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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Labour: time to turn blue?

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  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    This is for LadyG & Charles -

    SONGS OF THE NON-BATTLE GROUND STATES - California

    ARE YOU GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO?
    John Edmund Andrew Phillips

    If you're going to San Francisco
    Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
    If you're going to San Francisco
    You're gonna meet some gentle people there

    For those who come to San Francisco
    Summertime will be a love-in there
    In the streets of San Francisco
    Gentle people with flowers in their hair

    All across the nation
    Such a strange vibration
    People in motion

    There's a whole generation
    With a new explanation
    People in motion

    For those who come to San Francisco
    Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
    If you come to San Francisco
    Summertime will be a love-in there
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,289
    kle4 said:

    After those thumping victories under FPTP? It'd take a lot more stubborn principal than most possess to change the voting system after that.
    And haven’t they paid for their hubris and lack of foresight?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,225

    The SDP soaked up a lot of centrist votes that would otherwise have gone to Thatcher.
    Yep. I was in the SDP at the time and even stood for them once in a local election. Had it been a straight choice between 1980’s Labour and Maggie she would have had another vote (for all the good that would have done her in Dundee West).
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 43,258
    LadyG said:

    Yes. A feature not a bug methinks. From Haight Ashbury to Altamont in a few short years
    Think that's right. A great "moment" in modern culture and music terms cannot last for more than a couple of years. And you're lucky if you get to be in the thick of even one of them. I haven't.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221

    Really doesn’t look that much fun, to be honest.
    lol. It was. But you had to be on E



  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    edited July 2020
    It would be interesting to do a PB poll on when it was best to be young in the UK, since the Second World War


    Musically, it's got to be the 60s or 70s. But few people in the 60s actually went to Festivals, and the economy soured. Likewise the 70s had Led Zep and then punk, but the country nearly went bust

    A better argument can be made, I reckon for

    The late 1980s: decent music, rising prosperity, house buying
    The mid- late 1990s: more prosperity, music not so good, a sense of peace, still house buying
    The noughties in general: shit music, but lots of jobs, rising education levels
    Not Now: no sex, Wokeness, anger, drill and Ed Sheeran
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,094
    Andy_JS said:

    They could have done anything between 1997 and 2005 with those massive majorities. Top of the list: they should have introduced proportional representation in my opinion.
    Blair would have never done anything without Murdoch's approval.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,531

    Late to the thread, but I broadly agree with the argument that "Starmer will only win when he can integrate enough Blue Labour thinking to help retake the Red Wall and middle England." Or at least defuse the issues that caused Red Wall and middle England voters to abandon Labour, if not necessarily to embrace them.

    Here's a poll from back in January 2013, when Miliband had not yet come out against a referendum on EU membership. Labour was 13% ahead and Leave split 36% Con to 34% Lab. Fast forward to July 2020, Labour is still 10% behind with YouGov and Leave splits 76% Con to 12% Lab.

    LIkewise, in Jan 2013 the C2DE vote was 51% Lab to 24% Con. Now it's 35% Lab to 50% Con.

    In Jan 2013 the 60+ vote was 37% Con to 34% Lab. Now the 65+ vote is 66% Con to 21% Lab.

    Leave voters, C2DEs, pensioners - these are the groups which have swung most markedly against Labour ever since the UK's place in the EU started to become a major issue that determined voting intention.

    Which groups neatly explain why County Durham has some Tory Mps.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,830
    IanB2 said:

    And haven’t they paid for their hubris and lack of foresight?
    Most do, I don't see that changing.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 61,255
    LadyG said:

    lol. It was. But you had to be on E



    No you didn't.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221

    I enjoyed a lot of (excellent) trance and dance music in the 1990s and 2000s without any need for illegal drugs.

    Sure. But they are just better with illegal drugs. Ecstasy enhances the enjoyment of wild pumping dance music, the way warm sunshine enhances a picnic
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,387
    IanB2 said:

    A critical point - and not just because of the comfort and suitability of the home environment for working.

    Older workers who shift toward home working already know their jobs and their business, and have relationships with their contacts and colleagues.

    For younger workers, being in an office environment after school or university or an early job switch is a significant learning curve, during which you acquire all of the above. Being given a laptop and working from your bedsit or flat isn’t the same at all.
    However, if the new grad gets a WFH job they don't need to rent a room in a share house. They can live at home and be pampered by their mum.

    My nephew has moved back in with his parents for the duration. However he is still paying rent in London. Which is a bit of a bugger.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,225
    I remember coming to London with my future wife about 1981-2. We went to see docklands ( she is very tolerant of my weird interests). Canary Tower was up and we got the elevator to the top. Around it nothing else of any size was completed but it was by far the biggest building site I have ever
    seen in my life. It was exhilarating. You had the impression of something new and incredibly different being born.
    We didn’t do any raves though.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 43,258

    There's always been people thrown on the scrapheap and others who have been selfish arseholes.

    But the 1980s were good for most people and most places - that everywhere outside of Southern England was one big soup kitchen seems to be a recurring fantasy of middle class leftists.

    Ironically one group of places which did struggle in the 1980s were middle class inner urban areas which went significantly downhill with consequences to the Conservative vote in cities.
    And yet the blighted lives and lack of opportunity in the post industrial towns and regions of the North was so profound even 30 years later that it drove Brexit.
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,094

    I enjoyed a lot of (excellent) trance and dance music in the 1990s and 2000s without any need for illegal drugs.

    What about legal drugs?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    CatMan said:

    What about legal drugs?
    Alcohol. :)
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    LadyG said:

    It would be interesting to do a PB poll on when it was best to be young in the UK, since the Second World War


    Musically, it's got to be the 60s or 70s. But few people in the 60s actually went to Festivals, and the economy soured. Likewise the 70s had Led Zep and then punk, but the country nearly went bust

    A better argument can be made, I reckon for

    The late 1980s: decent music, rising prosperity, house buying
    The mid- late 1990s: more prosperity, music not so good, a sense of peace, still house buying
    The noughties in general: shit music, but lots of jobs, rising education levels
    Not Now: no sex, Wokeness, anger, drill and Ed Sheeran

    BUT at least we've got Kanye West.

    Who BTW just paid $35k to get his name placed as candidate for President on the Oklahoma 2020 general election ballot.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    IanB2 said:

    And haven’t they paid for their hubris and lack of foresight?
    Only their hubris of thinking they'd abolished boom and bust. That's the one piece of hubris that made Labour unelectable.

    Labour aren't losing elections because of the electoral system. Labour are losing elections because they don't deserve to win elections according to the electorate . . .address that and the rest will follow.
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    kinabalu said:

    And yet the blighted lives and lack of opportunity in the post industrial towns and regions of the North was so profound even 30 years later that it drove Brexit.
    Deindustrialisation is hardly unique to the UK.

    The US has a rust belt, France and Belgium have their coal districts, Germany has East Germany.

    Any large, advanced industrialised nations will have a region in decline, because the industry left, for cheaper places with lower wages.

    Did Thatcher show unusual callousness? Maybe, but her reforms took the UK from being the sick man of Europe to, consistently, one of the fastest growing large economies
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    Brotes de coronavirus en España
    Situación de brotes activos e inactivos notificados por las comunidades autónomas y otros focos detectados
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 43,258

    Late to the thread, but I broadly agree with the argument that "Starmer will only win when he can integrate enough Blue Labour thinking to help retake the Red Wall and middle England." Or at least defuse the issues that caused Red Wall and middle England voters to abandon Labour, if not necessarily to embrace them.

    Here's a poll from back in January 2013, when Miliband had not yet come out against a referendum on EU membership. Labour was 13% ahead and Leave split 36% Con to 34% Lab. Fast forward to July 2020, Labour is still 10% behind with YouGov and Leave splits 76% Con to 12% Lab.

    LIkewise, in Jan 2013 the C2DE vote was 51% Lab to 24% Con. Now it's 35% Lab to 50% Con.

    In Jan 2013 the 60+ vote was 37% Con to 34% Lab. Now the 65+ vote is 66% Con to 21% Lab.

    Leave voters, C2DEs, pensioners - these are the groups which have swung most markedly against Labour ever since the UK's place in the EU started to become a major issue that determined voting intention.

    Our main challenge is getting a decent chunk of the "closer to grave than cradle" vote. We're doing brilliant with the others. Better than ever. But the oldsters cannot abide us.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    NEW THRED
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,544
    NEW THREAD (Sadly for me!)
  • LadyGLadyG Posts: 2,221
    DavidL said:

    I remember coming to London with my future wife about 1981-2. We went to see docklands ( she is very tolerant of my weird interests). Canary Tower was up and we got the elevator to the top. Around it nothing else of any size was completed but it was by far the biggest building site I have ever
    seen in my life. It was exhilarating. You had the impression of something new and incredibly different being born.
    We didn’t do any raves though.

    Early Docklands was something else.

    They made a city out of nothing, It was utter wasteland. Now:

    https://www.luxurylifestylemag.co.uk/travel/canary-wharf-what-to-do-eat-and-drink-and-where-to-stay-in-londons-bustling-business-district/

    it's like Singapore.

    This is why I pray that London survives the virus. Yes it gets too much money and too much attention. It is annoying. It's inhabitants vex and kvetch. Fuck bloody London.

    And yet, in my lifetime, amazing regeneration has been done here, and, more to the point, this has generated enormous sums of money for the whole country
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    kinabalu said:

    And yet the blighted lives and lack of opportunity in the post industrial towns and regions of the North was so profound even 30 years later that it drove Brexit.
    Its a bit simplistic and ignorant to put Brexit down to a lack of opportunity in towns.

    The cultural thinking here in the North is different to elsewhere and its arrogant to think that Northerners are only different because we're worse off.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 29,481

    If he violates the constitution does he not become impeachable?
    Hasn't worked so far.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 43,258

    The SDP soaked up a lot of centrist votes that would otherwise have gone to Thatcher.
    Yes that's a fair assumption - especially vs Foot. But surely the net impact was bigger Con majority. Still, every right to stand. I don't consider them traitors or anything.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,925
    kinabalu said:

    And yet the blighted lives and lack of opportunity in the post industrial towns and regions of the North was so profound even 30 years later that it drove Brexit.
    You'll never understand because you don't want to understand.

    Brexit was a reaction to the previous decade not the 1980s.

    It was the effects of Blair and Brown not Thatcher.
This discussion has been closed.