Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
My browser for some reason recommened an article from a website I'd never heard of before, which had a rather peculiar premise about 'How Corbyn unmasked comedy'.
It seems to be saying tha anti-establishmentism is the key to comedy, and because some famous comedians and comedy programmes disliked Corbyn or did such things as 'blamed Corbyn for Johnson’s victory without taking responsibility for helping Johnson establish his harmless clown persona', that means they were on the same side as 'the establisment'. It calls out Charlie Brooker for a bit on the Corbyn-Branson row which apparently included far more time attacking Corbyn than Branson and didn't consider corporate interests (that Corbyn was indeed wrong about what he claimed I guess is not of relevance).
Blaming Corbyn for losing an election? Perish the thought. Apparently comedians are are supposed to be political radicals at all times. It's silly of political conservatives to moan that there's too much left wing comedy out there, without Corbynites also now suggesting the comedy establishment is not doing its job because they mocked the great man. (Ed M didn't get it easy either of course).
Onthe other hand, the article itself was therefore of great comedic value.
As we are seeing with the laughable conspiracies around the 'Labour Report' one of the key problems with Corbynism is that it has no safety valve of self-doubt or ability to admit its own failings, as it is predicated on the man and his supporters being uniquely virtuous. Otherwise, what is the point? If you admit nuance and the validity of different views as reasonably held and having their merits within Labour's tradition, why put forward someone the public hate, who even he would admit isn't exactly a natural in the role of leader? Why put up with the ossuary he hangs his clothes in or evidence of managerial incompetence? It only makes sense if he and you have hit upon something uniquely virtuous and everyone else is a nefarious Blairite/Tory acting out of venality and malice.
So comedians must be to blame, not Corbyn. Or Jews. Or Labour officials. Or Laura Kuenssberg, Countdown hosts, anyone who doesn't see the unique virtues of the man or his words must be a bad actor. It's a cultish creed Labour need to stamp out and quarantine itself from as it's just so dangerous - not initially as they have power over very little and are reduced to attacking minor celebrities - but as it rots the brain and would cause huge problems were it to be over something serious where errors had been made it was impossible to reasonably course correct without blaming some conspiracy.
Thank you for this entertaining mix of projection and amateur psychiatry. Now here is what actually happened and why -
In 2015 in a climate favourable to re-election the party suppressed its radicalism - in both content and messaging - for fear of being rogered by the tory press and (linked) of spooking the denizens of Middle England.
Result - a Conservative majority government. Reaction - Fuck it then. Let's stop poncing around. Let's drop the timidity. It's sterile and it's getting us nowhere in any case. We'll shift left. Elect a properly socialist leader and run on a radical platform. No apologies for it. Give the voters the choice and see what happens.
What did happen? - Another loss but close and a better performance than achieved under the previous 2 leaders. And this despite Jeremy Corbyn being a sub-optimal PM candidate on a personal level (deficiency of brain power).
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Labour didn't lose the 2015 election, particularly in England. They actually had a net gain IN ENGLAND of 4 seats. It was the collapse of the LD's, significantly, but by no means exclusively to the Tories, that put Cameron back in No 10, albeit with a small overall majority than the Coalition had had. It was the rise in the SNP vote that did for Labour. Milliband should have stayed as leader.
One of the other things we shouldn't forget is how hated Labour were in 2010. Gordon Brown achieved a lower share of the vote than any previous Prime Minister, and that includes John Major in 1997. Without the anomalous result in Scotland, Labour could have been pinned on about 220 seats. The other factor that saved them was how far behind the Tories were - from 2005 they had four fewer seats than Corbyn won.
With hindsight, getting back into power at the first opportunity was always going to be very hard indeed. It was the polls and their herding that suggested otherwise.
The amazing achievement of Jeremy Corbyn is that after ten years of total chaos he's got Labour back to roughly where they started. If only they had, in the words of the Corbynista in 2015, compromised their principles to vote for Yvette Cooper rather than believing it was all lost and throwing the incremental progress of Miliband away on a total loon with the intellect of a stuffed donkey and a track record that would have made Jeffrey Archer blush.
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
You are basically saying "Starmer needs to be a clone of Blair. Popular Blair - before he went bat-shit crazy and found spurious grounds to invade Iran with his neocon chums".
It may be what the voters want from Labour. It's just a million miles from what Labour wants from Labour.
I thought Whitmer was an obvious choice in the early days of this saga: governor experience of a key marginal State in the area of the country that is surely once again going to decide the election (unless it is not close at all). But she is the wrong colour. Could Biden really afford to disappoint his black supporters now? I think not. Its Harris or Rice, probably Harris although Rice would be better.
If he wants to pick a black female US representative Val Demings would be better than Harris or Rice as like Whitmer but unlike them she is from a key swing state, Florida
The evidence of VPs swinging their home states isn't great, maybe LBJ and Texas is the standout. What I think is more important for Sleepy Joe is having someone who is obviously capable of being a stand in or doing the heavy lifting for him. He is a weak candidate and one of the reasons for that is he may already be senile. It makes his number 2 unusually important. For me, Rice ticks those boxes better than the others.
I don't think there is any doubt that Biden is already senile.
The extent and how it may increase are the unknows.
PB is blessed, a soft fruit specialist and a geriatrician! Are the two areas of expertise connected?
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
You are basically saying "Starmer needs to be a clone of Blair. Popular Blair - before he went bat-shit crazy and found spurious grounds to invade Iran with his neocon chums".
It may be what the voters want from Labour. It's just a million miles from what Labour wants from Labour.
Well, if he's a clone of Blair with his snake oil charm, hypocrisy and totalitarian instincts he won't get my vote.
But it should be noted Tony Blair's policy offering won three elections including two majorities of over 160. Only two other party leaders since 1928 even come close to matching that record - Baldwin and Thatcher.
It should be further noted that a lot of Cameron's policy platform was borrowed from Blair, either by direct adoption or via the Liberal Democrats. And look what happened to May when she tried to ditch it.
So we can argue about Blair's flaws as a human being, but anyone who doesn't think his record on policy demands close attention hasn't been paying attention.
We should try making an organisation of close geographical states with common interests.
We could call it the European Union
This will be the downfall of PP despite her having all the qualities that Johnson looks for in occupants of the great offices of state: slavish loyalty and an ability to pretend Brexit is a good idea.
I have no idea what she thinks the RN are going to do. They certainly don't have any powers that Border Farce don't already have and, while they have the right of non-vexatious passage through French territorial waters, they certainly don't have the right to drop loads of scrandies off on the beach at Grande-Synthe.
Did you hear the rear admiral bloviating on R4 this morning? He was very gung ho about the RN getting involved, specifically mentioning their talent for 'innovative solutions'.
I thought Whitmer was an obvious choice in the early days of this saga: governor experience of a key marginal State in the area of the country that is surely once again going to decide the election (unless it is not close at all). But she is the wrong colour. Could Biden really afford to disappoint his black supporters now? I think not. Its Harris or Rice, probably Harris although Rice would be better.
If he wants to pick a black female US representative Val Demings would be better than Harris or Rice as like Whitmer but unlike them she is from a key swing state, Florida
The evidence of VPs swinging their home states isn't great, maybe LBJ and Texas is the standout. What I think is more important for Sleepy Joe is having someone who is obviously capable of being a stand in or doing the heavy lifting for him. He is a weak candidate and one of the reasons for that is he may already be senile. It makes his number 2 unusually important. For me, Rice ticks those boxes better than the others.
I don't think there is any doubt that Biden is already senile.
The extent and how it may increase are the unknows.
PB is blessed, a soft fruit specialist and a geriatrician! Are the two areas of expertise connected?
My browser for some reason recommened an article from a website I'd never heard of before, which had a rather peculiar premise about 'How Corbyn unmasked comedy'.
It seems to be saying tha anti-establishmentism is the key to comedy, and because some famous comedians and comedy programmes disliked Corbyn or did such things as 'blamed Corbyn for Johnson’s victory without taking responsibility for helping Johnson establish his harmless clown persona', that means they were on the same side as 'the establisment'. It calls out Charlie Brooker for a bit on the Corbyn-Branson row which apparently included far more time attacking Corbyn than Branson and didn't consider corporate interests (that Corbyn was indeed wrong about what he claimed I guess is not of relevance).
Blaming Corbyn for losing an election? Perish the thought. Apparently comedians are are supposed to be political radicals at all times. It's silly of political conservatives to moan that there's too much left wing comedy out there, without Corbynites also now suggesting the comedy establishment is not doing its job because they mocked the great man. (Ed M didn't get it easy either of course).
Onthe other hand, the article itself was therefore of great comedic value.
As we are seeing with the laughable conspiracies around the 'Labour Report' one of the key problems with Corbynism is that it has no safety valve of self-doubt or ability to admit its own failings, as it is predicated on the man and his supporters being uniquely virtuous. Otherwise, what is the point? If you admit nuance and the validity of different views as reasonably held and having their merits within Labour's tradition, why put forward someone the public hate, who even he would admit isn't exactly a natural in the role of leader? Why put up with the ossuary he hangs his clothes in or evidence of managerial incompetence? It only makes sense if he and you have hit upon something uniquely virtuous and everyone else is a nefarious Blairite/Tory acting out of venality and malice.
So comedians must be to blame, not Corbyn. Or Jews. Or Labour officials. Or Laura Kuenssberg, Countdown hosts, anyone who doesn't see the unique virtues of the man or his words must be a bad actor. It's a cultish creed Labour need to stamp out and quarantine itself from as it's just so dangerous - not initially as they have power over very little and are reduced to attacking minor celebrities - but as it rots the brain and would cause huge problems were it to be over something serious where errors had been made it was impossible to reasonably course correct without blaming some conspiracy.
Thank you for this entertaining mix of projection and amateur psychiatry. Now here is what actually happened and why -
In 2015 in a climate favourable to re-election the party suppressed its radicalism - in both content and messaging - for fear of being rogered by the tory press and (linked) of spooking the denizens of Middle England.
Result - a Conservative majority government. Reaction - Fuck it then. Let's stop poncing around. Let's drop the timidity. It's sterile and it's getting us nowhere in any case. We'll shift left. Elect a properly socialist leader and run on a radical platform. No apologies for it. Give the voters the choice and see what happens.
What did happen? - Another loss but close and a better performance than achieved under the previous 2 leaders. And this despite Jeremy Corbyn being a sub-optimal PM candidate on a personal level (deficiency of brain power).
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Labour didn't lose the 2015 election, particularly in England. They actually had a net gain IN ENGLAND of 4 seats. It was the collapse of the LD's, significantly, but by no means exclusively to the Tories, that put Cameron back in No 10, albeit with a small overall majority than the Coalition had had. It was the rise in the SNP vote that did for Labour. Milliband should have stayed as leader.
We should try making an organisation of close geographical states with common interests.
We could call it the European Union
This will be the downfall of PP despite her having all the qualities that Johnson looks for in occupants of the great offices of state: slavish loyalty and an ability to pretend Brexit is a good idea.
I have no idea what she thinks the RN are going to do. They certainly don't have any powers that Border Farce don't already have and, while they have the right of non-vexatious passage through French territorial waters, they certainly don't have the right to drop loads of scrandies off on the beach at Grande-Synthe.
Did you hear the rear admiral bloviating on R4 this morning? He was very gung ho about the RN getting involved, specifically mentioning their talent for 'innovative solutions'.
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
You are basically saying "Starmer needs to be a clone of Blair. Popular Blair - before he went bat-shit crazy and found spurious grounds to invade Iran with his neocon chums".
It may be what the voters want from Labour. It's just a million miles from what Labour wants from Labour.
Well, if he's a clone of Blair with his snake oil charm, hypocrisy and totalitarian instincts he won't get my vote.
But it should be noted Tony Blair's policy offering won three elections including two majorities of over 160. Only two other party leaders since 1928 even come close to matching that record - Baldwin and Thatcher.
It should be further noted that a lot of Cameron's policy platform was borrowed from Blair, either by direct adoption or via the Liberal Democrats. And look what happened to May when she tried to ditch it.
So we can argue about Blair's flaws as a human being, but anyone who doesn't think his record on policy demands close attention hasn't been paying attention.
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
You are basically saying "Starmer needs to be a clone of Blair. Popular Blair - before he went bat-shit crazy and found spurious grounds to invade Iran with his neocon chums".
It may be what the voters want from Labour. It's just a million miles from what Labour wants from Labour.
Well, if he's a clone of Blair with his snake oil charm, hypocrisy and totalitarian instincts he won't get my vote.
But it should be noted Tony Blair's policy offering won three elections including two majorities of over 160. Only two other party leaders since 1928 even come close to matching that record - Baldwin and Thatcher.
It should be further noted that a lot of Cameron's policy platform was borrowed from Blair, either by direct adoption or via the Liberal Democrats. And look what happened to May when she tried to ditch it.
So we can argue about Blair's flaws as a human being, but anyone who doesn't think his record on policy demands close attention hasn't been paying attention.
Labour activists haven't been paying attention.
"Ooooh! Look - Socialist squirrel!"
They haven't paid attention, and the cost is irrelevance and the disdain of the voters.
My browser for some reason recommened an article from a website I'd never heard of before, which had a rather peculiar premise about 'How Corbyn unmasked comedy'.
It seems to be saying tha anti-establishmentism is the key to comedy, and because some famous comedians and comedy programmes disliked Corbyn or did such things as 'blamed Corbyn for Johnson’s victory without taking responsibility for helping Johnson establish his harmless clown persona', that means they were on the same side as 'the establisment'. It calls out Charlie Brooker for a bit on the Corbyn-Branson row which apparently included far more time attacking Corbyn than Branson and didn't consider corporate interests (that Corbyn was indeed wrong about what he claimed I guess is not of relevance).
Blaming Corbyn for losing an election? Perish the thought. Apparently comedians are are supposed to be political radicals at all times. It's silly of political conservatives to moan that there's too much left wing comedy out there, without Corbynites also now suggesting the comedy establishment is not doing its job because they mocked the great man. (Ed M didn't get it easy either of course).
Onthe other hand, the article itself was therefore of great comedic value.
As we are seeing with the laughable conspiracies around the 'Labour Report' one of the key problems with Corbynism is that it has no safety valve of self-doubt or ability to admit its own failings, as it is predicated on the man and his supporters being uniquely virtuous. Otherwise, what is the point? If you admit nuance and the validity of different views as reasonably held and having their merits within Labour's tradition, why put forward someone the public hate, who even he would admit isn't exactly a natural in the role of leader? Why put up with the ossuary he hangs his clothes in or evidence of managerial incompetence? It only makes sense if he and you have hit upon something uniquely virtuous and everyone else is a nefarious Blairite/Tory acting out of venality and malice.
So comedians must be to blame, not Corbyn. Or Jews. Or Labour officials. Or Laura Kuenssberg, Countdown hosts, anyone who doesn't see the unique virtues of the man or his words must be a bad actor. It's a cultish creed Labour need to stamp out and quarantine itself from as it's just so dangerous - not initially as they have power over very little and are reduced to attacking minor celebrities - but as it rots the brain and would cause huge problems were it to be over something serious where errors had been made it was impossible to reasonably course correct without blaming some conspiracy.
Thank you for this entertaining mix of projection and amateur psychiatry. Now here is what actually happened and why -
In 2015 in a climate favourable to re-election the party suppressed its radicalism - in both content and messaging - for fear of being rogered by the tory press and (linked) of spooking the denizens of Middle England.
Result - a Conservative majority government. Reaction - Fuck it then. Let's stop poncing around. Let's drop the timidity. It's sterile and it's getting us nowhere in any case. We'll shift left. Elect a properly socialist leader and run on a radical platform. No apologies for it. Give the voters the choice and see what happens.
What did happen? - Another loss but close and a better performance than achieved under the previous 2 leaders. And this despite Jeremy Corbyn being a sub-optimal PM candidate on a personal level (deficiency of brain power).
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Labour didn't lose the 2015 election, particularly in England. They actually had a net gain IN ENGLAND of 4 seats. It was the collapse of the LD's, significantly, but by no means exclusively to the Tories, that put Cameron back in No 10, albeit with a small overall majority than the Coalition had had. It was the rise in the SNP vote that did for Labour. Milliband should have stayed as leader.
One of the other things we shouldn't forget is how hated Labour were in 2010. Gordon Brown achieved a lower share of the vote than any previous Prime Minister, and that includes John Major in 1997. Without the anomalous result in Scotland, Labour could have been pinned on about 220 seats. The other factor that saved them was how far behind the Tories were - from 2005 they had four fewer seats than Corbyn won.
With hindsight, getting back into power at the first opportunity was always going to be very hard indeed. It was the polls and their herding that suggested otherwise.
The amazing achievement of Jeremy Corbyn is that after ten years of total chaos he's got Labour back to roughly where they started. If only they had, in the words of the Corbynista in 2015, compromised their principles to vote for Yvette Cooper rather than believing it was all lost and throwing the incremental progress of Miliband away on a total loon with the intellect of a stuffed donkey and a track record that would have made Jeffrey Archer blush.
Not only was Brown 'hated', although I think that might be too strong a term, but his Government had, certainly recently, been unstable. People leaving. Those of the far left castigate the LibDems under Clegg for going into Coalition with the Tories; the fact was that, like Heath in 1974, whoever had or had not 'won; the 2010 election, Brown had lost it. In more than one sense pf the term!
I thought Whitmer was an obvious choice in the early days of this saga: governor experience of a key marginal State in the area of the country that is surely once again going to decide the election (unless it is not close at all). But she is the wrong colour. Could Biden really afford to disappoint his black supporters now? I think not. Its Harris or Rice, probably Harris although Rice would be better.
If he wants to pick a black female US representative Val Demings would be better than Harris or Rice as like Whitmer but unlike them she is from a key swing state, Florida
The evidence of VPs swinging their home states isn't great, maybe LBJ and Texas is the standout. What I think is more important for Sleepy Joe is having someone who is obviously capable of being a stand in or doing the heavy lifting for him. He is a weak candidate and one of the reasons for that is he may already be senile. It makes his number 2 unusually important. For me, Rice ticks those boxes better than the others.
I don't think there is any doubt that Biden is already senile.
The extent and how it may increase are the unknows.
He is a typical 77 year old.
The typical 77 year old has been in retirement for over a decade.
Yes. It's not ideal. But I wouldn't on the evidence go with "senile" or "has dementia". This is loose and overly derogatory.
Such talk was a regular feature throughout the primary campaign.
It seems only to have become 'wrong' once Biden became the candidate.
We should try making an organisation of close geographical states with common interests.
We could call it the European Union
This will be the downfall of PP despite her having all the qualities that Johnson looks for in occupants of the great offices of state: slavish loyalty and an ability to pretend Brexit is a good idea.
I have no idea what she thinks the RN are going to do. They certainly don't have any powers that Border Farce don't already have and, while they have the right of non-vexatious passage through French territorial waters, they certainly don't have the right to drop loads of scrandies off on the beach at Grande-Synthe.
Did you hear the rear admiral bloviating on R4 this morning? He was very gung ho about the RN getting involved, specifically mentioning their talent for 'innovative solutions'.
If they had the stomach for it I suppose they could do an Australia style turn back operation. Load up the "informal immigrants" into lifeboats with about 25n.m. worth of fuel and tow them west just outside the French contiguous zone until the nearest and only reachable land is France. They'd probably have to go as far west as Brest for this to work. Wish them bon chance and cut them loose.
My browser for some reason recommened an article from a website I'd never heard of before, which had a rather peculiar premise about 'How Corbyn unmasked comedy'.
It seems to be saying tha anti-establishmentism is the key to comedy, and because some famous comedians and comedy programmes disliked Corbyn or did such things as 'blamed Corbyn for Johnson’s victory without taking responsibility for helping Johnson establish his harmless clown persona', that means they were on the same side as 'the establisment'. It calls out Charlie Brooker for a bit on the Corbyn-Branson row which apparently included far more time attacking Corbyn than Branson and didn't consider corporate interests (that Corbyn was indeed wrong about what he claimed I guess is not of relevance).
Blaming Corbyn for losing an election? Perish the thought. Apparently comedians are are supposed to be political radicals at all times. It's silly of political conservatives to moan that there's too much left wing comedy out there, without Corbynites also now suggesting the comedy establishment is not doing its job because they mocked the great man. (Ed M didn't get it easy either of course).
Onthe other hand, the article itself was therefore of great comedic value.
As we are seeing with the laughable conspiracies around the 'Labour Report' one of the key problems with Corbynism is that it has no safety valve of self-doubt or ability to admit its own failings, as it is predicated on the man and his supporters being uniquely virtuous. Otherwise, what is the point? If you admit nuance and the validity of different views as reasonably held and having their merits within Labour's tradition, why put forward someone the public hate, who even he would admit isn't exactly a natural in the role of leader? Why put up with the ossuary he hangs his clothes in or evidence of managerial incompetence? It only makes sense if he and you have hit upon something uniquely virtuous and everyone else is a nefarious Blairite/Tory acting out of venality and malice.
So comedians must be to blame, not Corbyn. Or Jews. Or Labour officials. Or Laura Kuenssberg, Countdown hosts, anyone who doesn't see the unique virtues of the man or his words must be a bad actor. It's a cultish creed Labour need to stamp out and quarantine itself from as it's just so dangerous - not initially as they have power over very little and are reduced to attacking minor celebrities - but as it rots the brain and would cause huge problems were it to be over something serious where errors had been made it was impossible to reasonably course correct without blaming some conspiracy.
Thank you for this entertaining mix of projection and amateur psychiatry. Now here is what actually happened and why -
In 2015 in a climate favourable to re-election the party suppressed its radicalism - in both content and messaging - for fear of being rogered by the tory press and (linked) of spooking the denizens of Middle England.
Result - a Conservative majority government. Reaction - Fuck it then. Let's stop poncing around. Let's drop the timidity. It's sterile and it's getting us nowhere in any case. We'll shift left. Elect a properly socialist leader and run on a radical platform. No apologies for it. Give the voters the choice and see what happens.
What did happen? - Another loss but close and a better performance than achieved under the previous 2 leaders. And this despite Jeremy Corbyn being a sub-optimal PM candidate on a personal level (deficiency of brain power).
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Labour didn't lose the 2015 election, particularly in England. They actually had a net gain IN ENGLAND of 4 seats. It was the collapse of the LD's, significantly, but by no means exclusively to the Tories, that put Cameron back in No 10, albeit with a small overall majority than the Coalition had had. It was the rise in the SNP vote that did for Labour. Milliband should have stayed as leader.
So they lost the election, except in England?
LOL!!! Certainly in Scotland! That was the key. The Tories had already lost much of Scotland, so what happened there didn't matter much to them. Electorally speaking.
My browser for some reason recommened an article from a website I'd never heard of before, which had a rather peculiar premise about 'How Corbyn unmasked comedy'.
It seems to be saying tha anti-establishmentism is the key to comedy, and because some famous comedians and comedy programmes disliked Corbyn or did such things as 'blamed Corbyn for Johnson’s victory without taking responsibility for helping Johnson establish his harmless clown persona', that means they were on the same side as 'the establisment'. It calls out Charlie Brooker for a bit on the Corbyn-Branson row which apparently included far more time attacking Corbyn than Branson and didn't consider corporate interests (that Corbyn was indeed wrong about what he claimed I guess is not of relevance).
Blaming Corbyn for losing an election? Perish the thought. Apparently comedians are are supposed to be political radicals at all times. It's silly of political conservatives to moan that there's too much left wing comedy out there, without Corbynites also now suggesting the comedy establishment is not doing its job because they mocked the great man. (Ed M didn't get it easy either of course).
Onthe other hand, the article itself was therefore of great comedic value.
As we are seeing with the laughable conspiracies around the 'Labour Report' one of the key problems with Corbynism is that it has no safety valve of self-doubt or ability to admit its own failings, as it is predicated on the man and his supporters being uniquely virtuous. Otherwise, what is the point? If you admit nuance and the validity of different views as reasonably held and having their merits within Labour's tradition, why put forward someone the public hate, who even he would admit isn't exactly a natural in the role of leader? Why put up with the ossuary he hangs his clothes in or evidence of managerial incompetence? It only makes sense if he and you have hit upon something uniquely virtuous and everyone else is a nefarious Blairite/Tory acting out of venality and malice.
So comedians must be to blame, not Corbyn. Or Jews. Or Labour officials. Or Laura Kuenssberg, Countdown hosts, anyone who doesn't see the unique virtues of the man or his words must be a bad actor. It's a cultish creed Labour need to stamp out and quarantine itself from as it's just so dangerous - not initially as they have power over very little and are reduced to attacking minor celebrities - but as it rots the brain and would cause huge problems were it to be over something serious where errors had been made it was impossible to reasonably course correct without blaming some conspiracy.
Thank you for this entertaining mix of projection and amateur psychiatry. Now here is what actually happened and why -
In 2015 in a climate favourable to re-election the party suppressed its radicalism - in both content and messaging - for fear of being rogered by the tory press and (linked) of spooking the denizens of Middle England.
Result - a Conservative majority government. Reaction - Fuck it then. Let's stop poncing around. Let's drop the timidity. It's sterile and it's getting us nowhere in any case. We'll shift left. Elect a properly socialist leader and run on a radical platform. No apologies for it. Give the voters the choice and see what happens.
What did happen? - Another loss but close and a better performance than achieved under the previous 2 leaders. And this despite Jeremy Corbyn being a sub-optimal PM candidate on a personal level (deficiency of brain power).
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Labour didn't lose the 2015 election, particularly in England. They actually had a net gain IN ENGLAND of 4 seats. It was the collapse of the LD's, significantly, but by no means exclusively to the Tories, that put Cameron back in No 10, albeit with a small overall majority than the Coalition had had. It was the rise in the SNP vote that did for Labour. Milliband should have stayed as leader.
So they lost the election, except in England?
Its more accurate to say
Everyone lost to the SNP but Labour and the Tories destroyed the Lib Dems resulting in a (tiny) Tory majority
My browser for some reason recommened an article from a website I'd never heard of before, which had a rather peculiar premise about 'How Corbyn unmasked comedy'.
It seems to be saying tha anti-establishmentism is the key to comedy, and because some famous comedians and comedy programmes disliked Corbyn or did such things as 'blamed Corbyn for Johnson’s victory without taking responsibility for helping Johnson establish his harmless clown persona', that means they were on the same side as 'the establisment'. It calls out Charlie Brooker for a bit on the Corbyn-Branson row which apparently included far more time attacking Corbyn than Branson and didn't consider corporate interests (that Corbyn was indeed wrong about what he claimed I guess is not of relevance).
Blaming Corbyn for losing an election? Perish the thought. Apparently comedians are are supposed to be political radicals at all times. It's silly of political conservatives to moan that there's too much left wing comedy out there, without Corbynites also now suggesting the comedy establishment is not doing its job because they mocked the great man. (Ed M didn't get it easy either of course).
Onthe other hand, the article itself was therefore of great comedic value.
As we are seeing with the laughable conspiracies around the 'Labour Report' one of the key problems with Corbynism is that it has no safety valve of self-doubt or ability to admit its own failings, as it is predicated on the man and his supporters being uniquely virtuous. Otherwise, what is the point? If you admit nuance and the validity of different views as reasonably held and having their merits within Labour's tradition, why put forward someone the public hate, who even he would admit isn't exactly a natural in the role of leader? Why put up with the ossuary he hangs his clothes in or evidence of managerial incompetence? It only makes sense if he and you have hit upon something uniquely virtuous and everyone else is a nefarious Blairite/Tory acting out of venality and malice.
So comedians must be to blame, not Corbyn. Or Jews. Or Labour officials. Or Laura Kuenssberg, Countdown hosts, anyone who doesn't see the unique virtues of the man or his words must be a bad actor. It's a cultish creed Labour need to stamp out and quarantine itself from as it's just so dangerous - not initially as they have power over very little and are reduced to attacking minor celebrities - but as it rots the brain and would cause huge problems were it to be over something serious where errors had been made it was impossible to reasonably course correct without blaming some conspiracy.
Thank you for this entertaining mix of projection and amateur psychiatry. Now here is what actually happened and why -
In 2015 in a climate favourable to re-election the party suppressed its radicalism - in both content and messaging - for fear of being rogered by the tory press and (linked) of spooking the denizens of Middle England.
Result - a Conservative majority government. Reaction - Fuck it then. Let's stop poncing around. Let's drop the timidity. It's sterile and it's getting us nowhere in any case. We'll shift left. Elect a properly socialist leader and run on a radical platform. No apologies for it. Give the voters the choice and see what happens.
What did happen? - Another loss but close and a better performance than achieved under the previous 2 leaders. And this despite Jeremy Corbyn being a sub-optimal PM candidate on a personal level (deficiency of brain power).
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Labour didn't lose the 2015 election, particularly in England. They actually had a net gain IN ENGLAND of 4 seats. It was the collapse of the LD's, significantly, but by no means exclusively to the Tories, that put Cameron back in No 10, albeit with a small overall majority than the Coalition had had. It was the rise in the SNP vote that did for Labour. Milliband should have stayed as leader.
One of the other things we shouldn't forget is how hated Labour were in 2010. Gordon Brown achieved a lower share of the vote than any previous Prime Minister, and that includes John Major in 1997. Without the anomalous result in Scotland, Labour could have been pinned on about 220 seats. The other factor that saved them was how far behind the Tories were - from 2005 they had four fewer seats than Corbyn won.
With hindsight, getting back into power at the first opportunity was always going to be very hard indeed. It was the polls and their herding that suggested otherwise.
The amazing achievement of Jeremy Corbyn is that after ten years of total chaos he's got Labour back to roughly where they started. If only they had, in the words of the Corbynista in 2015, compromised their principles to vote for Yvette Cooper rather than believing it was all lost and throwing the incremental progress of Miliband away on a total loon with the intellect of a stuffed donkey and a track record that would have made Jeffrey Archer blush.
Not only was Brown 'hated', although I think that might be too strong a term, but his Government had, certainly recently, been unstable. People leaving. Those of the far left castigate the LibDems under Clegg for going into Coalition with the Tories; the fact was that, like Heath in 1974, whoever had or had not 'won; the 2010 election, Brown had lost it. In more than one sense pf the term!
It's worth remembering that Jack Cunningham said in light of the infamous 1992 exit poll that any party that lost a big majority should resign at once, even if they remained the largest party, because they would have lost the confidence of the country.
He looked stupid for his confident prediction later, but then, he was stupid.
However, on this constitutional point he was right and Gus O'Donnell was wrong. Brown should have resigned. Baldwin in 1929 was ample precedent on its own, but Gladstone in 1886 was a further one. In fairness, it wasn't Brown's fault that he was badly advised, but he should have rejected that advice.
The irony is that had Brown resigned, as he should have done, Cameron would never have been able to sell a coalition to his supporters.
The further irony is that when Labour thought the Tories were going to be short of a majority again in 2015 it was they who were trying to claim that a PM without a majority should quit...
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
According to polling directly after the election, almost nobody voted Labour because they thought they had no chance of winning - in my experience, people don't feel they have enough insight into the national scene to take that sort of gamble. I think Corbyn did well in 2017 simply because he struck many voters as sincere and a fresh breeze while May seemed tired and very much ancien regime. By 2019, Corbyn's freshness had worn off and the anti-semitism allegations had taken a toll too, while Johnson displayed the fresh, breezy optimism that most voters really like.
On the whole I believe the reports suggesting that many long-serving party officials were at best working to rule under Corbyn - they didn't like the turn the party had taken, but it was their job so they grumpily worked through it. I doubt if there was much active sabotage but I can well believe the nasty emails and WhatsApp chat. It's a pity, and I think Corbyn's comments are perfectly understandable, but we have to move on.
We should try making an organisation of close geographical states with common interests.
We could call it the European Union
This will be the downfall of PP despite her having all the qualities that Johnson looks for in occupants of the great offices of state: slavish loyalty and an ability to pretend Brexit is a good idea.
I have no idea what she thinks the RN are going to do. They certainly don't have any powers that Border Farce don't already have and, while they have the right of non-vexatious passage through French territorial waters, they certainly don't have the right to drop loads of scrandies off on the beach at Grande-Synthe.
Did you hear the rear admiral bloviating on R4 this morning? He was very gung ho about the RN getting involved, specifically mentioning their talent for 'innovative solutions'.
If they had the stomach for it I suppose they could do an Australia style turn back operation. Load up the "informal immigrants" into lifeboats with about 25n.m. worth of fuel and tow them west just outside the French contiguous zone until the nearest and only reachable land is France. They'd probably have to go as far west as Brest for this to work. Wish them bon chance and cut them loose.
Would be more amusing to tow them north-east and send them to Merkel.
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
You are basically saying "Starmer needs to be a clone of Blair. Popular Blair - before he went bat-shit crazy and found spurious grounds to invade Iran with his neocon chums".
It may be what the voters want from Labour. It's just a million miles from what Labour wants from Labour.
Well, if he's a clone of Blair with his snake oil charm, hypocrisy and totalitarian instincts he won't get my vote.
But it should be noted Tony Blair's policy offering won three elections including two majorities of over 160. Only two other party leaders since 1928 even come close to matching that record - Baldwin and Thatcher.
It should be further noted that a lot of Cameron's policy platform was borrowed from Blair, either by direct adoption or via the Liberal Democrats. And look what happened to May when she tried to ditch it.
So we can argue about Blair's flaws as a human being, but anyone who doesn't think his record on policy demands close attention hasn't been paying attention.
Labour activists haven't been paying attention.
"Ooooh! Look - Socialist squirrel!"
They haven't paid attention, and the cost is irrelevance and the disdain of the voters.
On the whole I believe the reports suggesting that many long-serving party officials were at best working to rule under Corbyn - they didn't like the turn the party had taken, but it was their job so they grumpily worked through it. I doubt if there was much active sabotage but I can well believe the nasty emails and WhatsApp chat. It's a pity, and I think Corbyn's comments are perfectly understandable, but we have to move on.
So - when the Labour organisation is a bit shit, and trying to undermine the leader, they nearly win?
And when the organisation is fully united behind the leader and focussed on winning, they collapse?
I'm seeing a solution here - we need Labour to fight a full-on civil war...
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
You are basically saying "Starmer needs to be a clone of Blair. Popular Blair - before he went bat-shit crazy and found spurious grounds to invade Iran with his neocon chums".
It may be what the voters want from Labour. It's just a million miles from what Labour wants from Labour.
Well, if he's a clone of Blair with his snake oil charm, hypocrisy and totalitarian instincts he won't get my vote.
But it should be noted Tony Blair's policy offering won three elections including two majorities of over 160. Only two other party leaders since 1928 even come close to matching that record - Baldwin and Thatcher.
It should be further noted that a lot of Cameron's policy platform was borrowed from Blair, either by direct adoption or via the Liberal Democrats. And look what happened to May when she tried to ditch it.
So we can argue about Blair's flaws as a human being, but anyone who doesn't think his record on policy demands close attention hasn't been paying attention.
Labour activists haven't been paying attention.
"Ooooh! Look - Socialist squirrel!"
They haven't paid attention, and the cost is irrelevance and the disdain of the voters.
So what's the LibDems' excuse?
I think it will do for them as well.
Particularly, over the extension to tuition fees. That nearly cost Blair his premiership when he brought them in after the 2001 election having said he wouldn't...
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
You are basically saying "Starmer needs to be a clone of Blair. Popular Blair - before he went bat-shit crazy and found spurious grounds to invade Iran with his neocon chums".
It may be what the voters want from Labour. It's just a million miles from what Labour wants from Labour.
Well, if he's a clone of Blair with his snake oil charm, hypocrisy and totalitarian instincts he won't get my vote.
But it should be noted Tony Blair's policy offering won three elections including two majorities of over 160. Only two other party leaders since 1928 even come close to matching that record - Baldwin and Thatcher.
It should be further noted that a lot of Cameron's policy platform was borrowed from Blair, either by direct adoption or via the Liberal Democrats. And look what happened to May when she tried to ditch it.
So we can argue about Blair's flaws as a human being, but anyone who doesn't think his record on policy demands close attention hasn't been paying attention.
Labour activists haven't been paying attention.
"Ooooh! Look - Socialist squirrel!"
They haven't paid attention, and the cost is irrelevance and the disdain of the voters.
My browser for some reason recommened an article from a website I'd never heard of before, which had a rather peculiar premise about 'How Corbyn unmasked comedy'.
It seems to be saying tha anti-establishmentism is the key to comedy, and because some famous comedians and comedy programmes disliked Corbyn or did such things as 'blamed Corbyn for Johnson’s victory without taking responsibility for helping Johnson establish his harmless clown persona', that means they were on the same side as 'the establisment'. It calls out Charlie Brooker for a bit on the Corbyn-Branson row which apparently included far more time attacking Corbyn than Branson and didn't consider corporate interests (that Corbyn was indeed wrong about what he claimed I guess is not of relevance).
Blaming Corbyn for losing an election? Perish the thought. Apparently comedians are are supposed to be political radicals at all times. It's silly of political conservatives to moan that there's too much left wing comedy out there, without Corbynites also now suggesting the comedy establishment is not doing its job because they mocked the great man. (Ed M didn't get it easy either of course).
Onthe other hand, the article itself was therefore of great comedic value.
As we are seeing with the laughable conspiracies around the 'Labour Report' one of the key problems with Corbynism is that it has no safety valve of self-doubt or ability to admit its own failings, as it is predicated on the man and his supporters being uniquely virtuous. Otherwise, what is the point? If you admit nuance and the validity of different views as reasonably held and having their merits within Labour's tradition, why put forward someone the public hate, who even he would admit isn't exactly a natural in the role of leader? Why put up with the ossuary he hangs his clothes in or evidence of managerial incompetence? It only makes sense if he and you have hit upon something uniquely virtuous and everyone else is a nefarious Blairite/Tory acting out of venality and malice.
So comedians must be to blame, not Corbyn. Or Jews. Or Labour officials. Or Laura Kuenssberg, Countdown hosts, anyone who doesn't see the unique virtues of the man or his words must be a bad actor. It's a cultish creed Labour need to stamp out and quarantine itself from as it's just so dangerous - not initially as they have power over very little and are reduced to attacking minor celebrities - but as it rots the brain and would cause huge problems were it to be over something serious where errors had been made it was impossible to reasonably course correct without blaming some conspiracy.
Thank you for this entertaining mix of projection and amateur psychiatry. Now here is what actually happened and why -
In 2015 in a climate favourable to re-election the party suppressed its radicalism - in both content and messaging - for fear of being rogered by the tory press and (linked) of spooking the denizens of Middle England.
Result - a Conservative majority government. Reaction - Fuck it then. Let's stop poncing around. Let's drop the timidity. It's sterile and it's getting us nowhere in any case. We'll shift left. Elect a properly socialist leader and run on a radical platform. No apologies for it. Give the voters the choice and see what happens.
What did happen? - Another loss but close and a better performance than achieved under the previous 2 leaders. And this despite Jeremy Corbyn being a sub-optimal PM candidate on a personal level (deficiency of brain power).
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Labour didn't lose the 2015 election, particularly in England. They actually had a net gain IN ENGLAND of 4 seats. It was the collapse of the LD's, significantly, but by no means exclusively to the Tories, that put Cameron back in No 10, albeit with a small overall majority than the Coalition had had. It was the rise in the SNP vote that did for Labour. Milliband should have stayed as leader.
One of the other things we shouldn't forget is how hated Labour were in 2010. Gordon Brown achieved a lower share of the vote than any previous Prime Minister, and that includes John Major in 1997. Without the anomalous result in Scotland, Labour could have been pinned on about 220 seats. The other factor that saved them was how far behind the Tories were - from 2005 they had four fewer seats than Corbyn won.
With hindsight, getting back into power at the first opportunity was always going to be very hard indeed. It was the polls and their herding that suggested otherwise.
The amazing achievement of Jeremy Corbyn is that after ten years of total chaos he's got Labour back to roughly where they started. If only they had, in the words of the Corbynista in 2015, compromised their principles to vote for Yvette Cooper rather than believing it was all lost and throwing the incremental progress of Miliband away on a total loon with the intellect of a stuffed donkey and a track record that would have made Jeffrey Archer blush.
But he did manage 41% across GB in 2017 - well above the 36% polled by Blair in 2005.It is also a bit of a myth that Corbyn did so well at that election because people perceived him to have zero chance of being elected. That was true for a month following May's election announcement , but the final two weeks saw quite a few polls pointing to the serious possibility of a Hung Parliament. The suggestion only made sense if voters chose to believe the polls showing the biggest Tory leads.
My browser for some reason recommened an article from a website I'd never heard of before, which had a rather peculiar premise about 'How Corbyn unmasked comedy'.
It seems to be saying tha anti-establishmentism is the key to comedy, and because some famous comedians and comedy programmes disliked Corbyn or did such things as 'blamed Corbyn for Johnson’s victory without taking responsibility for helping Johnson establish his harmless clown persona', that means they were on the same side as 'the establisment'. It calls out Charlie Brooker for a bit on the Corbyn-Branson row which apparently included far more time attacking Corbyn than Branson and didn't consider corporate interests (that Corbyn was indeed wrong about what he claimed I guess is not of relevance).
Blaming Corbyn for losing an election? Perish the thought. Apparently comedians are are supposed to be political radicals at all times. It's silly of political conservatives to moan that there's too much left wing comedy out there, without Corbynites also now suggesting the comedy establishment is not doing its job because they mocked the great man. (Ed M didn't get it easy either of course).
Onthe other hand, the article itself was therefore of great comedic value.
As we are seeing with the laughable conspiracies around the 'Labour Report' one of the key problems with Corbynism is that it has no safety valve of self-doubt or ability to admit its own failings, as it is predicated on the man and his supporters being uniquely virtuous. Otherwise, what is the point? If you admit nuance and the validity of different views as reasonably held and having their merits within Labour's tradition, why put forward someone the public hate, who even he would admit isn't exactly a natural in the role of leader? Why put up with the ossuary he hangs his clothes in or evidence of managerial incompetence? It only makes sense if he and you have hit upon something uniquely virtuous and everyone else is a nefarious Blairite/Tory acting out of venality and malice.
So comedians must be to blame, not Corbyn. Or Jews. Or Labour officials. Or Laura Kuenssberg, Countdown hosts, anyone who doesn't see the unique virtues of the man or his words must be a bad actor. It's a cultish creed Labour need to stamp out and quarantine itself from as it's just so dangerous - not initially as they have power over very little and are reduced to attacking minor celebrities - but as it rots the brain and would cause huge problems were it to be over something serious where errors had been made it was impossible to reasonably course correct without blaming some conspiracy.
Thank you for this entertaining mix of projection and amateur psychiatry. Now here is what actually happened and why -
In 2015 in a climate favourable to re-election the party suppressed its radicalism - in both content and messaging - for fear of being rogered by the tory press and (linked) of spooking the denizens of Middle England.
Result - a Conservative majority government. Reaction - Fuck it then. Let's stop poncing around. Let's drop the timidity. It's sterile and it's getting us nowhere in any case. We'll shift left. Elect a properly socialist leader and run on a radical platform. No apologies for it. Give the voters the choice and see what happens.
What did happen? - Another loss but close and a better performance than achieved under the previous 2 leaders. And this despite Jeremy Corbyn being a sub-optimal PM candidate on a personal level (deficiency of brain power).
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Labour didn't lose the 2015 election, particularly in England. They actually had a net gain IN ENGLAND of 4 seats. It was the collapse of the LD's, significantly, but by no means exclusively to the Tories, that put Cameron back in No 10, albeit with a small overall majority than the Coalition had had. It was the rise in the SNP vote that did for Labour. Milliband should have stayed as leader.
One of the other things we shouldn't forget is how hated Labour were in 2010. Gordon Brown achieved a lower share of the vote than any previous Prime Minister, and that includes John Major in 1997. Without the anomalous result in Scotland, Labour could have been pinned on about 220 seats. The other factor that saved them was how far behind the Tories were - from 2005 they had four fewer seats than Corbyn won.
With hindsight, getting back into power at the first opportunity was always going to be very hard indeed. It was the polls and their herding that suggested otherwise.
The amazing achievement of Jeremy Corbyn is that after ten years of total chaos he's got Labour back to roughly where they started. If only they had, in the words of the Corbynista in 2015, compromised their principles to vote for Yvette Cooper rather than believing it was all lost and throwing the incremental progress of Miliband away on a total loon with the intellect of a stuffed donkey and a track record that would have made Jeffrey Archer blush.
But he did manage 41% across GB in 2017 - well above the 36% polled by Blair in 2005.It is also a bit of a myth that Corbyn did so well at that election because people perceived him to have zero chance of being elected. That was true for a month following May's election announcement , but the final two weeks saw quite a few polls pointing to the serious possibility of a Hung Parliament. The suggestion only made sense if voters chose to believe the polls showing the biggest Tory leads.
Which most of them (including Labour themselves) did.
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
The 2017 Labour manifesto was quite different to 2019 but I agree with the rest of your post.
We should try making an organisation of close geographical states with common interests.
We could call it the European Union
This will be the downfall of PP despite her having all the qualities that Johnson looks for in occupants of the great offices of state: slavish loyalty and an ability to pretend Brexit is a good idea.
I have no idea what she thinks the RN are going to do. They certainly don't have any powers that Border Farce don't already have and, while they have the right of non-vexatious passage through French territorial waters, they certainly don't have the right to drop loads of scrandies off on the beach at Grande-Synthe.
Did you hear the rear admiral bloviating on R4 this morning? He was very gung ho about the RN getting involved, specifically mentioning their talent for 'innovative solutions'.
If they had the stomach for it I suppose they could do an Australia style turn back operation. Load up the "informal immigrants" into lifeboats with about 25n.m. worth of fuel and tow them west just outside the French contiguous zone until the nearest and only reachable land is France. They'd probably have to go as far west as Brest for this to work. Wish them bon chance and cut them loose.
Would be more amusing to tow them north-east and send them to Merkel.
The idea that you can see an amusing angle to this speaks volumes frankly.
My browser for some reason recommened an article from a website I'd never heard of before, which had a rather peculiar premise about 'How Corbyn unmasked comedy'.
It seems to be saying tha anti-establishmentism is the key to comedy, and because some famous comedians and comedy programmes disliked Corbyn or did such things as 'blamed Corbyn for Johnson’s victory without taking responsibility for helping Johnson establish his harmless clown persona', that means they were on the same side as 'the establisment'. It calls out Charlie Brooker for a bit on the Corbyn-Branson row which apparently included far more time attacking Corbyn than Branson and didn't consider corporate interests (that Corbyn was indeed wrong about what he claimed I guess is not of relevance).
Blaming Corbyn for losing an election? Perish the thought. Apparently comedians are are supposed to be political radicals at all times. It's silly of political conservatives to moan that there's too much left wing comedy out there, without Corbynites also now suggesting the comedy establishment is not doing its job because they mocked the great man. (Ed M didn't get it easy either of course).
Onthe other hand, the article itself was therefore of great comedic value.
As we are seeing with the laughable conspiracies around the 'Labour Report' one of the key problems with Corbynism is that it has no safety valve of self-doubt or ability to admit its own failings, as it is predicated on the man and his supporters being uniquely virtuous. Otherwise, what is the point? If you admit nuance and the validity of different views as reasonably held and having their merits within Labour's tradition, why put forward someone the public hate, who even he would admit isn't exactly a natural in the role of leader? Why put up with the ossuary he hangs his clothes in or evidence of managerial incompetence? It only makes sense if he and you have hit upon something uniquely virtuous and everyone else is a nefarious Blairite/Tory acting out of venality and malice.
So comedians must be to blame, not Corbyn. Or Jews. Or Labour officials. Or Laura Kuenssberg, Countdown hosts, anyone who doesn't see the unique virtues of the man or his words must be a bad actor. It's a cultish creed Labour need to stamp out and quarantine itself from as it's just so dangerous - not initially as they have power over very little and are reduced to attacking minor celebrities - but as it rots the brain and would cause huge problems were it to be over something serious where errors had been made it was impossible to reasonably course correct without blaming some conspiracy.
Thank you for this entertaining mix of projection and amateur psychiatry. Now here is what actually happened and why -
In 2015 in a climate favourable to re-election the party suppressed its radicalism - in both content and messaging - for fear of being rogered by the tory press and (linked) of spooking the denizens of Middle England.
Result - a Conservative majority government. Reaction - Fuck it then. Let's stop poncing around. Let's drop the timidity. It's sterile and it's getting us nowhere in any case. We'll shift left. Elect a properly socialist leader and run on a radical platform. No apologies for it. Give the voters the choice and see what happens.
What did happen? - Another loss but close and a better performance than achieved under the previous 2 leaders. And this despite Jeremy Corbyn being a sub-optimal PM candidate on a personal level (deficiency of brain power).
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Labour didn't lose the 2015 election, particularly in England. They actually had a net gain IN ENGLAND of 4 seats. It was the collapse of the LD's, significantly, but by no means exclusively to the Tories, that put Cameron back in No 10, albeit with a small overall majority than the Coalition had had. It was the rise in the SNP vote that did for Labour. Milliband should have stayed as leader.
One of the other things we shouldn't forget is how hated Labour were in 2010. Gordon Brown achieved a lower share of the vote than any previous Prime Minister, and that includes John Major in 1997. Without the anomalous result in Scotland, Labour could have been pinned on about 220 seats. The other factor that saved them was how far behind the Tories were - from 2005 they had four fewer seats than Corbyn won.
With hindsight, getting back into power at the first opportunity was always going to be very hard indeed. It was the polls and their herding that suggested otherwise.
The amazing achievement of Jeremy Corbyn is that after ten years of total chaos he's got Labour back to roughly where they started. If only they had, in the words of the Corbynista in 2015, compromised their principles to vote for Yvette Cooper rather than believing it was all lost and throwing the incremental progress of Miliband away on a total loon with the intellect of a stuffed donkey and a track record that would have made Jeffrey Archer blush.
But he did manage 41% across GB in 2017 - well above the 36% polled by Blair in 2005.It is also a bit of a myth that Corbyn did so well at that election because people perceived him to have zero chance of being elected. That was true for a month following May's election announcement , but the final two weeks saw quite a few polls pointing to the serious possibility of a Hung Parliament. The suggestion only made sense if voters chose to believe the polls showing the biggest Tory leads.
Which most of them (including Labour themselves) did.
They failed to take account of the extent to which certain pollsters - ICM comes to mind - had overcorrected for the 2015 polling debacle.Beyond that, several of us did point out that in the context of the strong evidence of a Tory surge in Scotland, Tory leads of 5% or less across GB implied the loss of quite a few seats in England & Wales.
Labour needs to figure out what a winning base looks like in 2024, not 1997, not 2015, not 2017 and not 2019.
I am going to take a wild guess and suggest it looks a lot different to what Labour has done to win before and if you look at where Starmer is spending his time, it seems that he agrees with me.
My view remains that a route to Labour victory is not entirely rebuilding the red wall (although that would be helpful), it's identifying seats that have been swinging towards Labour and taking those.
In effect doing a reverse Tory - and I don't know how successful that kind of approach will be but frankly an improvement on 2019 will be an achievement.
As I've said before, if you look at the seats Labour lost it's extraordinary how many were lost on tiny margins, despite Corbyn and Brexit. And many of those were seats that voted to Leave.
The next challenge is the Lib Dems, who need to start taking some of the 100 target seats they're second in - which should be easier if voters there aren't terrified about putting Starmer into No 10. In seats like my parents in Hampshire with a massive Tory majority, it was reduced due to Lib Dem voting of which I have never seen from people I would have expected to be full on Tory. Clearly Corbyn was too much of a fear for them - but maybe not Starmer, who so far I get told "seems alright, bit bland". Quite a contrast to "he's going to take all my property and sell us to Russia".
So in summary, new seats + some old seats + Lib Dem performance would be a route to making progress.
We should try making an organisation of close geographical states with common interests.
We could call it the European Union
This will be the downfall of PP despite her having all the qualities that Johnson looks for in occupants of the great offices of state: slavish loyalty and an ability to pretend Brexit is a good idea.
I have no idea what she thinks the RN are going to do. They certainly don't have any powers that Border Farce don't already have and, while they have the right of non-vexatious passage through French territorial waters, they certainly don't have the right to drop loads of scrandies off on the beach at Grande-Synthe.
Did you hear the rear admiral bloviating on R4 this morning? He was very gung ho about the RN getting involved, specifically mentioning their talent for 'innovative solutions'.
If they had the stomach for it I suppose they could do an Australia style turn back operation. Load up the "informal immigrants" into lifeboats with about 25n.m. worth of fuel and tow them west just outside the French contiguous zone until the nearest and only reachable land is France. They'd probably have to go as far west as Brest for this to work. Wish them bon chance and cut them loose.
Not a chance, would probably not have enough lifeboats.
Labour needs to figure out what a winning base looks like in 2024, not 1997, not 2015, not 2017 and not 2019.
I am going to take a wild guess and suggest it looks a lot different to what Labour has done to win before and if you look at where Starmer is spending his time, it seems that he agrees with me.
My view remains that a route to Labour victory is not entirely rebuilding the red wall (although that would be helpful), it's identifying seats that have been swinging towards Labour and taking those.
In effect doing a reverse Tory - and I don't know how successful that kind of approach will be but frankly an improvement on 2019 will be an achievement.
As I've said before, if you look at the seats Labour lost it's extraordinary how many were lost on tiny margins, despite Corbyn and Brexit. And many of those were seats that voted to Leave.
The next challenge is the Lib Dems, who need to start taking some of the 100 target seats they're second in - which should be easier if voters there aren't terrified about putting Starmer into No 10. In seats like my parents in Hampshire with a massive Tory majority, it was reduced due to Lib Dem voting of which I have never seen from people I would have expected to be full on Tory. Clearly Corbyn was too much of a fear for them - but maybe not Starmer, who so far I get told "seems alright, bit bland". Quite a contrast to "he's going to take all my property and sell us to Russia".
So in summary, new seats + some old seats + Lib Dem performance would be a route to making progress.
The LibDems are unlikely to retain second place in some of those seats. In 2024 I would expect Labour to recover to be the main challengers in places such as Finchley & Golders Green and Cities of London & Westminster.
If Tories in Scotland continue to implode a better Labour leader in Scotland might do better, Blair suggested Labour was pro-Union and even if only for English advantage, that seems sensible to me.
We should try making an organisation of close geographical states with common interests.
We could call it the European Union
This will be the downfall of PP despite her having all the qualities that Johnson looks for in occupants of the great offices of state: slavish loyalty and an ability to pretend Brexit is a good idea.
I have no idea what she thinks the RN are going to do. They certainly don't have any powers that Border Farce don't already have and, while they have the right of non-vexatious passage through French territorial waters, they certainly don't have the right to drop loads of scrandies off on the beach at Grande-Synthe.
Did you hear the rear admiral bloviating on R4 this morning? He was very gung ho about the RN getting involved, specifically mentioning their talent for 'innovative solutions'.
If they had the stomach for it I suppose they could do an Australia style turn back operation. Load up the "informal immigrants" into lifeboats with about 25n.m. worth of fuel and tow them west just outside the French contiguous zone until the nearest and only reachable land is France. They'd probably have to go as far west as Brest for this to work. Wish them bon chance and cut them loose.
Would be more amusing to tow them north-east and send them to Merkel.
The idea that you can see an amusing angle to this speaks volumes frankly.
Well it speaks volumes to your pomposity about a joke response to something which isn't going to happen.
Still you could always offer to house some asylum seekers if you're so concerned about the issue.
Labour needs to figure out what a winning base looks like in 2024, not 1997, not 2015, not 2017 and not 2019.
I am going to take a wild guess and suggest it looks a lot different to what Labour has done to win before and if you look at where Starmer is spending his time, it seems that he agrees with me.
My view remains that a route to Labour victory is not entirely rebuilding the red wall (although that would be helpful), it's identifying seats that have been swinging towards Labour and taking those.
In effect doing a reverse Tory - and I don't know how successful that kind of approach will be but frankly an improvement on 2019 will be an achievement.
As I've said before, if you look at the seats Labour lost it's extraordinary how many were lost on tiny margins, despite Corbyn and Brexit. And many of those were seats that voted to Leave.
The next challenge is the Lib Dems, who need to start taking some of the 100 target seats they're second in - which should be easier if voters there aren't terrified about putting Starmer into No 10. In seats like my parents in Hampshire with a massive Tory majority, it was reduced due to Lib Dem voting of which I have never seen from people I would have expected to be full on Tory. Clearly Corbyn was too much of a fear for them - but maybe not Starmer, who so far I get told "seems alright, bit bland". Quite a contrast to "he's going to take all my property and sell us to Russia".
So in summary, new seats + some old seats + Lib Dem performance would be a route to making progress.
The LibDems are unlikely to retain second place in some of those seats. In 2024 I would expect Labour to recover to be the main challengers in places such as Finchley & Golders Green and Cities of London & Westminster.
Well they need to work that out. They have a decent chance of unseating IDS next time and the Lib Dems have a decent chance of unseating Raab. Pointless fighting will just lead to a 2019 result again.
If it were me I'd stop campaigning in seats Labour won't win but the Lib Dems might, an unofficial alliance if you will, something like Ashdown and Blair.
I think Starmer + Davey might come to some kind of arrangement. Moran would be a disaster.
Labour needs to figure out what a winning base looks like in 2024, not 1997, not 2015, not 2017 and not 2019.
I am going to take a wild guess and suggest it looks a lot different to what Labour has done to win before and if you look at where Starmer is spending his time, it seems that he agrees with me.
My view remains that a route to Labour victory is not entirely rebuilding the red wall (although that would be helpful), it's identifying seats that have been swinging towards Labour and taking those.
In effect doing a reverse Tory - and I don't know how successful that kind of approach will be but frankly an improvement on 2019 will be an achievement.
As I've said before, if you look at the seats Labour lost it's extraordinary how many were lost on tiny margins, despite Corbyn and Brexit. And many of those were seats that voted to Leave.
The next challenge is the Lib Dems, who need to start taking some of the 100 target seats they're second in - which should be easier if voters there aren't terrified about putting Starmer into No 10. In seats like my parents in Hampshire with a massive Tory majority, it was reduced due to Lib Dem voting of which I have never seen from people I would have expected to be full on Tory. Clearly Corbyn was too much of a fear for them - but maybe not Starmer, who so far I get told "seems alright, bit bland". Quite a contrast to "he's going to take all my property and sell us to Russia".
So in summary, new seats + some old seats + Lib Dem performance would be a route to making progress.
Why do you think there was an extraordinary number of Labour losses on tiny margins ?
Labour needs to figure out what a winning base looks like in 2024, not 1997, not 2015, not 2017 and not 2019.
I am going to take a wild guess and suggest it looks a lot different to what Labour has done to win before and if you look at where Starmer is spending his time, it seems that he agrees with me.
My view remains that a route to Labour victory is not entirely rebuilding the red wall (although that would be helpful), it's identifying seats that have been swinging towards Labour and taking those.
In effect doing a reverse Tory - and I don't know how successful that kind of approach will be but frankly an improvement on 2019 will be an achievement.
As I've said before, if you look at the seats Labour lost it's extraordinary how many were lost on tiny margins, despite Corbyn and Brexit. And many of those were seats that voted to Leave.
The next challenge is the Lib Dems, who need to start taking some of the 100 target seats they're second in - which should be easier if voters there aren't terrified about putting Starmer into No 10. In seats like my parents in Hampshire with a massive Tory majority, it was reduced due to Lib Dem voting of which I have never seen from people I would have expected to be full on Tory. Clearly Corbyn was too much of a fear for them - but maybe not Starmer, who so far I get told "seems alright, bit bland". Quite a contrast to "he's going to take all my property and sell us to Russia".
So in summary, new seats + some old seats + Lib Dem performance would be a route to making progress.
The LibDems are unlikely to retain second place in some of those seats. In 2024 I would expect Labour to recover to be the main challengers in places such as Finchley & Golders Green and Cities of London & Westminster.
Well they need to work that out. They have a decent chance of unseating IDS next time and the Lib Dems have a decent chance of unseating Raab. Pointless fighting will just lead to a 2019 result again.
If it were me I'd stop campaigning in seats Labour won't win but the Lib Dems might, an unofficial alliance if you will, something like Ashdown and Blair.
I think Starmer + Davey might come to some kind of arrangement. Moran would be a disaster.
There are also former LibDem seats in which Labour could hope to progress significantly - Southport and Carshalton & Wallington being examples.
I thought Whitmer was an obvious choice in the early days of this saga: governor experience of a key marginal State in the area of the country that is surely once again going to decide the election (unless it is not close at all). But she is the wrong colour. Could Biden really afford to disappoint his black supporters now? I think not. Its Harris or Rice, probably Harris although Rice would be better.
If he wants to pick a black female US representative Val Demings would be better than Harris or Rice as like Whitmer but unlike them she is from a key swing state, Florida
The evidence of VPs swinging their home states isn't great, maybe LBJ and Texas is the standout. What I think is more important for Sleepy Joe is having someone who is obviously capable of being a stand in or doing the heavy lifting for him. He is a weak candidate and one of the reasons for that is he may already be senile. It makes his number 2 unusually important. For me, Rice ticks those boxes better than the others.
I don't think there is any doubt that Biden is already senile.
The extent and how it may increase are the unknows.
He is a typical 77 year old.
The typical 77 year old has been in retirement for over a decade.
Yes. It's not ideal. But I wouldn't on the evidence go with "senile" or "has dementia". This is loose and overly derogatory.
Such talk was a regular feature throughout the primary campaign.
It seems only to have become 'wrong' once Biden became the candidate.
Anybody who thinks that Biden (known for his gaffes and being a lifelong stutterer) is senile should remember that either he or Trump will be President after the election and then watch this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG-njDHXZuw From Fox News FFS.
How much of Bet365s £1.4bn profits come from the UK? AIUI most comes from grey markets in Asia. If thats how much they are making you would have thought Stoke could afford to buy their way back into the Prem.
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
You are basically saying "Starmer needs to be a clone of Blair. Popular Blair - before he went bat-shit crazy and found spurious grounds to invade Iran with his neocon chums".
It may be what the voters want from Labour. It's just a million miles from what Labour wants from Labour.
Shit I missed the invasion of Iran. However the Iraq invasion was going to happen by US troops whatever Blair did. The question was did Britain support Bush and our greatest ally the USA. After 9/11 and we stand shoulder to shoulder, had we not the conservatives and the right of centre media would have used the usual attack lines. Blair was not going to let that happen. That is one of the reasons he still won in 2005.
Labour needs to figure out what a winning base looks like in 2024, not 1997, not 2015, not 2017 and not 2019.
I am going to take a wild guess and suggest it looks a lot different to what Labour has done to win before and if you look at where Starmer is spending his time, it seems that he agrees with me.
My view remains that a route to Labour victory is not entirely rebuilding the red wall (although that would be helpful), it's identifying seats that have been swinging towards Labour and taking those.
In effect doing a reverse Tory - and I don't know how successful that kind of approach will be but frankly an improvement on 2019 will be an achievement.
As I've said before, if you look at the seats Labour lost it's extraordinary how many were lost on tiny margins, despite Corbyn and Brexit. And many of those were seats that voted to Leave.
The next challenge is the Lib Dems, who need to start taking some of the 100 target seats they're second in - which should be easier if voters there aren't terrified about putting Starmer into No 10. In seats like my parents in Hampshire with a massive Tory majority, it was reduced due to Lib Dem voting of which I have never seen from people I would have expected to be full on Tory. Clearly Corbyn was too much of a fear for them - but maybe not Starmer, who so far I get told "seems alright, bit bland". Quite a contrast to "he's going to take all my property and sell us to Russia".
So in summary, new seats + some old seats + Lib Dem performance would be a route to making progress.
Why do you think there was an extraordinary number of Labour losses on tiny margins ?
Labour also held various seats on tiny margins.
It happens both ways at every general election.
From a Labour point of view I suppose one tends to focus on the seats that were most narrowly lost like Kensington, Bury N+S, High Peak, Bolton NE, Gedling etc and ignore the ones that were narrowly held.
Although it was largely balanced out in the other direction. I thought Labour almost losing two of the Coventry seats was pretty shocking even accounting for the fact that the MPs stood down and the dire West Midlands results in general.
I thought Whitmer was an obvious choice in the early days of this saga: governor experience of a key marginal State in the area of the country that is surely once again going to decide the election (unless it is not close at all). But she is the wrong colour. Could Biden really afford to disappoint his black supporters now? I think not. Its Harris or Rice, probably Harris although Rice would be better.
If he wants to pick a black female US representative Val Demings would be better than Harris or Rice as like Whitmer but unlike them she is from a key swing state, Florida
The evidence of VPs swinging their home states isn't great, maybe LBJ and Texas is the standout. What I think is more important for Sleepy Joe is having someone who is obviously capable of being a stand in or doing the heavy lifting for him. He is a weak candidate and one of the reasons for that is he may already be senile. It makes his number 2 unusually important. For me, Rice ticks those boxes better than the others.
I don't think there is any doubt that Biden is already senile.
The extent and how it may increase are the unknows.
He is a typical 77 year old.
The typical 77 year old has been in retirement for over a decade.
Yes. It's not ideal. But I wouldn't on the evidence go with "senile" or "has dementia". This is loose and overly derogatory.
Such talk was a regular feature throughout the primary campaign.
It seems only to have become 'wrong' once Biden became the candidate.
Anybody who thinks that Biden (known for his gaffes and being a lifelong stutterer) is senile should remember that either he or Trump will be President after the election and then watch this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG-njDHXZuw From Fox News FFS.
So the excuse for Biden is that he's always been crap ?
Yes, Trump is clearly unfit to be in any position of responsibility and I suspect we all know that.
Likewise Biden wouldn't get anywhere near political power in any sensible country.
The utter failure of the US political system is exposed by this backed up by the gaggle of ancients who dominate the US political system.
There are also former LibDem seats in which Labour could hope to progress significantly - Southport and Carshalton & Wallington being examples.
It would be a ridiculous own goal for Lab to put effort into C&W, the LDs control the Council and lost the seat by only 800-odd votes. But they have a track record of being that dense (cf Wimbledon)
I thought Whitmer was an obvious choice in the early days of this saga: governor experience of a key marginal State in the area of the country that is surely once again going to decide the election (unless it is not close at all). But she is the wrong colour. Could Biden really afford to disappoint his black supporters now? I think not. Its Harris or Rice, probably Harris although Rice would be better.
If he wants to pick a black female US representative Val Demings would be better than Harris or Rice as like Whitmer but unlike them she is from a key swing state, Florida
The evidence of VPs swinging their home states isn't great, maybe LBJ and Texas is the standout. What I think is more important for Sleepy Joe is having someone who is obviously capable of being a stand in or doing the heavy lifting for him. He is a weak candidate and one of the reasons for that is he may already be senile. It makes his number 2 unusually important. For me, Rice ticks those boxes better than the others.
I don't think there is any doubt that Biden is already senile.
The extent and how it may increase are the unknows.
He is a typical 77 year old.
The typical 77 year old has been in retirement for over a decade.
Yes. It's not ideal. But I wouldn't on the evidence go with "senile" or "has dementia". This is loose and overly derogatory.
Such talk was a regular feature throughout the primary campaign.
It seems only to have become 'wrong' once Biden became the candidate.
Anybody who thinks that Biden (known for his gaffes and being a lifelong stutterer) is senile should remember that either he or Trump will be President after the election and then watch this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG-njDHXZuw From Fox News FFS.
So the excuse for Biden is that he's always been crap ?
Yes, Trump is clearly unfit to be in any position of responsibility and I suspect we all know that.
Likewise Biden wouldn't get anywhere near political power in any sensible country.
The utter failure of the US political system is exposed by this backed up by the gaggle of ancients who dominate the US political system.
Can't help being a stutterer. It has to be either Trump or Biden and those who support Trump try to project Trump's faults onto Biden.
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
You are basically saying "Starmer needs to be a clone of Blair. Popular Blair - before he went bat-shit crazy and found spurious grounds to invade Iran with his neocon chums".
It may be what the voters want from Labour. It's just a million miles from what Labour wants from Labour.
Shit I missed the invasion of Iran. However the Iraq invasion was going to happen by US troops whatever Blair did. The question was did Britain support Bush and our greatest ally the USA. After 9/11 and we stand shoulder to shoulder, had we not the conservatives and the right of centre media would have used the usual attack lines. Blair was not going to let that happen. That is one of the reasons he still won in 2005.
As difficult a moral conundrum as, do you support your greatest mate when he decides to rob a bank. Harold Wilson knew the answer.
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
You are basically saying "Starmer needs to be a clone of Blair. Popular Blair - before he went bat-shit crazy and found spurious grounds to invade Iran with his neocon chums".
It may be what the voters want from Labour. It's just a million miles from what Labour wants from Labour.
Shit I missed the invasion of Iran. However the Iraq invasion was going to happen by US troops whatever Blair did. The question was did Britain support Bush and our greatest ally the USA. After 9/11 and we stand shoulder to shoulder, had we not the conservatives and the right of centre media would have used the usual attack lines. Blair was not going to let that happen. That is one of the reasons he still won in 2005.
As difficult a moral conundrum as, do you support your greatest mate when he decides to rob a bank. Harold Wilson knew the answer.
There are also former LibDem seats in which Labour could hope to progress significantly - Southport and Carshalton & Wallington being examples.
It would be a ridiculous own goal for Lab to put effort into C&W, the LDs control the Council and lost the seat by only 800-odd votes. But they have a track record of being that dense (cf Wimbledon)
Labour held Wimbledon 1997 - 2005 and did well there in 2017. The Carshalton seat was created prior to the February 1974 election when Tory Cabinet Minister Robert Carr moved there from Mitcham following the boundary changes. It was then viewed as a Tory-Labour marginal - though Carr had a majority of 5,500 in February which fell to 3,500 in October 1974. Labour did not fall to third place until the Alliance surge in 1983, and for some reason failed to recover its position under Blair in 1997. That may well have been related to LibDem local government success in the intervening years.Nevertheless it is very likely that much of the LibDem vote there is based on tactical Labour support. The headline voting figures will significantly understate Labour's underlying strength in the seat , and there must be the potential for the party to do what it managed in Portsmouth South in 2017 when it captured the seat from third place. This will be particularly the case were Tom Brake not to stand again.
The sort of examination for the England batting here that puts the test in test match
You mean, it will be radically adjusted due to an algorithm that makes no sense by people who don't understand basic statistics, based on nothing more than their gut feeling?
I thought Whitmer was an obvious choice in the early days of this saga: governor experience of a key marginal State in the area of the country that is surely once again going to decide the election (unless it is not close at all). But she is the wrong colour. Could Biden really afford to disappoint his black supporters now? I think not. Its Harris or Rice, probably Harris although Rice would be better.
If he wants to pick a black female US representative Val Demings would be better than Harris or Rice as like Whitmer but unlike them she is from a key swing state, Florida
The evidence of VPs swinging their home states isn't great, maybe LBJ and Texas is the standout. What I think is more important for Sleepy Joe is having someone who is obviously capable of being a stand in or doing the heavy lifting for him. He is a weak candidate and one of the reasons for that is he may already be senile. It makes his number 2 unusually important. For me, Rice ticks those boxes better than the others.
I don't think there is any doubt that Biden is already senile.
The extent and how it may increase are the unknows.
He is a typical 77 year old.
The typical 77 year old has been in retirement for over a decade.
Yes. It's not ideal. But I wouldn't on the evidence go with "senile" or "has dementia". This is loose and overly derogatory.
Such talk was a regular feature throughout the primary campaign.
It seems only to have become 'wrong' once Biden became the candidate.
Anybody who thinks that Biden (known for his gaffes and being a lifelong stutterer) is senile should remember that either he or Trump will be President after the election and then watch this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG-njDHXZuw From Fox News FFS.
So the excuse for Biden is that he's always been crap ?
Yes, Trump is clearly unfit to be in any position of responsibility and I suspect we all know that.
Likewise Biden wouldn't get anywhere near political power in any sensible country.
The utter failure of the US political system is exposed by this backed up by the gaggle of ancients who dominate the US political system.
Can't help being a stutterer. It has to be either Trump or Biden and those who support Trump try to project Trump's faults onto Biden.
Curious as to how these allegations of projection weren't used during the Democrat primary campaign.
Biden being senile was the widespread view among the supporters of Sanders, Buttigieg, Warren, Klobuchar and whoever else happened to be the flavour of the fortnight.
So why the change now ?
Because Biden is 'our' candidate and so the party line has to be spouted.
Nothing wrong with that, it is done by all sides in all elections and getting rid of Trump is certainly no bad thing.
But lets not pretend its anything else and trying to be self-righteous about it ? Why I would hope no PBers is that silly.
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
You are basically saying "Starmer needs to be a clone of Blair. Popular Blair - before he went bat-shit crazy and found spurious grounds to invade Iran with his neocon chums".
It may be what the voters want from Labour. It's just a million miles from what Labour wants from Labour.
Shit I missed the invasion of Iran. However the Iraq invasion was going to happen by US troops whatever Blair did. The question was did Britain support Bush and our greatest ally the USA. After 9/11 and we stand shoulder to shoulder, had we not the conservatives and the right of centre media would have used the usual attack lines. Blair was not going to let that happen. That is one of the reasons he still won in 2005.
As difficult a moral conundrum as, do you support your greatest mate when he decides to rob a bank. Harold Wilson knew the answer.
Moral - The left nearly won a GE with a poor leader. With better packaging we can do so one day soon.
Unfortunately, you and by extension the Labour left are drawing the wrong moral.
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
I'm afraid your bias is in the box seat here.
The British Election Study in 2017 found no evidence that people voted Labour because they thought they had no chance of winning. It's a myth.
Labour stayed at about 40% in the polls from GE17 through until well into 2019.
Johnson and Get Brexit Done were (sadly) a potent electoral combination. I dislike both but one has to face facts.
I thought Whitmer was an obvious choice in the early days of this saga: governor experience of a key marginal State in the area of the country that is surely once again going to decide the election (unless it is not close at all). But she is the wrong colour. Could Biden really afford to disappoint his black supporters now? I think not. Its Harris or Rice, probably Harris although Rice would be better.
If he wants to pick a black female US representative Val Demings would be better than Harris or Rice as like Whitmer but unlike them she is from a key swing state, Florida
The evidence of VPs swinging their home states isn't great, maybe LBJ and Texas is the standout. What I think is more important for Sleepy Joe is having someone who is obviously capable of being a stand in or doing the heavy lifting for him. He is a weak candidate and one of the reasons for that is he may already be senile. It makes his number 2 unusually important. For me, Rice ticks those boxes better than the others.
I don't think there is any doubt that Biden is already senile.
The extent and how it may increase are the unknows.
He is a typical 77 year old.
The typical 77 year old has been in retirement for over a decade.
Yes. It's not ideal. But I wouldn't on the evidence go with "senile" or "has dementia". This is loose and overly derogatory.
Such talk was a regular feature throughout the primary campaign.
It seems only to have become 'wrong' once Biden became the candidate.
Comments
Corbyn nearly beat Theresa May, who was determined to do her best to spook everyone who wasn't a hardcore Conservative voter. Result, the opposition rallied behind Labour in a bid to reduce her majority, thinking that as Corbyn had no chance of winning it wouldn't cause a problem.
Or let me put it to you another way. When standing on a basically similar manifesto, against a much weaker leader, who had no policy platform and who had just been found guilty of misusing a prerogative power in the courts - Labour lost horrendously badly. Their worst result, indeed, since 1935.
The moral of this story is that people are only willing to vote for far left policies when there is no chance of them winning. Therefore, to win, ditch the far left policies based on drug-addled dogmatism and try to come up with a vaguely realistic and costed policy agenda.
It is quite significant that in the early stages of the 2017 campaign the Tory strategists identified a number of seats that they failed to take then, but which did fall in 2019 - Bolsover and West Bromwich West, for example.
With hindsight, getting back into power at the first opportunity was always going to be very hard indeed. It was the polls and their herding that suggested otherwise.
The amazing achievement of Jeremy Corbyn is that after ten years of total chaos he's got Labour back to roughly where they started. If only they had, in the words of the Corbynista in 2015, compromised their principles to vote for Yvette Cooper rather than believing it was all lost and throwing the incremental progress of Miliband away on a total loon with the intellect of a stuffed donkey and a track record that would have made Jeffrey Archer blush.
It may be what the voters want from Labour. It's just a million miles from what Labour wants from Labour.
But it should be noted Tony Blair's policy offering won three elections including two majorities of over 160. Only two other party leaders since 1928 even come close to matching that record - Baldwin and Thatcher.
It should be further noted that a lot of Cameron's policy platform was borrowed from Blair, either by direct adoption or via the Liberal Democrats. And look what happened to May when she tried to ditch it.
So we can argue about Blair's flaws as a human being, but anyone who doesn't think his record on policy demands close attention hasn't been paying attention.
Thinks it will be Harris.
Edit - also there was a fair amount of sleaze around in the Thatcher years. Parkinson springs to mind, as does Archer, as does Arms to Iraq...
"Ooooh! Look - Socialist squirrel!"
In more than one sense pf the term!
It seems only to have become 'wrong' once Biden became the candidate.
Everyone lost to the SNP but Labour and the Tories destroyed the Lib Dems resulting in a (tiny) Tory majority
He looked stupid for his confident prediction later, but then, he was stupid.
However, on this constitutional point he was right and Gus O'Donnell was wrong. Brown should have resigned. Baldwin in 1929 was ample precedent on its own, but Gladstone in 1886 was a further one. In fairness, it wasn't Brown's fault that he was badly advised, but he should have rejected that advice.
The irony is that had Brown resigned, as he should have done, Cameron would never have been able to sell a coalition to his supporters.
The further irony is that when Labour thought the Tories were going to be short of a majority again in 2015 it was they who were trying to claim that a PM without a majority should quit...
On the whole I believe the reports suggesting that many long-serving party officials were at best working to rule under Corbyn - they didn't like the turn the party had taken, but it was their job so they grumpily worked through it. I doubt if there was much active sabotage but I can well believe the nasty emails and WhatsApp chat. It's a pity, and I think Corbyn's comments are perfectly understandable, but we have to move on.
And I will savour every mouthful of it.
https://twitter.com/TomWitherow/status/1292034347139309568?s=20
And when the organisation is fully united behind the leader and focussed on winning, they collapse?
I'm seeing a solution here - we need Labour to fight a full-on civil war...
Particularly, over the extension to tuition fees. That nearly cost Blair his premiership when he brought them in after the 2001 election having said he wouldn't...
I might join you.
I am going to take a wild guess and suggest it looks a lot different to what Labour has done to win before and if you look at where Starmer is spending his time, it seems that he agrees with me.
My view remains that a route to Labour victory is not entirely rebuilding the red wall (although that would be helpful), it's identifying seats that have been swinging towards Labour and taking those.
In effect doing a reverse Tory - and I don't know how successful that kind of approach will be but frankly an improvement on 2019 will be an achievement.
As I've said before, if you look at the seats Labour lost it's extraordinary how many were lost on tiny margins, despite Corbyn and Brexit. And many of those were seats that voted to Leave.
The next challenge is the Lib Dems, who need to start taking some of the 100 target seats they're second in - which should be easier if voters there aren't terrified about putting Starmer into No 10. In seats like my parents in Hampshire with a massive Tory majority, it was reduced due to Lib Dem voting of which I have never seen from people I would have expected to be full on Tory. Clearly Corbyn was too much of a fear for them - but maybe not Starmer, who so far I get told "seems alright, bit bland". Quite a contrast to "he's going to take all my property and sell us to Russia".
So in summary, new seats + some old seats + Lib Dem performance would be a route to making progress.
Still you could always offer to house some asylum seekers if you're so concerned about the issue.
Must be prescribed for stony, Firth of Clyde beach meandering in the Tory sartorial manual.
https://twitter.com/PeatWorrier/status/1292024504378626048?s=20
If it were me I'd stop campaigning in seats Labour won't win but the Lib Dems might, an unofficial alliance if you will, something like Ashdown and Blair.
I think Starmer + Davey might come to some kind of arrangement. Moran would be a disaster.
Keir visits Stoke.
Stoke-on-Trent, Labour target 9, majority of 670. 1.04% swing required.
Stoke-on-Trent North, Labour target 93, majority 6286, 7.83% swing required.
The first Labour will probably re-take on a bad night, the second would put Keir in Number 10.
His team clearly look at the data and read my posts.
Labour also held various seats on tiny margins.
It happens both ways at every general election.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/en/cricket/test-matches/england-v-pakistan-betting-29932169
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG-njDHXZuw
From Fox News FFS.
Soft looking very crumbly indeed.
However the Iraq invasion was going to happen by US troops whatever Blair did.
The question was did Britain support Bush and our greatest ally the USA.
After 9/11 and we stand shoulder to shoulder, had we not the conservatives and the right of centre media would have used the usual attack lines.
Blair was not going to let that happen.
That is one of the reasons he still won in 2005.
Although it was largely balanced out in the other direction. I thought Labour almost losing two of the Coventry seats was pretty shocking even accounting for the fact that the MPs stood down and the dire West Midlands results in general.
Yes, Trump is clearly unfit to be in any position of responsibility and I suspect we all know that.
Likewise Biden wouldn't get anywhere near political power in any sensible country.
The utter failure of the US political system is exposed by this backed up by the gaggle of ancients who dominate the US political system.
How come you didn't put a lot on them?
It has to be either Trump or Biden and those who support Trump try to project Trump's faults onto Biden.
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2020/08/70th-anniversary-grand-prix-pre.html
Well, we can but hope.
Biden being senile was the widespread view among the supporters of Sanders, Buttigieg, Warren, Klobuchar and whoever else happened to be the flavour of the fortnight.
So why the change now ?
Because Biden is 'our' candidate and so the party line has to be spouted.
Nothing wrong with that, it is done by all sides in all elections and getting rid of Trump is certainly no bad thing.
But lets not pretend its anything else and trying to be self-righteous about it ? Why I would hope no PBers is that silly.
New Thread
The British Election Study in 2017 found no evidence that people voted Labour because they thought they had no chance of winning. It's a myth.
Labour stayed at about 40% in the polls from GE17 through until well into 2019.
Johnson and Get Brexit Done were (sadly) a potent electoral combination. I dislike both but one has to face facts.