR argument, I think there are clearly arguments for both. There are successful countries with PR (like Germany, Israel or Switzerland) and successful ones with FPTP (like the US or Australia). I don't think either is some panacea that brings good governance.
One problem with FPTP is that it can hide growing dissatisfaction with some part of the status quo. Opposition to the EU was growing, but never got the parliamentary representation it needed. And it became all too easy - in the pre-2016 era - for both main parties and the LDs to support the status quo.
I therefore wonder if isam's suggestion of a small PR contingent to add to the FPTP seats mightn't be a good one. So, you'd go with (say) 600 parliamentary seats elected by FPTP, and then you'd add 50 elected by PR. In this way, minority views like Euroscepticism would have gotten into parliament earlier. Now, these fifty "party listers" would have an easy life, with no constituency business, so I'd suggest not giving them an office budget, and maybe only a salary of (say) £25,000/year. But they'd be like regular MPs in other ways.
The Scottish top up system works reasonably well but I would put more emphasis on the Constituency element, ie not a full top up.
I would go with 600 + 50 (partly because we already have 600 seat boundaries set up, and also because it wouldn't change the mathematics of majorities meaningfully). I'd also use the FPTP elections as the source of the top up, to avoid the situation in Scotland where the SNP encourages its voters to go Green for the list vote. I'd also simply make the 50 proportional, so it wouldn't seek to compensate for some parties getting too few FPTP seats, it would simply be a case of one seat per 2% share gained. (Or more likely 1.91%)
If there is another recession in the next five years as seems plausible, the Government response will be very interesting. There will be no more "last Labour Government", the Tories will have been in power for well over 10 years.
I wonder if in some ways - and call me crazy - if that happens, whether Labour will be thankful that like in 1992, they came away relatively unscathed.
Recessions appear help governments in closely-following elections.
Just stunned by the proportional representation graphic on the previous thread. A party that was absolutely hammered under a FPTP system would have had under PR....9 more seats. If anyone had any doubt the extent to which the current boundaries favour Labour to an almost unbelievable extent surely that is the answer. If anyone has any doubt about how much steeper the hill Labour will have to climb in 2024 will be they should also reflect on that.
In contrast the Lib Dems would have 75 more seats giving them a somewhat larger pool to fish in.
Their challenge, as in the remainer Parliament of 2015-17, is going to be getting heard. For me, that means they need someone who is articulate, experienced and informed to make an impact on the odd occasion the media are willing to listen. Surely that can only be Ed Davey. His economic policies in the last election may not have won many votes against the fantasies being offered by both of the main parties but we are now returning, somewhat reluctantly, to the real world where what he says makes a lot of sense.
On the FPTP vs PR argument, I think there are clearly arguments for both. There are successful countries with PR (like Germany, Israel or Switzerland) and successful ones with FPTP (like the US or Australia). I don't think either is some panacea that brings good governance.
One problem with FPTP is that it can hide growing dissatisfaction with some part of the status quo. Opposition to the EU was growing, but never got the parliamentary representation it needed. And it became all too easy - in the pre-2016 era - for both main parties and the LDs to support the status quo.
I therefore wonder if isam's suggestion of a small PR contingent to add to the FPTP seats mightn't be a good one. So, you'd go with (say) 600 parliamentary seats elected by FPTP, and then you'd add 50 elected by PR. In this way, minority views like Euroscepticism would have gotten into parliament earlier. Now, these fifty "party listers" would have an easy life, with no constituency business, so I'd suggest not giving them an office budget, and maybe only a salary of (say) £25,000/year. But they'd be like regular MPs in other ways.
The Scottish top up system works reasonably well but I would put more emphasis on the Constituency element, ie not a full top up.
Why not just have a PR Lords? You then get all the benefits of small parties having input without needing constant coalitions in power, with smaller extremist parties having the whip hand on policy
You can say it is boring but pretty soon Rejoiners will be the plucky anti-establishment rebels.
Or they'll be like Republicans, a passionate yet tiny and ignored rump.
We don't know for sure, but I doubt that most of the public is in the mood for being assailed by activists waxing lyrical about the joys of the European Union, nor will be for many years.
I think more and more people are going to believe in international solidarity and people being people as the years pass. Sure, baby boomers might see Greeks as profligate wastrels that don't deserve our money, but Millenials will see them as people in a bad economy needing a little support.
Irrelevant what they think
Germany calls the shot in Greece not London 20 year olds
if you want a game, try to remember what caused all the other step changes. There's a small one before the expenses scandal - what other scandal happened in Spring 2009?
I'm clueless, and I've just been looking through the "2009 in the UK" page on wikipedia
The Liberal Democrats might keep motoring along quite nicely in local government, but that doesn't necessarily imply that they'll be in contention when Parliamentary votes roll around in the same places. Indeed, the whole notion of the South West as a Liberal powerbase may be behind us. Look at where their target seats are disproportionately concentrated: out of the top 20, 13 are in London and the commuter belt.
On the other hand, the LibDems were held back by Brexit (and in particular Bollocks to Brexit) in the South West. That won't be a millstone round their neck again.
Unless the go full-throated REJOIN of course. Now that would be daft. But think what their current crop of MPs are like, and what's propelled their rise in membership, there's a risk that being seen largely a single-issue-priority party attracts more people who feel passionately about the same.
And a second factor, perhaps related to their trend in membership but also the travails they had with Tim Farron as leader, is they see themselves as a "values" driven party and those values have very much converged on a particular socially liberal "woke" (don't like that word but think many would self-describe as it) perspective that's an easier sell in young urban seats with many graduates. If they don't want to be a small group of likeminded people talking to themselves they are going to have to accept that "diversity" can also mean diversity of worldviews within their electoral base and within their party. But such diversity can also be diluting, and purity can be far more comfortable. Would they be up for that?
You can say it is boring but pretty soon Rejoiners will be the plucky anti-establishment rebels.
Or they'll be like Republicans, a passionate yet tiny and ignored rump.
We don't know for sure, but I doubt that most of the public is in the mood for being assailed by activists waxing lyrical about the joys of the European Union, nor will be for many years.
I think more and more people are going to believe in international solidarity and people being people as the years pass. Sure, baby boomers might see Greeks as profligate wastrels that don't deserve our money, but Millenials will see them as people in a bad economy needing a little support.
Hath not a baby boomer hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Millennial is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh?
Leader: Keir Starmer SC: Stephen Kinnock HS: Dan Jarvis FS: Hilary Benn ES: Yvette Cooper Minister: Angela Rayner
Thoughts?
6 Remainers for a party which still has 104 Leave seats to lose.
Would love to hear your suggestions
regrettably I don't think Labour has any good choices and I say that as someone who thinks HMG needs a decent opposition.
Possibly Cooper as a safe pair of hands but in truth shes a bit robotic and could only be a stop gap. An electable Labour leader probably hasn't been elected yet.
Interesting challenge coming up for broadcasters. As Corbyn only has very small pool of mp's he trusted to go on the media, the likes of Owen Jones, Ash Sackar and Rachel Shabi were used as the voice of Labour spokespeople.
Any of them appearing on air again is a laughable concept. Who will they use?
I would love to see him as Labour leader. It would keep Boris on his toes, bring forward practical policies that help the people Labour claims to care about (as opposed to, say, WASPI women).
Not Northern - but I'd like to see him in a senior position.
There are also poor working class people in the south being ignored by Labour, that's the next red wall that the Lib Dems could try and break through.
If you look at the class breakdown, it's notable how much the Lib Dems are a middle-class party whereas Labour and Tories have fairly similar support all the way through the class spectrum. The Lib Dems really do seem to be the party by and for urban socially-liberal graduate professionals. And to be fair that would be the group you'd expect to share more of their wokier values, but I wonder if that is really all they want to limit themselves to? If they do, they can be at best a minor coalition partner and act as a bit of check-and-balance in parliament. They do give the impression of a small group of people talking to themselves, and perhaps this gets them out of tune with how most people see things - see their candidate foot-in-mouth woes in Devon (and then again) and the way they seemed to think gender self-id would be a major national cut-through issue that could help propel Swinson to PM...
Perhaps they'll be a bit more realistic next time and actually campaign on tempering the Tories and Labour as opposed to trying to be the Government.
Tried that with Cameron and that didn't turn out well. Blamed for everything that went wrong, or badly, not able to claim credit for anything. Although, as someone upthread said, Davey had an excellent record on climate change.
The Liberal Democrats might keep motoring along quite nicely in local government, but that doesn't necessarily imply that they'll be in contention when Parliamentary votes roll around in the same places. Indeed, the whole notion of the South West as a Liberal powerbase may be behind us. Look at where their target seats are disproportionately concentrated: out of the top 20, 13 are in London and the commuter belt.
On the other hand, the LibDems were held back by Brexit (and in particular Bollocks to Brexit) in the South West. That won't be a millstone round their neck again.
Unless the go full-throated REJOIN of course. Now that would be daft. But think what their current crop of MPs are like, and what's propelled their rise in membership, there's a risk that being seen largely a single-issue-priority party attracts more people who feel passionately about the same.
And a second factor, perhaps related to their trend in membership but also the travails they had with Tim Farron as leader, is they see themselves as a "values" driven party and those values have very much converged on a particular socially liberal "woke" (don't like that word but think many would self-describe as it) perspective that's an easier sell in young urban seats with many graduates. If they don't want to be a small group of likeminded people talking to themselves they are going to have to accept that "diversity" can also mean diversity of worldviews within their electoral base and within their party. But such diversity can also be diluting, and purity can be far more comfortable. Would they be up for that?
The events of Thursday mean that the opposition parties should really stop talking about remain/rejoin, for their own sake, for the foreseeable.
We need scrutiny of the governments negotiations with Europe but please god let’s stop talking about the original decision and whether it was right or not.
There may be room for a rejoin argument to be heard in due course, but that time is not now.
I would love to see him as Labour leader. It would keep Boris on his toes, bring forward practical policies that help the people Labour claims to care about (as opposed to, say, WASPI women).
Not Northern - but I'd like to see him in a senior position.
There are also poor working class people in the south being ignored by Labour, that's the next red wall that the Lib Dems could try and break through.
If you look at the class breakdown, it's notable how much the Lib Dems are a middle-class party whereas Labour and Tories have fairly similar support all the way through the class spectrum. The Lib Dems really do seem to be the party by and for urban socially-liberal graduate professionals. And to be fair that would be the group you'd expect to share more of their wokier values, but I wonder if that is really all they want to limit themselves to? If they do, they can be at best a minor coalition partner and act as a bit of check-and-balance in parliament. They do give the impression of a small group of people talking to themselves, and perhaps this gets them out of tune with how most people see things - see their candidate foot-in-mouth woes in Devon (and then again) and the way they seemed to think gender self-id would be a major national cut-through issue that could help propel Swinson to PM...
The party that thinks Richmond Park is its future, as one LD activist said on TV on election night, is not serious about being an opposition.
LDs on here got mightily upset when I questioned what it is for, but it's the truth.
My fantasy cabinet is based on the best talent Labour seem to have, which is a pretty low bar.
Who else to pop in, would like to hear thoughts
Told you. Wes Streeting. He spoke more sense in that interview on Sky News than Starmer has done for the last 4 years. Plus he is not a personality free zone like Starmer. Dan Jarvis is yesterday's man, and he's as boring as Starmer is. Benn, too much baggage - the man who tried to destroy Brexit, same for Kinnock, they're all Remainers. Angie Rayner, come on, at least try and be serious.
Nothing you or I say will make a difference anyway, because the membership will elect a Corbynista, and that person will have a cabinet that includes Burgon, Gardiner, Abbott, Butler, etc, etc, etc.
Leader: Keir Starmer SC: Stephen Kinnock HS: Dan Jarvis FS: Hilary Benn ES: Yvette Cooper Minister: Angela Rayner
Thoughts?
6 Remainers for a party which still has 104 Leave seats to lose.
Would love to hear your suggestions
regrettably I don't think Labour has any good choices and I say that as someone who thinks HMG needs a decent opposition.
Possibly Cooper as a safe pair of hands but in truth shes a bit robotic and could only be a stop gap. An electable Labour leader probably hasn't been elected yet.
Electability is a big ask. Let's start with people capable of asking intelligent questions or pointing out obvious flaws. Shouldn't be too difficult given the quality of some of the cabinet.
if you want a game, try to remember what caused all the other step changes. There's a small one before the expenses scandal - what other scandal happened in Spring 2009?
I'm clueless, and I've just been looking through the "2009 in the UK" page on wikipedia
Leader: Keir Starmer SC: Stephen Kinnock HS: Dan Jarvis FS: Hilary Benn ES: Yvette Cooper Minister: Angela Rayner
Thoughts?
Brownite tribute band. Nice little piece of fiction, but would Starmer get past the membership in reality? Probably not.
If the PLP fails to give itself a good talking to and present the members with a slate consisting entirely of plausible figures, then the next leader will be whichever individual is nominated by the most left-wing faction. If Labour is very lucky indeed then they might pick Rayner, but much more likely it's RLB, or if they're feeling really suicidal they might pick a dim-but-extreme option that most outside observers haven't yet considered. The next Labour leader could even be a Momentum and Unite-backed ingenue who first became an MP on Friday morning.
The mass membership will then endorse this person because they're angry and hurting and looking for whoever best plays to their prejudices. Their answer to the defeat of EdM was Corbyn; I doubt if their answer to the defeat of Corbyn will be a swing back towards the centre.
Comments
A lot of this is very emotional early reactions, after an epochal and bruising election, a proper kulturkampf
I experienced the same from the other side, I was deliriously happy, and relieved, and proud of my country for not being bribed. I was also quite keen to rub the noses of the Left in their squalid defeat, their good name smeared with racism...
But I am calming down now,
Give it a few weeks and if they are still like this, then yes, it's probably terminal.
He is lord of all he surveys like no one since Blair. Indeed as a proper Tory he's in a better position than Blair. He is untouchable for a few years now.
Can we get Wes into the cabinet?
Small # of data points but
2010 (recession 2008-09)
1992 (recession 1990-91)
1983 (recession 1980-81)
1974 bucks the trend somewhat but I think that's always a special case (2 elections etc)
and recessions of 1975, 1961 and 1956 are all 3-4 years ahead of the next election.
Not sure you can count to 2010 helping the Government of the day.
1992 Labour made big progress.
If after the next recession, if Labour does not make substantial progress they are doomed probably for good.
Moran is Swinson mark 2.
He recently lost his wife to brain cancer, his kids are motherless.
I feel very sorry for him, and that is clearly the source of his rage. I resile from my remarks.
Moderators, could we remove this whole conversation?
We don't know for sure, but I doubt that most of the public is in the mood for being assailed by activists waxing lyrical about the joys of the European Union, nor will be for many years.
But you then say 1992 Labour made big progress - so did the Tories in 2010!
How about:
"Recessions do not have the effect of killing governments that you might think they have"
One problem with FPTP is that it can hide growing dissatisfaction with some part of the status quo. Opposition to the EU was growing, but never got the parliamentary representation it needed. And it became all too easy - in the pre-2016 era - for both main parties and the LDs to support the status quo.
I therefore wonder if isam's suggestion of a small PR contingent to add to the FPTP seats mightn't be a good one. So, you'd go with (say) 600 parliamentary seats elected by FPTP, and then you'd add 50 elected by PR. In this way, minority views like Euroscepticism would have gotten into parliament earlier. Now, these fifty "party listers" would have an easy life, with no constituency business, so I'd suggest not giving them an office budget, and maybe only a salary of (say) £25,000/year. But they'd be like regular MPs in other ways.
Thatcher, Regan, Obama all re-elected with high unemployment numbers.
I meant Tim Fallon of course.
Would the Conservatives have won in 1983 if it hadn't been for the Falklands War? I don't know, but we can't remove it from history and try again. We also need to remember that the Conservative opposition was split in '83. Could we go back, make Dennis Healey leader of the Labour Party, prevent the SDP split, and see what happens...
Almost every country in the world* switched governments in the election that followed the GFC. That's a much larger dataset than two or three elections in the UK.
* Not Germany
Now I could be persuaded that its different for the two major parties, but not on the data that's out there.
Recessions do not have the effect on governments that people might think they do.
Yes, we know there are factors involved in the victory, but as the old sporting analogy goes, you can only beat what's in front of you. Boris has pulverised the Labour party and kicked the LDs back to their default position of irrelevance.
I think a lot of these Maomentum types forget that the working man in the North is strongly patriotic and of old Liz.
Leader: Keir Starmer
SC: Stephen Kinnock
HS: Dan Jarvis
FS: Hilary Benn
ES: Yvette Cooper
Minister: Angela Rayner
Thoughts?
This, with Friedland's excoriation of Corbyn and his ego, should be required reading for all Lab members.
May 2019 district council vote: Lib Dems 30 seats, Tories 6 seats, Others 4 seats
Dec 2019 general election: Con Maj 14,395
The Liberal Democrats might keep motoring along quite nicely in local government, but that doesn't necessarily imply that they'll be in contention when Parliamentary votes roll around in the same places. Indeed, the whole notion of the South West as a Liberal powerbase may be behind us. Look at where their target seats are disproportionately concentrated: out of the top 20, 13 are in London and the commuter belt.
It told us how Labour were crushing Lib Dems in Lab/LD seats, it told us about the remain seat/leave seat split, how well Labour were doing in University seats and that the Tories were knocking on the door in Labour seats outside their top 100 targets.
Who else to pop in, would like to hear thoughts
Germany calls the shot in Greece not London 20 year olds
And a second factor, perhaps related to their trend in membership but also the travails they had with Tim Farron as leader, is they see themselves as a "values" driven party and those values have very much converged on a particular socially liberal "woke" (don't like that word but think many would self-describe as it) perspective that's an easier sell in young urban seats with many graduates. If they don't want to be a small group of likeminded people talking to themselves they are going to have to accept that "diversity" can also mean diversity of worldviews within their electoral base and within their party. But such diversity can also be diluting, and purity can be far more comfortable. Would they be up for that?
Possibly Cooper as a safe pair of hands but in truth shes a bit robotic and could only be a stop gap. An electable Labour leader probably hasn't been elected yet.
Keir Starmer
Lisa Nandy
Dan Jarvis
Sarah Champion
Tan Dhesi
Wes Streeting
Ed Miliband
Margaret Beckett
Jess Phillips
Pat McFadden
Yvette Cooper
Any of them appearing on air again is a laughable concept. Who will they use?
We need scrutiny of the governments negotiations with Europe but please god let’s stop talking about the original decision and whether it was right or not.
There may be room for a rejoin argument to be heard in due course, but that time is not now.
LDs on here got mightily upset when I questioned what it is for, but it's the truth.
Nothing you or I say will make a difference anyway, because the membership will elect a Corbynista, and that person will have a cabinet that includes Burgon, Gardiner, Abbott, Butler, etc, etc, etc.
Labour are fucked CHB.
Starmer might just choose that lot - the next leader won't.
but does anyone know when the EHRC report into Antisemitism is actually due?
it's the best fit for timing.
They were talking about where now for UK Labour - who would lead them forward?
Some names were discussed and the anchor suggested Diane Abbott.
A pause and then loud laughter.
If the PLP fails to give itself a good talking to and present the members with a slate consisting entirely of plausible figures, then the next leader will be whichever individual is nominated by the most left-wing faction. If Labour is very lucky indeed then they might pick Rayner, but much more likely it's RLB, or if they're feeling really suicidal they might pick a dim-but-extreme option that most outside observers haven't yet considered. The next Labour leader could even be a Momentum and Unite-backed ingenue who first became an MP on Friday morning.
The mass membership will then endorse this person because they're angry and hurting and looking for whoever best plays to their prejudices. Their answer to the defeat of EdM was Corbyn; I doubt if their answer to the defeat of Corbyn will be a swing back towards the centre.