Morning. I see BoZo's biggest fan is up with the lark.
Personally, I cannot stand the slovenly buffoon with a penchant for fancy dress photo opportunities. Its like watching the Generation Game at times, and sometimes worse.
The photo ops are a bit silly but not sure how North Korean references make you the bigger man here. Unless you genuinely think no one but Boris has ever done photo ops it's an odd thing to get so worked up about.
The more disturbing image is of the North Korean leader, gleefully watching a machine extrude the intestines of his former education minister...
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
The Labour Party, for some time, have needed to get back to their roots. While to preserve the Red Wall I don’t think the Tories will prune back much employment protection legislation - the Working Time Directive and TUPE being the main legislation deriving entirely from EU directives as opposed to UK Acts of Parliament and the former has been in their sights since it was implemented, The employment law workaround that Uber, Amazon, Pimlico Plumbers et al have found is to make everyone self employed contractors. Workers in the gig economy are an increasingly exploited class. That unfairness is something that can resonate with Joe Voter more than the culture war trap the right increasingly exploit to great advantage.
I don't want to bang on about Corbyn... but you know... my username...
In 2017 in almost all these red wall places Labour put on votes, in a lot of them less than the Tories. Labour at this point had things to say about gig economy workers as well.
One very real problem I wonder about is if all those Labour MPs who helped spread the message that the Labour party (at that time) hated the country, hated soldiers loved the enemy etc. salted the ground for themselves and helped to an extent to exacerbate the culture war they now can't fight. If you look at the vote share in Northern England red wall constituencies if has been going down for a long time (with probably some of those reasons not being realistically fixable) 2017 was the one deviation from a long downward trend.
Realistically nobody will actually be interested in this data point because Corbyn led the party at the time and that would get in the way of the Labour right doing their whole 80's re-enactment thing..
Just pulling up Mansfield, as the red wall seat of choice, you are right that in 2017 Labour put on 5% there. The problem being that Labour put on 9% nationally, hence there was still an adverse relative swing there. That, and the fact that Corbyn led in 2019 as well, would appear to suggest you don't really have a point?
So what you are saying is Labour should completely disregard why they put on votes somewhere they have been losing them for 20 years in a seat they want to win back?!
I think you have a point but I am not sure it is a very good one. I don't think anybody of note is suggesting you put Corbyn as leader but ignoring why you gained votes somewhere you want to gain votes is either incompetence or because it might get in the way of doing a Labour 1980s re-enactment.
Labour put on votes in almost every constituency in 2017 as part of their 9.6 point national rise.
Which was my original point.
It is certainly worth looking at the reasons for the 2017 'surprise' (many of which surely concern the Tories rather than Labour), but the relatively poorer performance in the so-called red wall was evident even then.
Look I mean I actually want Labour to do badly in the next election so by all means lets ignore anything that reversed a negative trend in seats that everyone claims to be the focus (when it suits their purposes, red wall wasn't as vital in the Brexit debate in Labour though because they were closer to Corbyn's view at the time, then it was all about Labour members who were quite supportive of Corbyn being 'betrayed' by him...)
It was all Theresa May, yeah that'll do it... but also Tony Blair winning was nothing to do with Black Wednesday and the Tories being incompetent, purely down to political positioning... also forget the bit about everyone raving about May being great in many eyes until she actually met the campaigning force that is Jezza. Also May didn't get that many votes less than Johnson, the big difference between them was the collapse of the Labour vote...
No worries, I'm sure Starmer will be a fantastic campaigner, I can practially hear crowds singing his name already.
Good points David although forgive me for repeating that it would have been better tighter (2/3rds the length). Difficult to disagree with your overview.
A success of vaccination and a success of Brexit: Boris Johnson appears to have the Midas touch.
I continue to believe that he will win a landslide at the next General Election, which may come before 2024, and that the tories will perform relatively well this May.
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
Since you told us that Corbyn would come close in 2019 and that Trump was a shoo-in for 2020, I guess you are hoping for third time lucky? Instead of suggesting others trim their posts, perhaps you should trim your username?
A fine riposte. Posts from those such as MYSTICrose who are prepared to say that Johnson is a genius as the death toll reaches 120,000 and Brexit is an unalloyed success as we cut artistic and cultural ties from what I consider to be the most progressive grouping in the world doesn't give me a cheery feeling. I watched the French minister for for the EU on TV yesterday morning and it left me bereft. I couldn't be bothered to read the cheer leading from the Mysticroses or the 'Felix likes'. The whole thing is too depressing and Johnson admirers are no better than Trump ones.
I think that's right. Many on the left, who supported the policies, were not fans of Corbyn personally; they were sceptical about his leadership abilities and his ability to be an effective PM. The Corbyn cult was noisy but not as large as it seemed, even with the party.
Incidentally, once Starmer starts developing a policy offer I don't think he will tack to the right as much as you fear. The patriotic stuff is symbolic, rather than indicative of policy.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Plenty of pro Corbyn people I follow on twitter and my own personal reaction to Starmer was okay not my choice but be reasonable give him a chance and his leadership campaign was sorta left wing as well, some people (quite a decent number) I follow pro Corbyn voted for him as leader over RLB. Novara media were I'd almost say cautiously optimistic, the actual immediate anti Starmer reaction was very small.
The problem is (we can argue it is perception or whatever) Starmers leadership has consisted of punching left and breaking pledges he made in the leadership campaign to the left. The anti Starmer mood from even people who voted for Starmer on my twitter is evident. If you are left wing at this point why would you trust Starmer?
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I hear that ferry freight levels have returned to normal. Was this the last Remain dog that turns out not to have barked?
As I responded to Charles earlier there seems to be some rather large questions about the volume of freight as opposed to the volume of trucks. Most of the stuff that used to come into the UK as a consolidated load then get split off for ROI is now bypassing us. Our exports on various industries has dropped (to minimal levels in some cases), and both manufacturers and logistics are still screaming about their inability to economically trade.
And this is the quiet period before all those 3rd party rules we wanted phase in. Such as veterinary certificates for Chocolate biscuits. To ask you the same question as Charles & FU refused to answer earlier, will you Mortimer regard it as a Brexit triumph when business learns to accept the lower volume levels and much higher costs that all this pointless red tape applies?
I personally need our borders to function. I represent an importer into the UK. Pointing out all the areas where it isn't working isn't me wishing it to fail and me to lose my contract. Its wanting to show where the myriad problems are so that they can be resolved.
An empty truck crossing the border when it used to be full is not a triumph for anyone.
From my experience, yes.
What I am seeing in my industry is the market rebalancing. Businesses sending £5 books to Europe are finding it uneconomical; focusing on domestic demand for cheaper books and international for higher priced books. And consumers buying £5 books from Europe are switching to British suppliers.
We sell much more expensive books - average price is £200 - and so have always used premium shipping methods. And at a stroke the British ministry now in charge of export licensing have made it easier for dealers to trade. Higher thresholds for needing paperwork. Simplified paperwork etc.
I am angry that taxpayer money is used for that purpose Scott. Even Guido has criticised Boris for that. What does that have to do with saying comparing photo op trips to north Korea is silly when politicians are well known for such silly photo ops?
You're doing that thing where you assume anyone making a point you dont like must be a fan of Boris. I simply prefer to criticise him for being, to my mind, a bad prime minister.
Yes, he is a terrible Prime Minister, but 3 government employees whose job is solely to produce hagiographic images of the Glorious Leader (and his dog) is slightly North Korean, is it not?
I think noting it is vain and wasteful is a more apt descriptor, not least since I imagine someone will easily be able to find other democratic leaders who have such staff on the payroll.
Exagerations can be fine and helpful, but other times it just lets someone off the hook.
The Alice Roberts Stonehenge documentary last night on BBC2 is well worth a watch
Indeed. Watching In was reminded of the book on the genetics of the British and how they showed the patterns of migration, the title of which I cannot remember, but which opined that the evidence demonstrated that post Ice-Age Britain was repopulated from two main and one minor directions; up the west coast of what is now France, from Iberia and into the Western part of the British Isles and from the East, across the Channel and North Sea. The Westerners uniting with the Easterners might well have accounted for the movement of the Henge.
But why was the last interview conducted in the pouring rain?
The government has a comms team on staff, which in the modern world includes social media people doing photography and videography stuff.
BoZo has staff to take photos of him.
He paid someone (with our money) to take a photo of him resigning against a deal which was significantly better than the one he later signed.
This is not normal Government comms.
That was a story from three years ago.
I was referring to the one from last week, when a member of staff with little else to do because of weather and pandemic, spent half an hour in a snowy garden with the dog.
Creating a series of images that, frankly, gave far more joy to the nation than another set of pics of Hard-hat Boris in a JCB
Anecdata. Every single one of my Zoom or Teams calls with an employer client in the last two weeks has had at least one participant logging in from the office.
Amongst those of my mates who found WFH a great novelty at the start, not a single person wants it to continue.
I've done WFH. I've done WFO. I've done working from a clients office. Frankly, unless I'm writing a report to a deadline or making an excel model, I'm always more efficient in an office.
I don’t know what will happen but Zoom Fatigue is real. There will be less time spent in offices to be sure but reports of their death is exaggerated. Back in the late 90s, when I was a trainee solicitor, the head of the department I qualified into worked from home 2 or more days a week so it was possible even then - but he wasn’t popular. Even after I qualified in 2000 I could dial into my work email and work from hoke that way but felt out of the loop. I’m going in for the first time next week or the week after as I have a physical trial bundle to prepare.
Some will continue to use it if they had long commutes, itll be hard to tell them they MUST return, but I agree with the fatigue. And while we all moan about work for some getting in to office is a break from home, with the random casual socialisation it entails.
Those who live in cities, close to their offices, are those less likely to have room to work from home. The WFH debate is slightly elitist and favours empty nest Boomers who can work from their kids old bedrooms. Millennials and, to a lesser extent, Gen Xers don’t have the housing stock to be able to work from home as effectively. And the youngest boomers are still only in their mid 50s.
Lots of people still working from their parent's kitchens.
Anecdata. Every single one of my Zoom or Teams calls with an employer client in the last two weeks has had at least one participant logging in from the office.
Amongst those of my mates who found WFH a great novelty at the start, not a single person wants it to continue.
I've done WFH. I've done WFO. I've done working from a clients office. Frankly, unless I'm writing a report to a deadline or making an excel model, I'm always more efficient in an office.
I don’t know what will happen but Zoom Fatigue is real. There will be less time spent in offices to be sure but reports of their death is exaggerated. Back in the late 90s, when I was a trainee solicitor, the head of the department I qualified into worked from home 2 or more days a week so it was possible even then - but he wasn’t popular. Even after I qualified in 2000 I could dial into my work email and work from hoke that way but felt out of the loop. I’m going in for the first time next week or the week after as I have a physical trial bundle to prepare.
Some will continue to use it if they had long commutes, itll be hard to tell them they MUST return, but I agree with the fatigue. And while we all moan about work for some getting in to office is a break from home, with the random casual socialisation it entails.
The group of people I find most annoying are long distance commuters who moan about it - the time, the cost of train tickets (yes, inflation means they go up - we get it), the overcrowding. The solution is to not. live. so. far. away. Its not like its rocket science or learning Mandaring....
Which is fine if you can afford the higher. cost. of. housing. closer. in. Its not like its rocket science or learning Cantonese...
This group of people I refer to earn, in my experience, much more than I did when I lived in London.
England have significantly restricted the run rate here since tea but a breakthrough does not seem imminent.
It was a good toss to win.
Much as I love cricket, the idea that a five day contest is swung decisively before a ball is bowled is something of a weakness. Why can't they have a toss before game one and then alternate? Or, in the spirit of cricket, have the visiting side decide for the first test and thereafter alternate.
Or alternatively the visiting team always get to choose. We would then see very different wickets and better cricket.
Not a bad shout.
Put the pressure on the home side to provide balanced pitches.
Morning. I see BoZo's biggest fan is up with the lark.
Personally, I cannot stand the slovenly buffoon with a penchant for fancy dress photo opportunities. Its like watching the Generation Game at times, and sometimes worse.
The photo ops are a bit silly but not sure how North Korean references make you the bigger man here. Unless you genuinely think no one but Boris has ever done photo ops it's an odd thing to get so worked up about.
The more disturbing image is of the North Korean leader, gleefully watching a machine extrude the intestines of his former education minister...
That one is a great photo - it was noted at the time as one of the first where he showed such unbridled glee in one of these photo ops, where usually he was to look serious, as sombre men took notes of his wisdom.
Because it's not entirely clear (without reference to Grenfell as I haven't delved into the details) who is the responsible party
- The regulators who approved the products - The developers/builders who used products to spec - The freeholders
If the developers/builders illegally used products that were not in spec they shouldn't just have to pay, they should be fined and probably locked up
But if they used an approved product why should they be solely responsible?
In an ideal world everyone should pay a bit. But it would be crippling for many freeholders, potentially bankrupt a large number of builders. So there is a case for the government to pay to just get it done.
Ydoethur, in what way has Brexit been a failure? It's difficult not to associate our vaccine success, for example, with our departure from the EU, who are stuck in a bureaucratic quagmire.
One swallow and all that. Yes GB's vaccination programme seems to have been a success, and as I posted yesterday I am no fan of Frau Dr van den Leyen, who doesn't, in spite (?because of) her good academic qualifications to be the nimblest thinker. There could be any number of reasons for Europes comparative failure, but being in the middle of a change of government probably didn't help.
So far, though, I have heard of no exporting or employment successes, only failures, or difficulties.
I would summarise it as they worked on improving the efficiency of the process, rather than realising they needed a new process with a different purpose.
Not helped by the nature of the EU being procedural - as even emdebbed Euronauts will say. That is also why they say that Boris' / Gove's current attempted swashbuckling style of politics will not shift much.
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
The Labour Party, for some time, have needed to get back to their roots. While to preserve the Red Wall I don’t think the Tories will prune back much employment protection legislation - the Working Time Directive and TUPE being the main legislation deriving entirely from EU directives as opposed to UK Acts of Parliament and the former has been in their sights since it was implemented, The employment law workaround that Uber, Amazon, Pimlico Plumbers et al have found is to make everyone self employed contractors. Workers in the gig economy are an increasingly exploited class. That unfairness is something that can resonate with Joe Voter more than the culture war trap the right increasingly exploit to great advantage.
I don't want to bang on about Corbyn... but you know... my username...
In 2017 in almost all these red wall places Labour put on votes, in a lot of them less than the Tories. Labour at this point had things to say about gig economy workers as well.
One very real problem I wonder about is if all those Labour MPs who helped spread the message that the Labour party (at that time) hated the country, hated soldiers loved the enemy etc. salted the ground for themselves and helped to an extent to exacerbate the culture war they now can't fight. If you look at the vote share in Northern England red wall constituencies if has been going down for a long time (with probably some of those reasons not being realistically fixable) 2017 was the one deviation from a long downward trend.
Realistically nobody will actually be interested in this data point because Corbyn led the party at the time and that would get in the way of the Labour right doing their whole 80's re-enactment thing..
Just pulling up Mansfield, as the red wall seat of choice, you are right that in 2017 Labour put on 5% there. The problem being that Labour put on 9% nationally, hence there was still an adverse relative swing there. That, and the fact that Corbyn led in 2019 as well, would appear to suggest you don't really have a point?
So what you are saying is Labour should completely disregard why they put on votes somewhere they have been losing them for 20 years in a seat they want to win back?!
I think you have a point but I am not sure it is a very good one. I don't think anybody of note is suggesting you put Corbyn as leader but ignoring why you gained votes somewhere you want to gain votes is either incompetence or because it might get in the way of doing a Labour 1980s re-enactment.
Labour put on votes in almost every constituency in 2017 as part of their 9.6 point national rise.
Which was my original point.
It is certainly worth looking at the reasons for the 2017 'surprise' (many of which surely concern the Tories rather than Labour), but the relatively poorer performance in the so-called red wall was evident even then.
Look I mean I actually want Labour to do badly in the next election so by all means lets ignore anything that reversed a negative trend in seats that everyone claims to be the focus (when it suits their purposes, red wall wasn't as vital in the Brexit debate in Labour though because they were closer to Corbyn's view at the time, then it was all about Labour members who were quite supportive of Corbyn being 'betrayed' by him...)
It was all Theresa May, yeah that'll do it... but also Tony Blair winning was nothing to do with Black Wednesday and the Tories being incompetent, purely down to political positioning... also forget the bit about everyone raving about May being great in many eyes until she actually met the campaigning force that is Jezza. Also May didn't get that many votes less than Johnson, the big difference between them was the collapse of the Labour vote...
No worries, I'm sure Starmer will be a fantastic campaigner, I can practially hear crowds singing his name already.
On the contrary, I agree with you that Starmer is unlikely to morph into an ace campaigner. And also that Corbyn's radical and largely inter-generational agenda cut through in 2017. With a big helping hand from Tory self destruction. But proved ineffective against the simpler Brexit message of 2019.
Morning. I see BoZo's biggest fan is up with the lark.
Personally, I cannot stand the slovenly buffoon with a penchant for fancy dress photo opportunities. Its like watching the Generation Game at times, and sometimes worse.
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
In the 2017 GE we retook Stockton South from the Tories. We selected a very non-Corbyn candidate, crafted a very Blairite campaign which largely ignored national stuff, and unexpectedly won. When I sat co-writing the campaign materials we weren't spreading the message that "the Labour party (at that time) hated the country, hated soldiers loved the enemy etc", we were trying to dismiss that message which was coming directly from Corbyn's gob.
Labour lost comfortably in 2017. You lot pushed this myth that the performance was a triumph, that if only a few thousand people in a few dozen seats voted the other way then there could have been a triumphant Labour+every other party government which could have brought about World Peace. It was and is rampant bollocks. For all that May screwed her campaign up, she increased the Tory vote by 20%. As we then saw in 2019 that trend continued as traditional Labour voters turned out in their droves to vote Tory.
Corbyn - and all of you in his cult - utterly destroyed the party. Voters who were LLLLLLL across the board voting Tory because Corbyn hated them, their country, their basic beliefs. At which point hard left entryists literally started jabbing the finger in faces and arguing.
The party is doing the "80s re-enactment" because the only way to regain the trust of working people is to purge the lunatics. And unlike Kinnock, Starmer has provben that he is shit at that as well. Corbyn - and all those around him - brought the party into disrepute over the EHRC debacle. Which means they can be expelled by the GC. Not have the whip removed from only Corbyn so that so-called Labour supporters can pay for Him to sue their own party.
Purge the lot. Then you all fuck off back to your lunatic Socialist Unity splinter groups and the party had a chance to be relevant again. Won't happen. Because Keith is a bit shit.
Sheesh you Blairites are bad winners, you have a party that removes leaders voted in by members on the say of rich donors, you have a party driving away black and minority members and driving away younger people, you have a leader sucking up to the right wing press, you have Corbyn with the whip suspended, you have the suspension of democracy with CLPs being overruled and made to chance from people critical of dear leader...
You have everything you have wanted and still you whine and complain.
To be fair to Starmer even with the best will in the world what more do you want from him? he cannot actually start a campaign of sterilisation against people who want nationalised railways until he gets into office.
The party isn't doing a 80's re-enactment because it wants to win, do you want me to get you the at the time private quotes from the Labour right in response to Labour doing better than expected.....
It isn't disappointment we didn't do better.
Also just to correct you there, working people actually voted for Labour in 2017 in greater numbers, it was the people in retirement age who did it for 'us'.
I think when you say working people you mean people over the age of 50?
Never quite understood the strange idea that millions of not old people votes are bad to get and you only want the older ones. Is it because the younger voters don't share your Blairite views?
TBH it was you Blairites who are more interested in rich donors than normal people that destroyed the Labour party. This may shock you but the Labour party wasn't actually set up to serve the rich...
Remind us what influence the SWP flavoured Labour party has when it continually fails to get into government?
Corbyn holds the record for government defeats by opposition, forced abortion in NI thanks to the results of the 2017 election for one and two, small things but not bad whilst being attacked on all sides and having to fight for your political life day in day out.
Which is going to be a damn sight (or is that site...) more than screw the poor Labour run by someone like Starmer will achieve but as a Tory voter that is what you wanted, useless opposition under Starmer.
I remember a conversation on here about how the Conservatives were going to have to abandon landlords and a landlord on here complaining about how things were already tough enough etc. well no worries, Labour wants to appeal to the kind of aspirational people that become landlords again, Conservatives can relax and go back to priding themselves on being better for landlords.
Good points David although forgive me for repeating that it would have been better tighter (2/3rds the length). Difficult to disagree with your overview.
A success of vaccination and a success of Brexit: Boris Johnson appears to have the Midas touch.
I continue to believe that he will win a landslide at the next General Election, which may come before 2024, and that the tories will perform relatively well this May.
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
Since you told us that Corbyn would come close in 2019 and that Trump was a shoo-in for 2020, I guess you are hoping for third time lucky? Instead of suggesting others trim their posts, perhaps you should trim your username?
A fine riposte. Posts from those such as MYSTICrose who are prepared to say that Johnson is a genius as the death toll reaches 120,000 and Brexit is an unalloyed success as we cut artistic and cultural ties from what I consider to be the most progressive grouping in the world doesn't give me a cheery feeling. I watched the French minister for for the EU on TV yesterday morning and it left me bereft. I couldn't be bothered to read the cheer leading from the Mysticroses or the 'Felix likes'. The whole thing is too depressing and Johnson admirers are no better than Trump ones.
I doubt there will be a huge electoral punishment for the government's mistakes in 2020.
But I also doubt that the clown will be swept back to office out of gratitude for a vaccination programme a month or three ahead of the rest of the world.
People were grateful to Churchill for much greater achievements, but when the election came turned their attention to the future. They'll be doing the same in 2024. Right now no-one is stepping up to the mark and I fear another contest for the least worst.
Morning. I see BoZo's biggest fan is up with the lark.
Personally, I cannot stand the slovenly buffoon with a penchant for fancy dress photo opportunities. Its like watching the Generation Game at times, and sometimes worse.
The photo ops are a bit silly but not sure how North Korean references make you the bigger man here. Unless you genuinely think no one but Boris has ever done photo ops it's an odd thing to get so worked up about.
The government has a comms team on staff, which in the modern world includes social media people doing photography and videography stuff.
BoZo has staff to take photos of him.
He paid someone (with our money) to take a photo of him resigning against a deal which was significantly better than the one he later signed.
This is not normal Government comms.
That was a story from three years ago.
I was referring to the one from last week, when a member of staff with little else to do because of weather and pandemic, spent half an hour in a snowy garden with the dog.
Creating a series of images that, frankly, gave far more joy to the nation than another set of pics of Hard-hat Boris in a JCB
Ha! Even according to Guido and his love of spinning things against politicians, the young lady social media person is paid £36k a year, for a job working in central London.
Of course, a government that did nothing on social media except regurgitate formal press releases and portraits of ministers would also be critisised for not ‘engaging’ with the public.
I’m one of the first to criticise governments wasting public money, but having a junior staffer trying to appeal to a younger audience on social media with dog-in-snow photos isn’t one of them.
Morning. I see BoZo's biggest fan is up with the lark.
Personally, I cannot stand the slovenly buffoon with a penchant for fancy dress photo opportunities. Its like watching the Generation Game at times, and sometimes worse.
The photo ops are a bit silly but not sure how North Korean references make you the bigger man here. Unless you genuinely think no one but Boris has ever done photo ops it's an odd thing to get so worked up about.
The more disturbing image is of the North Korean leader, gleefully watching a machine extrude the intestines of his former education minister...
Whatever is being extruded from the machine into the blue oil drum, it is disturbingly shiny & gelatinous.
My guess is it is a sexual lubricant, rather than a jellied meat foodstuff.
Whatever, Kim Il-Sung seems absolutely ecstatic to have a drumful of it.
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
In the 2017 GE we retook Stockton South from the Tories. We selected a very non-Corbyn candidate, crafted a very Blairite campaign which largely ignored national stuff, and unexpectedly won. When I sat co-writing the campaign materials we weren't spreading the message that "the Labour party (at that time) hated the country, hated soldiers loved the enemy etc", we were trying to dismiss that message which was coming directly from Corbyn's gob.
Labour lost comfortably in 2017. You lot pushed this myth that the performance was a triumph, that if only a few thousand people in a few dozen seats voted the other way then there could have been a triumphant Labour+every other party government which could have brought about World Peace. It was and is rampant bollocks. For all that May screwed her campaign up, she increased the Tory vote by 20%. As we then saw in 2019 that trend continued as traditional Labour voters turned out in their droves to vote Tory.
Corbyn - and all of you in his cult - utterly destroyed the party. Voters who were LLLLLLL across the board voting Tory because Corbyn hated them, their country, their basic beliefs. At which point hard left entryists literally started jabbing the finger in faces and arguing.
The party is doing the "80s re-enactment" because the only way to regain the trust of working people is to purge the lunatics. And unlike Kinnock, Starmer has provben that he is shit at that as well. Corbyn - and all those around him - brought the party into disrepute over the EHRC debacle. Which means they can be expelled by the GC. Not have the whip removed from only Corbyn so that so-called Labour supporters can pay for Him to sue their own party.
Purge the lot. Then you all fuck off back to your lunatic Socialist Unity splinter groups and the party had a chance to be relevant again. Won't happen. Because Keith is a bit shit.
Sheesh you Blairites are bad winners, you have a party that removes leaders voted in by members on the say of rich donors, you have a party driving away black and minority members and driving away younger people, you have a leader sucking up to the right wing press, you have Corbyn with the whip suspended, you have the suspension of democracy with CLPs being overruled and made to chance from people critical of dear leader...
You have everything you have wanted and still you whine and complain.
To be fair to Starmer even with the best will in the world what more do you want from him? he cannot actually start a campaign of sterilisation against people who want nationalised railways until he gets into office.
The party isn't doing a 80's re-enactment because it wants to win, do you want me to get you the at the time private quotes from the Labour right in response to Labour doing better than expected.....
It isn't disappointment we didn't do better.
Also just to correct you there, working people actually voted for Labour in 2017 in greater numbers, it was the people in retirement age who did it for 'us'.
I think when you say working people you mean people over the age of 50?
Never quite understood the strange idea that millions of not old people votes are bad to get and you only want the older ones. Is it because the younger voters don't share your Blairite views?
TBH it was you Blairites who are more interested in rich donors than normal people that destroyed the Labour party. This may shock you but the Labour party wasn't actually set up to serve the rich...
Remind us what influence the SWP flavoured Labour party has when it continually fails to get into government?
Corbyn holds the record for government defeats by opposition, forced abortion in NI thanks to the results of the 2017 election for one and two, small things but not bad whilst being attacked on all sides and having to fight for your political life day in day out.
Which is going to be a damn sight (or is that site...) more than screw the poor Labour run by someone like Starmer will achieve but as a Tory voter that is what you wanted, useless opposition under Starmer.
I remember a conversation on here about how the Conservatives were going to have to abandon landlords and a landlord on here complaining about how things were already tough enough etc. well no worries, Labour wants to appeal to the kind of aspirational people that become landlords again, Conservatives can relax and go back to priding themselves on being better for landlords.
Outside of those silly people renting win, win.
Govt defeats during a frankly absurd time in the history of parliament? The worst whipping operations I've ever seen by the Tories?
Yep, that was definitely organised by the genius Labour leader who then succumbed to the biggest defeat in deacades.
Definitely nothing to do with the Remainer Tory MPs who were eventually ejected from the party.
The Alice Roberts Stonehenge documentary last night on BBC2 is well worth a watch
Indeed. Watching In was reminded of the book on the genetics of the British and how they showed the patterns of migration, the title of which I cannot remember, but which opined that the evidence demonstrated that post Ice-Age Britain was repopulated from two main and one minor directions; up the west coast of what is now France, from Iberia and into the Western part of the British Isles and from the East, across the Channel and North Sea. The Westerners uniting with the Easterners might well have accounted for the movement of the Henge.
That was Oppenheimer's book. I enjoyed that too, and found it convincing - especially the earlier chapters before it descended deeply into the minutiae of the DNA.
But Tyndall told me it has mostly since been discredited.
Morning. I see BoZo's biggest fan is up with the lark.
Personally, I cannot stand the slovenly buffoon with a penchant for fancy dress photo opportunities. Its like watching the Generation Game at times, and sometimes worse.
I think that's right. Many on the left, who supported the policies, were not fans of Corbyn personally; they were sceptical about his leadership abilities and his ability to be an effective PM. The Corbyn cult was noisy but not as large as it seemed, even with the party.
Incidentally, once Starmer starts developing a policy offer I don't think he will tack to the right as much as you fear. The patriotic stuff is symbolic, rather than indicative of policy.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Plenty of pro Corbyn people I follow on twitter and my own personal reaction to Starmer was okay not my choice but be reasonable give him a chance and his leadership campaign was sorta left wing as well, some people (quite a decent number) I follow pro Corbyn voted for him as leader over RLB. Novara media were I'd almost say cautiously optimistic, the actual immediate anti Starmer reaction was very small.
The problem is (we can argue it is perception or whatever) Starmers leadership has consisted of punching left and breaking pledges he made in the leadership campaign to the left. The anti Starmer mood from even people who voted for Starmer on my twitter is evident. If you are left wing at this point why would you trust Starmer?
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
Only that he isn't Johnson. My pain threshold must be higher than yours but that'll be enough for me. Maybe he'll find a way to get three Union Jacks behind him for his next PPB which by all accounts will sew up the Hartlepudlian vote
I think that's right. Many on the left, who supported the policies, were not fans of Corbyn personally; they were sceptical about his leadership abilities and his ability to be an effective PM. The Corbyn cult was noisy but not as large as it seemed, even with the party.
Incidentally, once Starmer starts developing a policy offer I don't think he will tack to the right as much as you fear. The patriotic stuff is symbolic, rather than indicative of policy.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Plenty of pro Corbyn people I follow on twitter and my own personal reaction to Starmer was okay not my choice but be reasonable give him a chance and his leadership campaign was sorta left wing as well, some people (quite a decent number) I follow pro Corbyn voted for him as leader over RLB. Novara media were I'd almost say cautiously optimistic, the actual immediate anti Starmer reaction was very small.
The problem is (we can argue it is perception or whatever) Starmers leadership has consisted of punching left and breaking pledges he made in the leadership campaign to the left. The anti Starmer mood from even people who voted for Starmer on my twitter is evident. If you are left wing at this point why would you trust Starmer?
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
Fantastic news. For the Tories.
I know you think I am or the people I support are evil etc. but to help you understand me if Anna Soubry had taken over the Conservatives and spent her times attacking right wing voters for being all kinds of terrible and overruling democracy within the party kicking out MPs for being right wing and you thought Labour weren't much different...
Would you vote for her Tories or prefer Labour to beat them?
I am angry that taxpayer money is used for that purpose Scott. Even Guido has criticised Boris for that. What does that have to do with saying comparing photo op trips to north Korea is silly when politicians are well known for such silly photo ops?
You're doing that thing where you assume anyone making a point you dont like must be a fan of Boris. I simply prefer to criticise him for being, to my mind, a bad prime minister.
Yes, he is a terrible Prime Minister, but 3 government employees whose job is solely to produce hagiographic images of the Glorious Leader (and his dog) is slightly North Korean, is it not?
But it seems we can't get enough of this pastiche of Rik Mayal's New Statesman.
The mainstream media narrative is more favourable to Johnson than any other Prime Minister, I can recall, irrespective of how outrageous his behaviour or performance. Remember if you will the "Cenotaph affair".
The Alice Roberts Stonehenge documentary last night on BBC2 is well worth a watch
Indeed. Watching In was reminded of the book on the genetics of the British and how they showed the patterns of migration, the title of which I cannot remember, but which opined that the evidence demonstrated that post Ice-Age Britain was repopulated from two main and one minor directions; up the west coast of what is now France, from Iberia and into the Western part of the British Isles and from the East, across the Channel and North Sea. The Westerners uniting with the Easterners might well have accounted for the movement of the Henge.
That was Oppenheimer's book. I enjoyed that too, and found it convincing - especially the earlier chapters before it descended deeply into the minutiae of the DNA.
But Tyndall told me it has mostly since been discredited.
Really? Missed that; obviously we're learning about genetics all the time, and about how to apply that science to human movement.
I think that's right. Many on the left, who supported the policies, were not fans of Corbyn personally; they were sceptical about his leadership abilities and his ability to be an effective PM. The Corbyn cult was noisy but not as large as it seemed, even with the party.
Incidentally, once Starmer starts developing a policy offer I don't think he will tack to the right as much as you fear. The patriotic stuff is symbolic, rather than indicative of policy.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Plenty of pro Corbyn people I follow on twitter and my own personal reaction to Starmer was okay not my choice but be reasonable give him a chance and his leadership campaign was sorta left wing as well, some people (quite a decent number) I follow pro Corbyn voted for him as leader over RLB. Novara media were I'd almost say cautiously optimistic, the actual immediate anti Starmer reaction was very small.
The problem is (we can argue it is perception or whatever) Starmers leadership has consisted of punching left and breaking pledges he made in the leadership campaign to the left. The anti Starmer mood from even people who voted for Starmer on my twitter is evident. If you are left wing at this point why would you trust Starmer?
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
Fantastic news. For the Tories.
I know you think I am or the people I support are evil etc. but to help you understand me if Anna Soubry had taken over the Conservatives and spent her times attacking right wing voters for being all kinds of terrible and overruling democracy within the party kicking out MPs for being right wing and you thought Labour weren't much different...
Would you vote for her Tories or prefer Labour to beat them?
On the basis that I’d prefer a Conservative government to a Labour government, of course I’d vote Tory.
It’s always better to be inside the tent pissing out, and Soubry would agree with more of my views than any Labour leader, even though we might disagree on matters European.
The Alice Roberts Stonehenge documentary last night on BBC2 is well worth a watch
Indeed. Watching In was reminded of the book on the genetics of the British and how they showed the patterns of migration, the title of which I cannot remember, but which opined that the evidence demonstrated that post Ice-Age Britain was repopulated from two main and one minor directions; up the west coast of what is now France, from Iberia and into the Western part of the British Isles and from the East, across the Channel and North Sea. The Westerners uniting with the Easterners might well have accounted for the movement of the Henge.
That was Oppenheimer's book. I enjoyed that too, and found it convincing - especially the earlier chapters before it descended deeply into the minutiae of the DNA.
But Tyndall told me it has mostly since been discredited.
Really? Missed that; obviously we're learning about genetics all the time, and about how to apply that science to human movement.
At the least, the Stonehenge discoveries indicates that both ideas and people have been moving about Britain for millennia. Moving house and taking your standing stones with you puts modern removal into the shade.
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
In the 2017 GE we retook Stockton South from the Tories. We selected a very non-Corbyn candidate, crafted a very Blairite campaign which largely ignored national stuff, and unexpectedly won. When I sat co-writing the campaign materials we weren't spreading the message that "the Labour party (at that time) hated the country, hated soldiers loved the enemy etc", we were trying to dismiss that message which was coming directly from Corbyn's gob.
Labour lost comfortably in 2017. You lot pushed this myth that the performance was a triumph, that if only a few thousand people in a few dozen seats voted the other way then there could have been a triumphant Labour+every other party government which could have brought about World Peace. It was and is rampant bollocks. For all that May screwed her campaign up, she increased the Tory vote by 20%. As we then saw in 2019 that trend continued as traditional Labour voters turned out in their droves to vote Tory.
Corbyn - and all of you in his cult - utterly destroyed the party. Voters who were LLLLLLL across the board voting Tory because Corbyn hated them, their country, their basic beliefs. At which point hard left entryists literally started jabbing the finger in faces and arguing.
The party is doing the "80s re-enactment" because the only way to regain the trust of working people is to purge the lunatics. And unlike Kinnock, Starmer has provben that he is shit at that as well. Corbyn - and all those around him - brought the party into disrepute over the EHRC debacle. Which means they can be expelled by the GC. Not have the whip removed from only Corbyn so that so-called Labour supporters can pay for Him to sue their own party.
Purge the lot. Then you all fuck off back to your lunatic Socialist Unity splinter groups and the party had a chance to be relevant again. Won't happen. Because Keith is a bit shit.
Sheesh you Blairites are bad winners, you have a party that removes leaders voted in by members on the say of rich donors, you have a party driving away black and minority members and driving away younger people, you have a leader sucking up to the right wing press, you have Corbyn with the whip suspended, you have the suspension of democracy with CLPs being overruled and made to chance from people critical of dear leader...
You have everything you have wanted and still you whine and complain.
To be fair to Starmer even with the best will in the world what more do you want from him? he cannot actually start a campaign of sterilisation against people who want nationalised railways until he gets into office.
The party isn't doing a 80's re-enactment because it wants to win, do you want me to get you the at the time private quotes from the Labour right in response to Labour doing better than expected.....
It isn't disappointment we didn't do better.
Also just to correct you there, working people actually voted for Labour in 2017 in greater numbers, it was the people in retirement age who did it for 'us'.
I think when you say working people you mean people over the age of 50?
Never quite understood the strange idea that millions of not old people votes are bad to get and you only want the older ones. Is it because the younger voters don't share your Blairite views?
TBH it was you Blairites who are more interested in rich donors than normal people that destroyed the Labour party. This may shock you but the Labour party wasn't actually set up to serve the rich...
Remind us what influence the SWP flavoured Labour party has when it continually fails to get into government?
Corbyn holds the record for government defeats by opposition, forced abortion in NI thanks to the results of the 2017 election for one and two, small things but not bad whilst being attacked on all sides and having to fight for your political life day in day out.
Which is going to be a damn sight (or is that site...) more than screw the poor Labour run by someone like Starmer will achieve but as a Tory voter that is what you wanted, useless opposition under Starmer.
I remember a conversation on here about how the Conservatives were going to have to abandon landlords and a landlord on here complaining about how things were already tough enough etc. well no worries, Labour wants to appeal to the kind of aspirational people that become landlords again, Conservatives can relax and go back to priding themselves on being better for landlords.
Outside of those silly people renting win, win.
Govt defeats during a frankly absurd time in the history of parliament? The worst whipping operations I've ever seen by the Tories?
Yep, that was definitely organised by the genius Labour leader who then succumbed to the biggest defeat in deacades.
Definitely nothing to do with the Remainer Tory MPs who were eventually ejected from the party.
As with football you can put almost everything down to the opposition if you don't want to give credit to the other team.
My understanding so far from some posters is absolutely anything positive achieved by Corbyn was done to luck and other people being useless and the reason people much better than him can't repeat these tricks is purely because Corbyn is uniquely lucky.
I've been a Manchester United fan for years, the amount of times I would hear luck used as an excuse is incredible, to the point where I fully embraced the saying I'd rather be lucky than good, truth is people like to overestimate luck when it suits them...
Although quite frankly if a left wing Labour leader will do better than a right wing one purely because of luck even though he is much worse than the far superior right wing one then let us pick lucky left wing leaders rather than unlucky right wing ones which do worse despite actually being much better by agreement of the press.
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
The Labour Party, for some time, have needed to get back to their roots. While to preserve the Red Wall I don’t think the Tories will prune back much employment protection legislation - the Working Time Directive and TUPE being the main legislation deriving entirely from EU directives as opposed to UK Acts of Parliament and the former has been in their sights since it was implemented, The employment law workaround that Uber, Amazon, Pimlico Plumbers et al have found is to make everyone self employed contractors. Workers in the gig economy are an increasingly exploited class. That unfairness is something that can resonate with Joe Voter more than the culture war trap the right increasingly exploit to great advantage.
I don't want to bang on about Corbyn... but you know... my username...
In 2017 in almost all these red wall places Labour put on votes, in a lot of them less than the Tories. Labour at this point had things to say about gig economy workers as well.
One very real problem I wonder about is if all those Labour MPs who helped spread the message that the Labour party (at that time) hated the country, hated soldiers loved the enemy etc. salted the ground for themselves and helped to an extent to exacerbate the culture war they now can't fight. If you look at the vote share in Northern England red wall constituencies if has been going down for a long time (with probably some of those reasons not being realistically fixable) 2017 was the one deviation from a long downward trend.
Realistically nobody will actually be interested in this data point because Corbyn led the party at the time and that would get in the way of the Labour right doing their whole 80's re-enactment thing..
I think Corbyn will end up as a gargoyle on a misericord.
But I can't remember which parish church used to fly the Sinn Fein flag in the years after the war. Was it in Essex?
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
The Labour Party, for some time, have needed to get back to their roots. While to preserve the Red Wall I don’t think the Tories will prune back much employment protection legislation - the Working Time Directive and TUPE being the main legislation deriving entirely from EU directives as opposed to UK Acts of Parliament and the former has been in their sights since it was implemented, The employment law workaround that Uber, Amazon, Pimlico Plumbers et al have found is to make everyone self employed contractors. Workers in the gig economy are an increasingly exploited class. That unfairness is something that can resonate with Joe Voter more than the culture war trap the right increasingly exploit to great advantage.
I don't want to bang on about Corbyn... but you know... my username...
In 2017 in almost all these red wall places Labour put on votes, in a lot of them less than the Tories. Labour at this point had things to say about gig economy workers as well.
One very real problem I wonder about is if all those Labour MPs who helped spread the message that the Labour party (at that time) hated the country, hated soldiers loved the enemy etc. salted the ground for themselves and helped to an extent to exacerbate the culture war they now can't fight. If you look at the vote share in Northern England red wall constituencies if has been going down for a long time (with probably some of those reasons not being realistically fixable) 2017 was the one deviation from a long downward trend.
Realistically nobody will actually be interested in this data point because Corbyn led the party at the time and that would get in the way of the Labour right doing their whole 80's re-enactment thing..
Just pulling up Mansfield, as the red wall seat of choice, you are right that in 2017 Labour put on 5% there. The problem being that Labour put on 9% nationally, hence there was still an adverse relative swing there. That, and the fact that Corbyn led in 2019 as well, would appear to suggest you don't really have a point?
So what you are saying is Labour should completely disregard why they put on votes somewhere they have been losing them for 20 years in a seat they want to win back?!
I think you have a point but I am not sure it is a very good one. I don't think anybody of note is suggesting you put Corbyn as leader but ignoring why you gained votes somewhere you want to gain votes is either incompetence or because it might get in the way of doing a Labour 1980s re-enactment.
Labour put on votes in almost every constituency in 2017 as part of their 9.6 point national rise.
Which was my original point.
It is certainly worth looking at the reasons for the 2017 'surprise' (many of which surely concern the Tories rather than Labour), but the relatively poorer performance in the so-called red wall was evident even then.
Look I mean I actually want Labour to do badly in the next election so by all means lets ignore anything that reversed a negative trend in seats that everyone claims to be the focus (when it suits their purposes, red wall wasn't as vital in the Brexit debate in Labour though because they were closer to Corbyn's view at the time, then it was all about Labour members who were quite supportive of Corbyn being 'betrayed' by him...)
It was all Theresa May, yeah that'll do it... but also Tony Blair winning was nothing to do with Black Wednesday and the Tories being incompetent, purely down to political positioning... also forget the bit about everyone raving about May being great in many eyes until she actually met the campaigning force that is Jezza. Also May didn't get that many votes less than Johnson, the big difference between them was the collapse of the Labour vote...
No worries, I'm sure Starmer will be a fantastic campaigner, I can practially hear crowds singing his name already.
On the contrary, I agree with you that Starmer is unlikely to morph into an ace campaigner. And also that Corbyn's radical and largely inter-generational agenda cut through in 2017. With a big helping hand from Tory self destruction. But proved ineffective against the simpler Brexit message of 2019.
Absolutely. It’s very clear that Corbyn motivated a lot of voters. The problem for the left is that he motivated voters /on both sides of the political spectrum/. There’s no point denying this - it’s clear from the polling.
A GOTV program that motivates people to vote against you isn’t working. It doesn’t matter whether you "won the argument", it doesn’t matter if you were right on the issues - winning is what matters. Getting into power so you can execute on your program is what matters.
Corbyn failed at the latter. Twice. Did elements within the party conspire against him? Sure. Newsflash! Every party is riven with internal conflict - your job is to get & take power regardless. Were many of the Corbyn campaign policies good ones? Yes, absolutely! But the communication to the middle of the road voter was dire: If you appeal to the already committed but fail to convert the undecided then you will not take power in this country.
I see a lot of finger pointing over Corbyn & not much in the way of introspection.
Lets pick an example: the universal broadband offer. This is a good idea! Other countries already do it - you walk into an apartment in Finland and you can plug into the wall and get (slowish) internet access. But the communication was /awful/: the way it was sold was if Labour intended to nationalise the UK internet access industry. They didn’t seem to understand how the industry is structured in this country & promptly alienated the entire sector. They could have sold this policy in a way that didn’t scare off the entire industry very easily, but didn’t care to do so, with the result that the policy was ridiculed in the press with no good messaging in place to counter the inevitable pushback.
& the entire campaign was like this: refusing to do the work to understand how policies were going to look to the voters that Labour needed to convert in order to win & shape the messaging & possibly the detail of the policy to solve those problems. Which only fed into the perception that Labour weren’t actually serious about winning; that they were only really serious about appealing to the committed base, no matter how unfair that perception might be.
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
In the 2017 GE we retook Stockton South from the Tories. We selected a very non-Corbyn candidate, crafted a very Blairite campaign which largely ignored national stuff, and unexpectedly won. When I sat co-writing the campaign materials we weren't spreading the message that "the Labour party (at that time) hated the country, hated soldiers loved the enemy etc", we were trying to dismiss that message which was coming directly from Corbyn's gob.
Labour lost comfortably in 2017. You lot pushed this myth that the performance was a triumph, that if only a few thousand people in a few dozen seats voted the other way then there could have been a triumphant Labour+every other party government which could have brought about World Peace. It was and is rampant bollocks. For all that May screwed her campaign up, she increased the Tory vote by 20%. As we then saw in 2019 that trend continued as traditional Labour voters turned out in their droves to vote Tory.
Corbyn - and all of you in his cult - utterly destroyed the party. Voters who were LLLLLLL across the board voting Tory because Corbyn hated them, their country, their basic beliefs. At which point hard left entryists literally started jabbing the finger in faces and arguing.
The party is doing the "80s re-enactment" because the only way to regain the trust of working people is to purge the lunatics. And unlike Kinnock, Starmer has provben that he is shit at that as well. Corbyn - and all those around him - brought the party into disrepute over the EHRC debacle. Which means they can be expelled by the GC. Not have the whip removed from only Corbyn so that so-called Labour supporters can pay for Him to sue their own party.
Purge the lot. Then you all fuck off back to your lunatic Socialist Unity splinter groups and the party had a chance to be relevant again. Won't happen. Because Keith is a bit shit.
Sheesh you Blairites are bad winners, you have a party that removes leaders voted in by members on the say of rich donors, you have a party driving away black and minority members and driving away younger people, you have a leader sucking up to the right wing press, you have Corbyn with the whip suspended, you have the suspension of democracy with CLPs being overruled and made to chance from people critical of dear leader...
You have everything you have wanted and still you whine and complain.
To be fair to Starmer even with the best will in the world what more do you want from him? he cannot actually start a campaign of sterilisation against people who want nationalised railways until he gets into office.
The party isn't doing a 80's re-enactment because it wants to win, do you want me to get you the at the time private quotes from the Labour right in response to Labour doing better than expected.....
It isn't disappointment we didn't do better.
Also just to correct you there, working people actually voted for Labour in 2017 in greater numbers, it was the people in retirement age who did it for 'us'.
I think when you say working people you mean people over the age of 50?
Never quite understood the strange idea that millions of not old people votes are bad to get and you only want the older ones. Is it because the younger voters don't share your Blairite views?
TBH it was you Blairites who are more interested in rich donors than normal people that destroyed the Labour party. This may shock you but the Labour party wasn't actually set up to serve the rich...
Remind us what influence the SWP flavoured Labour party has when it continually fails to get into government?
Corbyn holds the record for government defeats by opposition, forced abortion in NI thanks to the results of the 2017 election for one and two, small things but not bad whilst being attacked on all sides and having to fight for your political life day in day out.
Which is going to be a damn sight (or is that site...) more than screw the poor Labour run by someone like Starmer will achieve but as a Tory voter that is what you wanted, useless opposition under Starmer.
I remember a conversation on here about how the Conservatives were going to have to abandon landlords and a landlord on here complaining about how things were already tough enough etc. well no worries, Labour wants to appeal to the kind of aspirational people that become landlords again, Conservatives can relax and go back to priding themselves on being better for landlords.
Outside of those silly people renting win, win.
Much like your namesake, the purity of ideology is what is important. Better to harp from the sidelines and complain about Conservative Governments in perpetuity, it is a happier place than a compromise Labour government, for anyone called the Jezziah.
I think that's right. Many on the left, who supported the policies, were not fans of Corbyn personally; they were sceptical about his leadership abilities and his ability to be an effective PM. The Corbyn cult was noisy but not as large as it seemed, even with the party.
Incidentally, once Starmer starts developing a policy offer I don't think he will tack to the right as much as you fear. The patriotic stuff is symbolic, rather than indicative of policy.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Plenty of pro Corbyn people I follow on twitter and my own personal reaction to Starmer was okay not my choice but be reasonable give him a chance and his leadership campaign was sorta left wing as well, some people (quite a decent number) I follow pro Corbyn voted for him as leader over RLB. Novara media were I'd almost say cautiously optimistic, the actual immediate anti Starmer reaction was very small.
The problem is (we can argue it is perception or whatever) Starmers leadership has consisted of punching left and breaking pledges he made in the leadership campaign to the left. The anti Starmer mood from even people who voted for Starmer on my twitter is evident. If you are left wing at this point why would you trust Starmer?
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
Only that he isn't Johnson. My pain threshold must be higher than yours but that'll be enough for me. Maybe he'll find a way to get three Union Jacks behind him for his next PPB which by all accounts will sew up the Hartlepudlian vote
I have abstained as many elections as I have voted or perhaps more I have a low threshold for voting to be honest, it is why I don't try to preach to people that they must vote for this lesser evil or this one.... I can only bring myself to vote for at least good (I don't expect perfect)
That was one of the biggest mistakes Ive ever seen in terms of TV replays for cricket. They didnt bother to look at the important part of the footage, which was the ball coming back off the pad onto the glove. England lost a review too.
Anecdata. Every single one of my Zoom or Teams calls with an employer client in the last two weeks has had at least one participant logging in from the office.
Amongst those of my mates who found WFH a great novelty at the start, not a single person wants it to continue.
I've done WFH. I've done WFO. I've done working from a clients office. Frankly, unless I'm writing a report to a deadline or making an excel model, I'm always more efficient in an office.
I don’t know what will happen but Zoom Fatigue is real. There will be less time spent in offices to be sure but reports of their death is exaggerated. Back in the late 90s, when I was a trainee solicitor, the head of the department I qualified into worked from home 2 or more days a week so it was possible even then - but he wasn’t popular. Even after I qualified in 2000 I could dial into my work email and work from hoke that way but felt out of the loop. I’m going in for the first time next week or the week after as I have a physical trial bundle to prepare.
Some will continue to use it if they had long commutes, itll be hard to tell them they MUST return, but I agree with the fatigue. And while we all moan about work for some getting in to office is a break from home, with the random casual socialisation it entails.
Those who live in cities, close to their offices, are those less likely to have room to work from home. The WFH debate is slightly elitist and favours empty nest Boomers who can work from their kids old bedrooms. Millennials and, to a lesser extent, Gen Xers don’t have the housing stock to be able to work from home as effectively. And the youngest boomers are still only in their mid 50s.
Lots of people still working from their parent's kitchens.
WFH won't suit many, often younger, employees. Nowhere to work from at home - shared housing, small children - lack of social opportunities, and difficulty of finding a mentor, learning from colleagues etc. But I'm quite comfortable working from my spare bedroom and I reckon I'm pretty effective, but then I'm not exactly doing what I was doing this time last year. My employer is talking about blended work for an undefined future when things get back more to normal, and I expect I could happily work 2-3 days a week from home. What I miss most is being out and about - I used to cover 2 offices so was rarely in the same place two days running - rather than face to face contact with my colleagues. Teams is fine. On a positive note, meetings are shorter, I have been able to attend some useful external meetings I probably wouldn't have got to, and senior management is more visible, talking directly to the staff and noticeably freezing out the fuckwits in the middle who have always tried to do their own command-and-control thing. What makes WFH harder is the current lockdown: once I can get out and see my friends again it will stop being so isolating. And WFH makes midweek drinking possible again: I can start and therefore finish earlier, get up later, and don't need to be fit to drive.
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
The Labour Party, for some time, have needed to get back to their roots. While to preserve the Red Wall I don’t think the Tories will prune back much employment protection legislation - the Working Time Directive and TUPE being the main legislation deriving entirely from EU directives as opposed to UK Acts of Parliament and the former has been in their sights since it was implemented, The employment law workaround that Uber, Amazon, Pimlico Plumbers et al have found is to make everyone self employed contractors. Workers in the gig economy are an increasingly exploited class. That unfairness is something that can resonate with Joe Voter more than the culture war trap the right increasingly exploit to great advantage.
I don't want to bang on about Corbyn... but you know... my username...
In 2017 in almost all these red wall places Labour put on votes, in a lot of them less than the Tories. Labour at this point had things to say about gig economy workers as well.
One very real problem I wonder about is if all those Labour MPs who helped spread the message that the Labour party (at that time) hated the country, hated soldiers loved the enemy etc. salted the ground for themselves and helped to an extent to exacerbate the culture war they now can't fight. If you look at the vote share in Northern England red wall constituencies if has been going down for a long time (with probably some of those reasons not being realistically fixable) 2017 was the one deviation from a long downward trend.
Realistically nobody will actually be interested in this data point because Corbyn led the party at the time and that would get in the way of the Labour right doing their whole 80's re-enactment thing..
Just pulling up Mansfield, as the red wall seat of choice, you are right that in 2017 Labour put on 5% there. The problem being that Labour put on 9% nationally, hence there was still an adverse relative swing there. That, and the fact that Corbyn led in 2019 as well, would appear to suggest you don't really have a point?
So what you are saying is Labour should completely disregard why they put on votes somewhere they have been losing them for 20 years in a seat they want to win back?!
I think you have a point but I am not sure it is a very good one. I don't think anybody of note is suggesting you put Corbyn as leader but ignoring why you gained votes somewhere you want to gain votes is either incompetence or because it might get in the way of doing a Labour 1980s re-enactment.
Labour put on votes in almost every constituency in 2017 as part of their 9.6 point national rise.
Which was my original point.
It is certainly worth looking at the reasons for the 2017 'surprise' (many of which surely concern the Tories rather than Labour), but the relatively poorer performance in the so-called red wall was evident even then.
Look I mean I actually want Labour to do badly in the next election so by all means lets ignore anything that reversed a negative trend in seats that everyone claims to be the focus (when it suits their purposes, red wall wasn't as vital in the Brexit debate in Labour though because they were closer to Corbyn's view at the time, then it was all about Labour members who were quite supportive of Corbyn being 'betrayed' by him...)
It was all Theresa May, yeah that'll do it... but also Tony Blair winning was nothing to do with Black Wednesday and the Tories being incompetent, purely down to political positioning... also forget the bit about everyone raving about May being great in many eyes until she actually met the campaigning force that is Jezza. Also May didn't get that many votes less than Johnson, the big difference between them was the collapse of the Labour vote...
No worries, I'm sure Starmer will be a fantastic campaigner, I can practially hear crowds singing his name already.
On the contrary, I agree with you that Starmer is unlikely to morph into an ace campaigner. And also that Corbyn's radical and largely inter-generational agenda cut through in 2017. With a big helping hand from Tory self destruction. But proved ineffective against the simpler Brexit message of 2019.
Johnson got to run the Brexit campaign May wanted to run because of Labours policy shift to peoples vote, there were other factors but May must have been so jealous that Johnson got to the the Brexit person whereas she couldn't claim the opposition wanted to stop Brexit.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
That was one of the biggest mistakes Ive ever seen in terms of TV replays for cricket. They didnt bother to look at the important part of the footage, which was the ball coming back off the pad onto the glove. England lost a review too.
Yes, England’s appeal was that he should have been given out caught. Moot now though, but the team manager will likely be asking the match referee for our review to be re-instated.
I think that's right. Many on the left, who supported the policies, were not fans of Corbyn personally; they were sceptical about his leadership abilities and his ability to be an effective PM. The Corbyn cult was noisy but not as large as it seemed, even with the party.
Incidentally, once Starmer starts developing a policy offer I don't think he will tack to the right as much as you fear. The patriotic stuff is symbolic, rather than indicative of policy.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Plenty of pro Corbyn people I follow on twitter and my own personal reaction to Starmer was okay not my choice but be reasonable give him a chance and his leadership campaign was sorta left wing as well, some people (quite a decent number) I follow pro Corbyn voted for him as leader over RLB. Novara media were I'd almost say cautiously optimistic, the actual immediate anti Starmer reaction was very small.
The problem is (we can argue it is perception or whatever) Starmers leadership has consisted of punching left and breaking pledges he made in the leadership campaign to the left. The anti Starmer mood from even people who voted for Starmer on my twitter is evident. If you are left wing at this point why would you trust Starmer?
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
Fantastic news. For the Tories.
I know you think I am or the people I support are evil etc. but to help you understand me if Anna Soubry had taken over the Conservatives and spent her times attacking right wing voters for being all kinds of terrible and overruling democracy within the party kicking out MPs for being right wing and you thought Labour weren't much different...
Would you vote for her Tories or prefer Labour to beat them?
On the basis that I’d prefer a Conservative government to a Labour government, of course I’d vote Tory.
It’s always better to be inside the tent pissing out, and Soubry would agree with more of my views than any Labour leader, even though we might disagree on matters European.
There comes a point when the elastic eventually snaps. Take Douglas Carswell, or Rory Stewart. Unless you are going to LUV the party 4 EVAH, which is the path many Conservative loyalists have swallowed, it's sometimes right to just go.
But if Starmer- let's face it, he's pretty left wing- is a sellout then something's gone wrong with your calibration.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
Up here in Buchan its still freezing cold. Lots of snow on the ground though the roads and pavements are clear. Went for a walk last night, very little to hear apart from the stream, a fantastic display of stars overhead. So very different to suburban Teesside.
Entertainingly half the village seems to know we are here and that we were coming. OK so the house is one of the feature ones and the previous owners had been here 30 years, and we already had my brother's family up here.
Its still quite nice though - chatting with the lady in the shop and she said "my little boy likes to run in your side garden, I've been trying to tell him he can't do now its been sold". Naah, let him run around, its no problem.
Scotland, unlike most of England AIUI, is still reasonably well set up to cope with snow because we get it often enough to make it worth it. You will also find that the average driver is rather better at handling it, again because it is not alien to them.
This is a real cold patch though. I don't recall the like over the last 10 years. More snow expected tomorrow.
I went for a walk yesterday afternoon. It was absolutely glorious. The sun was glinting on the white hills and the snow was firm and dry under foot. Enjoy it.
I have not noticed any problems with snow here (Mansfield area). We've had the same as everywhere - still numbers of people happily cycling around on cleared main roads. We are all at 600ft though, which means we always get a lot more than say nearly all of Nottingham which might as well be at sea level (150 ft).
One snow shower there and it all stops. Snowflakes . Except perhaps the trams.
It looks likely that: 1. Labour will do relatively poorly in the May elections. 2. The far left members and MPs of the party who seem to spend their every waking hour plotting to undermine Starmer will rejoice in that outcome.
As for Labour, they appear to me to be lost. What is the point of Labour?
.
I don't want to bang on about Corbyn... but you know... my username...
In 2017 in almost all these red wall places Labour put on votes, in a lot of them less than the Tories. Labour at this point had things to say about gig economy workers as well.
One very real problem I wonder about is if all those Labour MPs who helped spread the message that the Labour party (at that time) hated the country, hated soldiers loved the enemy etc. salted the ground for themselves and helped to an extent to exacerbate the culture war they now can't fight. If you look at the vote share in Northern England red wall constituencies if has been going down for a long time (with probably some of those reasons not being realistically fixable) 2017 was the one deviation from a long downward trend.
Realistically nobody will actually be interested in this data point because Corbyn led the party at the time and that would get in the way of the Labour right doing their whole 80's re-enactment thing..
Just pulling up Mansfield, as the red wall seat of choice, you are right that in 2017 Labour put on 5% there. The problem being that Labour put on 9% nationally, hence there was still an adverse relative swing there. That, and the fact that Corbyn led in 2019 as well, would appear to suggest you don't really have a point?
So what you are saying is Labour should completely disregard why they put on votes somewhere they have been losing them for 20 years in a seat they want to win back?!
I think you have a point but I am not sure it is a very good one. I don't think anybody of note is suggesting you put Corbyn as leader but ignoring why you gained votes somewhere you want to gain votes is either incompetence or because it might get in the way of doing a Labour 1980s re-enactment.
Labour put on votes in almost every constituency in 2017 as part of their 9.6 point national rise.
Which was my original point.
It is certainly worth looking at the reasons for the 2017 'surprise' (many of which surely concern the Tories rather than Labour), but the relatively poorer performance in the so-called red wall was evident even then.
Look I mean I actually want Labour to do badly in the next election so by all means lets ignore anything that reversed a negative trend in seats that everyone claims to be the focus (when it suits their purposes, red wall wasn't as vital in the Brexit debate in Labour though because they were closer to Corbyn's view at the time, then it was all about Labour members who were quite supportive of Corbyn being 'betrayed' by him...)
It was all Theresa May, yeah that'll do it... but also Tony Blair winning was nothing to do with Black Wednesday and the Tories being incompetent, purely down to political positioning... also forget the bit about everyone raving about May being great in many eyes until she actually met the campaigning force that is Jezza. Also May didn't get that many votes less than Johnson, the big difference between them was the collapse of the Labour vote...
No worries, I'm sure Starmer will be a fantastic campaigner, I can practially hear crowds singing his name already.
On the contrary, I agree with you that Starmer is unlikely to morph into an ace campaigner. And also that Corbyn's radical and largely inter-generational agenda cut through in 2017. With a big helping hand from Tory self destruction. But proved ineffective against the simpler Brexit message of 2019.
Absolutely. It’s very clear that Corbyn motivated a lot of voters. The problem for the left is that he motivated voters /on both sides of the political spectrum/. There’s no point denying this - it’s clear from the polling.
A GOTV program that motivates people to vote against you isn’t working. It doesn’t matter whether you "won the argument", it doesn’t matter if you were right on the issues - winning is what matters. Getting into power so you can execute on your program is what matters.
Cut some stuff just to save space, in response to some of that though 2019 was just a mess in general.
From the after the election polling (2017) Corbyn was a more of a boost to the Labour vote than the Tory vote
Now anti Corbyn in the Tory vote column is 14 whereas pro Labour pro Corbyn is 13, so -1 there...
But manifesto is 28 and providing hope/fairness for the many is 12
The manifesto is more arguable, although it is hard to argue against the idea Labours manifesto was left wing because Corbyn was leader.
A Labour leader will always be attacked and thus have anti votes but will also always attract votes (even Starmer)
Considering how crap Labour have been for so long maybe they are better off with someone who can actually attract a decent number of voters even if it pushes a decent number of voters to the Tories as well.
Hoping to win via widespread apathy especially with the loss of Scotland sounds like more of a losing strategy than actually inspiring some people even if it also boosts the Conservative vote.
I mean I guess 2017 is the example there, probably drove up votes for both sides but Labour actually benefitted more it than the Conservatives.
Although quite frankly if a left wing Labour leader will do better than a right wing one purely because of luck even though he is much worse than the far superior right wing one then let us pick lucky left wing leaders rather than unlucky right wing ones which do worse despite actually being much better by agreement of the press.
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones."
The Alice Roberts Stonehenge documentary last night on BBC2 is well worth a watch
Indeed. Watching In was reminded of the book on the genetics of the British and how they showed the patterns of migration, the title of which I cannot remember, but which opined that the evidence demonstrated that post Ice-Age Britain was repopulated from two main and one minor directions; up the west coast of what is now France, from Iberia and into the Western part of the British Isles and from the East, across the Channel and North Sea. The Westerners uniting with the Easterners might well have accounted for the movement of the Henge.
That was Oppenheimer's book. I enjoyed that too, and found it convincing - especially the earlier chapters before it descended deeply into the minutiae of the DNA.
But Tyndall told me it has mostly since been discredited.
New evidence sadly. It is now apparent that the original post glacial inhabitants of the British isles were almost entirely wiped out at the end of the Neolithic. It appears there is a 90% plus annihilation of the pre-existing population of the British isles within perhaps as little as one generation and their replacement by a new peoples originating (we think) in Spain. I was educated in the 80s in exactly the sort of migration hypothesis you talk about but it is now well out of date.
It is not clear what actually led to the almost complete removal of the native population - disease is the most obvious cause with the new arrivals inadvertently bringing something with them that they themselves were immune to. But no one knows for sure.
This is how the Independent reported the new hypothesis back in 2018
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
The Alice Roberts Stonehenge documentary last night on BBC2 is well worth a watch
Indeed. Watching In was reminded of the book on the genetics of the British and how they showed the patterns of migration, the title of which I cannot remember, but which opined that the evidence demonstrated that post Ice-Age Britain was repopulated from two main and one minor directions; up the west coast of what is now France, from Iberia and into the Western part of the British Isles and from the East, across the Channel and North Sea. The Westerners uniting with the Easterners might well have accounted for the movement of the Henge.
That was Oppenheimer's book. I enjoyed that too, and found it convincing - especially the earlier chapters before it descended deeply into the minutiae of the DNA.
But Tyndall told me it has mostly since been discredited.
New evidence sadly. It is now apparent that the original post glacial inhabitants of the British isles were almost entirely wiped out at the end of the Neolithic. It appears there is a 90% plus annihilation of the pre-existing population of the British isles within perhaps as little as one generation and their replacement by a new peoples originating (we think) in Spain. I was educated in the 80s in exactly the sort of migration hypothesis you talk about but it is now well out of date.
It is not clear what actually led to the almost complete removal of the native population - disease is the most obvious cause with the new arrivals inadvertently bringing something with them that they themselves were immune to. But no one knows for sure.
This is how the Independent reported the new hypothesis back in 2018
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
So you attribute no blame at all to Corybn and his policies and positions?
It's not all bad news. Chuka's infiltrated JP Morgan and will be continuing the fight from there. One good man on the inside of the machine is worth a thousand impotents yelling from the sidelines.
Nice to see you back anyway. Some strong points made too. Especially on the 17 election. That was close. Painting it as a rejection of the left is utter nonsense. Then in 19, awful but unwinnable. "Boris" and "Get Brexit Done" was a killer proposition for the country in the mood it was in. Just a matter of how big the Con win was going to be.
So let's not throw out the radical baby with the Corbyn bathwater. It's a balance for me. I want a Labour government to really change things. Otherwise what's the point? But I also do want a Labour government now and again. Otherwise what's the point?
I voted for Nandy but I'm ok with Starmer. Too early to be getting disillusioned. And eye ALWAYS vote Labour. I'm Labour soup to nuts, Foot to Blair.
I think that's right. Many on the left, who supported the policies, were not fans of Corbyn personally; they were sceptical about his leadership abilities and his ability to be an effective PM. The Corbyn cult was noisy but not as large as it seemed, even with the party.
Incidentally, once Starmer starts developing a policy offer I don't think he will tack to the right as much as you fear. The patriotic stuff is symbolic, rather than indicative of policy.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Plenty of pro Corbyn people I follow on twitter and my own personal reaction to Starmer was okay not my choice but be reasonable give him a chance and his leadership campaign was sorta left wing as well, some people (quite a decent number) I follow pro Corbyn voted for him as leader over RLB. Novara media were I'd almost say cautiously optimistic, the actual immediate anti Starmer reaction was very small.
The problem is (we can argue it is perception or whatever) Starmers leadership has consisted of punching left and breaking pledges he made in the leadership campaign to the left. The anti Starmer mood from even people who voted for Starmer on my twitter is evident. If you are left wing at this point why would you trust Starmer?
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
Fantastic news. For the Tories.
I know you think I am or the people I support are evil etc. but to help you understand me if Anna Soubry had taken over the Conservatives and spent her times attacking right wing voters for being all kinds of terrible and overruling democracy within the party kicking out MPs for being right wing and you thought Labour weren't much different...
Would you vote for her Tories or prefer Labour to beat them?
On the basis that I’d prefer a Conservative government to a Labour government, of course I’d vote Tory.
It’s always better to be inside the tent pissing out, and Soubry would agree with more of my views than any Labour leader, even though we might disagree on matters European.
There comes a point when the elastic eventually snaps. Take Douglas Carswell, or Rory Stewart. Unless you are going to LUV the party 4 EVAH, which is the path many Conservative loyalists have swallowed, it's sometimes right to just go.
But if Starmer- let's face it, he's pretty left wing- is a sellout then something's gone wrong with your calibration.
I'm sure Starmer will say more left wing stuff in the future, I am sure he has said some in the past. Quite frankly though considering his leadership campaign and the contrast with his actual leadership there is absolutely no reason to believe any left wing promises from him.
Starmers entire approach has been to punch left, what the hell would be the point in working your ass off to get rid of the left and piss them all off in the process to present a left wing manifesto which you intend to follow through with?
Just work with them to start with, it isn't complicated. The reason to take this route is because you don't want to go in a left wing direction.
Because it's not entirely clear (without reference to Grenfell as I haven't delved into the details) who is the responsible party
- The regulators who approved the products - The developers/builders who used products to spec - The freeholders
If the developers/builders illegally used products that were not in spec they shouldn't just have to pay, they should be fined and probably locked up
But if they used an approved product why should they be solely responsible?
In an ideal world everyone should pay a bit. But it would be crippling for many freeholders, potentially bankrupt a large number of builders. So there is a case for the government to pay to just get it done.
Absolutely.
I can't help thinking that whatever is put in place to replace ground rents will be more expensive to run.
Either new prices will go up to cover an annuity equivalent to a little less than the ground rent, or quality will fall to cover the difference, or supply will fall to exclude the unviable projects.
I think that's right. Many on the left, who supported the policies, were not fans of Corbyn personally; they were sceptical about his leadership abilities and his ability to be an effective PM. The Corbyn cult was noisy but not as large as it seemed, even with the party.
Incidentally, once Starmer starts developing a policy offer I don't think he will tack to the right as much as you fear. The patriotic stuff is symbolic, rather than indicative of policy.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Plenty of pro Corbyn people I follow on twitter and my own personal reaction to Starmer was okay not my choice but be reasonable give him a chance and his leadership campaign was sorta left wing as well, some people (quite a decent number) I follow pro Corbyn voted for him as leader over RLB. Novara media were I'd almost say cautiously optimistic, the actual immediate anti Starmer reaction was very small.
The problem is (we can argue it is perception or whatever) Starmers leadership has consisted of punching left and breaking pledges he made in the leadership campaign to the left. The anti Starmer mood from even people who voted for Starmer on my twitter is evident. If you are left wing at this point why would you trust Starmer?
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
Fantastic news. For the Tories.
I know you think I am or the people I support are evil etc. but to help you understand me if Anna Soubry had taken over the Conservatives and spent her times attacking right wing voters for being all kinds of terrible and overruling democracy within the party kicking out MPs for being right wing and you thought Labour weren't much different...
Would you vote for her Tories or prefer Labour to beat them?
On the basis that I’d prefer a Conservative government to a Labour government, of course I’d vote Tory.
It’s always better to be inside the tent pissing out, and Soubry would agree with more of my views than any Labour leader, even though we might disagree on matters European.
There comes a point when the elastic eventually snaps. Take Douglas Carswell, or Rory Stewart. Unless you are going to LUV the party 4 EVAH, which is the path many Conservative loyalists have swallowed, it's sometimes right to just go.
But if Starmer- let's face it, he's pretty left wing- is a sellout then something's gone wrong with your calibration.
I'm sure Starmer will say more left wing stuff in the future, I am sure he has said some in the past. Quite frankly though considering his leadership campaign and the contrast with his actual leadership there is absolutely no reason to believe any left wing promises from him.
Starmers entire approach has been to punch left, what the hell would be the point in working your ass off to get rid of the left and piss them all off in the process to present a left wing manifesto which you intend to follow through with?
Just work with them to start with, it isn't complicated. The reason to take this route is because you don't want to go in a left wing direction.
Just maybe because you don't think it will be acceptable to the people who really matter? Not Labour activists, but the electorate.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
"A generation of young children have been told to be fearful of close contact with others. Make no mistake - we won't be able to snap our fingers and erase these deep-seated changes."
This is possible. But the other possibility is that the opposite happens. Close contact with others becomes daringly transgressive which is, for teenagers, catnip.
Kohli is my favourite batsman in world cricket because he doesnt always wear a helmet. I think hes the only player around who still wears a cap to bat sometimes against the spinners.
2. The far left members and MPs of the party who seem to spend their every waking hour plotting to undermine Starmer will rejoice in that outcome.
What goes around comes around.
Yep. For many on the right of the Labour Party and at Party HQ the notion of winning under Corbyn was a Plan Z. They preferred a Tory government.
It was also striking that although many in this group adopted "Remain" as their governing political identity once their career prospects in Labour took a dive, when the chance arose to try to bring down May and put in Corbyn as PM with a mandate to reverse Brexit and little else, most had no interest.
It was very pleasing to see yesterday that there appears to be a big change in attitude underway in France to vaccination. An increase in 19% of those who said they will now take the vaccine. Still worry that some 40% will not but at least they are rapidly moving in the right direction.
Kohli is my favourite batsman in world cricket because he doesnt always wear a helmet. I think hes the only player around who still wears a cap to bat sometimes against the spinners.
A world away from Kohli, but I cannot bat in a helmet. I get bowled. Every time.
The Home Secretary Priti Patel been critical of people like premier league footballers taking the knee against racism.Seems to me over the top.Surely peaceful protest in a democracy is a good thing.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
So you attribute no blame at all to Corybn and his policies and positions?
You realise there is a difference between agreeing with others that Corbyn and left wingers are the source of all evil in the world and that Corbyn is the perfect person.
Labour policies and positions along with Corbyn are a large part of why it did so much better in 2017 than previous leaders Brexit a large part of of the loss of votes from 2017 to 2019 (which combined with the previous big increases in Tory vote led to a disaster)
Looking at the reasons for the Tories big vote increase with Johnson mostly maintained rather increased Brexit is a massive factor.
One thing you could pin on Corbyn directly related to that, I don't think the Labour right would have worked as hard with others to force Labour to move to a peoples vote position if Labour had a right wing leader. They would have been more interested in electability, you can see that in how easily many of them dropped it (although some people did do it out of principle)
The argument for Corbyn being bad relies on a centrist Labour leader not only inspiring the same vote Corbyn did in 2017 to combat the Tories but actually an even better vote than that....
Look at Starmer, the any other leader would be 20 points ahead line was a joke from the very beginning. I don't see that a centrist leader would have got anywhere near achieving Labour biggest swing since 1945 in 2017 let alone bettering it and getting into government. 2019 was (in vote share) better than Brown and Miliband, and similar to current Labour polling. It was as poor as the standard centrist Labour leader, a reversion to the mean.
I can pick lots of individual faults with anyone given enough time and evidence but Corbyn was a better overall package than a couple before him and at least one after him.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
So you attribute no blame at all to Corybn and his policies and positions?
You realise there is a difference between agreeing with others that Corbyn and left wingers are the source of all evil in the world and that Corbyn is the perfect person.
Labour policies and positions along with Corbyn are a large part of why it did so much better in 2017 than previous leaders Brexit a large part of of the loss of votes from 2017 to 2019 (which combined with the previous big increases in Tory vote led to a disaster)
Looking at the reasons for the Tories big vote increase with Johnson mostly maintained rather increased Brexit is a massive factor.
One thing you could pin on Corbyn directly related to that, I don't think the Labour right would have worked as hard with others to force Labour to move to a peoples vote position if Labour had a right wing leader. They would have been more interested in electability, you can see that in how easily many of them dropped it (although some people did do it out of principle)
The argument for Corbyn being bad relies on a centrist Labour leader not only inspiring the same vote Corbyn did in 2017 to combat the Tories but actually an even better vote than that....
Look at Starmer, the any other leader would be 20 points ahead line was a joke from the very beginning. I don't see that a centrist leader would have got anywhere near achieving Labour biggest swing since 1945 in 2017 let alone bettering it and getting into government. 2019 was (in vote share) better than Brown and Miliband, and similar to current Labour polling. It was as poor as the standard centrist Labour leader, a reversion to the mean.
I can pick lots of individual faults with anyone given enough time and evidence but Corbyn was a better overall package than a couple before him and at least one after him.
You're now doing something you accused others of doing - blaming defeat on others but claiming all 'successes' for your Messiah.
Starmer is polling better against the same opponent, Johnson, than whopped your absolute boi just over a year ago.
Topping 2017 isn't going to work. Because Mrs May isn't PM anymore....
The Home Secretary Priti Patel been critical of people like premier league footballers taking the knee against racism.Seems to me over the top.Surely peaceful protest in a democracy is a good thing.
It's just virtue signalling for the benefit of a xenophobic audience from Priti
In 2017 the Tories had an 11% lead over Labour in the county council elections so even on current polls Labour should regain some county councillors and control of some county councils like Nottinghamshire.
The district elections will likely see less progress for Starmer's party given Labour were 1% ahead there in 2016 and could even see Labour losses.
In London I expect Khan to be relected and the Tories could even lose the West Central seat and be wiped out at the constituency level in inner London in the Assembly, Labour will also hope to gain the West Midlands Mayoralty, beating Andy Street would be a big prize.
The LDs are likely to be on the defensive, in the 2017 county council elections they got 18% and in the 2016 district elections the LDs got 15% so on current polls the LDs would do well to avoid losing any councillors and just hold their own, though as David says even if they do the gain of the heavily Remain SW London Assembly seat where they now hold most of the MPs would somewhat compensate.
The biggest gainers in the local elections in England are also I agree likely to be the Greens, certainly on voteshare, benefiting from former Corbynistas shifting to them
The Home Secretary Priti Patel been critical of people like premier league footballers taking the knee against racism.Seems to me over the top.Surely peaceful protest in a democracy is a good thing.
And freedom of opinion is too.
I think taking the knee is absolute rot. People are entitled to do it. I'm entitled to criticise it.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
So you attribute no blame at all to Corybn and his policies and positions?
You realise there is a difference between agreeing with others that Corbyn and left wingers are the source of all evil in the world and that Corbyn is the perfect person.
Labour policies and positions along with Corbyn are a large part of why it did so much better in 2017 than previous leaders Brexit a large part of of the loss of votes from 2017 to 2019 (which combined with the previous big increases in Tory vote led to a disaster)
What evidence do you have for that? All the evidence I have seen suggests the opposite - that in 2017 Remainers voted a Labour to protest at Tory rhetoric in spite of Corbyn’s ‘fully costed’ policies (such as £300 million for 10,000 extra police) and then in 2019 they voted Tory because of his woeful leadership and unrealistic policies.
2. The far left members and MPs of the party who seem to spend their every waking hour plotting to undermine Starmer will rejoice in that outcome.
What goes around comes around.
Yep. For many on the right of the Labour Party and at Party HQ the notion of winning under Corbyn was a Plan Z. They preferred a Tory government.
It was also striking that although many in this group adopted "Remain" as their governing political identity once their career prospects in Labour took a dive, when the chance arose to try to bring down May and put in Corbyn as PM with a mandate to reverse Brexit and little else, most had no interest.
Remainers? Give me a break. Pure careerists.
I generally assume that regardless of party all politicians go into politics because they want what they perceive is best for people.
Given how horrendous a Corbyn government would be and how destructive to people's livelihoods it would be if those you call the Labour right would prefer a Tory government than a Corbyn one then they're patriots putting country and their electorate before the party. Good for them.
We need to remember that many Local Authorities are *not* up for election at all this year.
eg Mansfield and Ashfield.
Does that apply to much of the Red Wall?
List of up for election, including current control. A quick inspection reveals that no of total councils with seats up for election is about the same for Lab / Con,
2. The far left members and MPs of the party who seem to spend their every waking hour plotting to undermine Starmer will rejoice in that outcome.
What goes around comes around.
Yep. For many on the right of the Labour Party and at Party HQ the notion of winning under Corbyn was a Plan Z. They preferred a Tory government.
It was also striking that although many in this group adopted "Remain" as their governing political identity once their career prospects in Labour took a dive, when the chance arose to try to bring down May and put in Corbyn as PM with a mandate to reverse Brexit and little else, most had no interest.
Remainers? Give me a break. Pure careerists.
I generally assume that regardless of party all politicians go into politics because they want what they perceive is best for people.
Given how horrendous a Corbyn government would be and how destructive to people's livelihoods it would be if those you call the Labour right would prefer a Tory government than a Corbyn one then they're patriots putting country and their electorate before the party. Good for them.
We can none of us know what the effect of a Corbyn government would have been.
I appreciate your views are sincerely held but it's wrong of you to state your view of its impact as if it were fact. In all honesty how do you think you would have preceived the prospect of an Attlee government in the June 1945?
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
So you attribute no blame at all to Corybn and his policies and positions?
You realise there is a difference between agreeing with others that Corbyn and left wingers are the source of all evil in the world and that Corbyn is the perfect person.
Labour policies and positions along with Corbyn are a large part of why it did so much better in 2017 than previous leaders Brexit a large part of of the loss of votes from 2017 to 2019 (which combined with the previous big increases in Tory vote led to a disaster)
What evidence do you have for that? All the evidence I have seen suggests the opposite - that in 2017 Remainers voted a Labour to protest at Tory rhetoric in spite of Corbyn’s ‘fully costed’ policies (such as £300 million for 10,000 extra police) and then in 2019 they voted Tory because of his woeful leadership and unrealistic policies.
Polling at the time showed that Labour's 2017 programme was genuinely popular, much to the surprise of papers like the Mail which helpfully gave it enormous coverage in the belief that readers would be appalled. At that point, Corbyn was fairly new and many people were willing to give him a hearing, especially as May's government seemed sub-optimal to many.
In 2019, Corbyn's reputation had been severely damaged by the anti-semitism controversy, and the programme jumped the shark with weird promises like free broadband. Johnson's cheery offer seemed the safer alternative to floating voters. But I agree with The Jezziah that the respoinse to the 2017 programme showed that people are up for a healthy dose of social democracy plus some nationalisation. I also think that offering nothing very much would be unwise - a boring Labour Party has no obvious appeal to anyone.
The Alice Roberts Stonehenge documentary last night on BBC2 is well worth a watch
Indeed. Watching In was reminded of the book on the genetics of the British and how they showed the patterns of migration, the title of which I cannot remember, but which opined that the evidence demonstrated that post Ice-Age Britain was repopulated from two main and one minor directions; up the west coast of what is now France, from Iberia and into the Western part of the British Isles and from the East, across the Channel and North Sea. The Westerners uniting with the Easterners might well have accounted for the movement of the Henge.
That was Oppenheimer's book. I enjoyed that too, and found it convincing - especially the earlier chapters before it descended deeply into the minutiae of the DNA.
But Tyndall told me it has mostly since been discredited.
New evidence sadly. It is now apparent that the original post glacial inhabitants of the British isles were almost entirely wiped out at the end of the Neolithic. It appears there is a 90% plus annihilation of the pre-existing population of the British isles within perhaps as little as one generation and their replacement by a new peoples originating (we think) in Spain. I was educated in the 80s in exactly the sort of migration hypothesis you talk about but it is now well out of date.
It is not clear what actually led to the almost complete removal of the native population - disease is the most obvious cause with the new arrivals inadvertently bringing something with them that they themselves were immune to. But no one knows for sure.
This is how the Independent reported the new hypothesis back in 2018
Comments
It was all Theresa May, yeah that'll do it... but also Tony Blair winning was nothing to do with Black Wednesday and the Tories being incompetent, purely down to political positioning... also forget the bit about everyone raving about May being great in many eyes until she actually met the campaigning force that is Jezza. Also May didn't get that many votes less than Johnson, the big difference between them was the collapse of the Labour vote...
No worries, I'm sure Starmer will be a fantastic campaigner, I can practially hear crowds singing his name already.
What I am seeing in my industry is the market rebalancing. Businesses sending £5 books to Europe are finding it uneconomical; focusing on domestic demand for cheaper books and international for higher priced books. And consumers buying £5 books from Europe are switching to British suppliers.
We sell much more expensive books - average price is £200 - and so have always used premium shipping methods. And at a stroke the British ministry now in charge of export licensing have made it easier for dealers to trade. Higher thresholds for needing paperwork. Simplified paperwork etc.
Exagerations can be fine and helpful, but other times it just lets someone off the hook.
But why was the last interview conducted in the pouring rain?
Put the pressure on the home side to provide balanced pitches.
- The regulators who approved the products
- The developers/builders who used products to spec
- The freeholders
If the developers/builders illegally used products that were not in spec they shouldn't just have to pay, they should be fined and probably locked up
But if they used an approved product why should they be solely responsible?
In an ideal world everyone should pay a bit. But it would be crippling for many freeholders, potentially bankrupt a large number of builders. So there is a case for the government to pay to just get it done.
Not helped by the nature of the EU being procedural - as even emdebbed Euronauts will say. That is also why they say that Boris' / Gove's current attempted swashbuckling style of politics will not shift much.
Which is going to be a damn sight (or is that site...) more than screw the poor Labour run by someone like Starmer will achieve but as a Tory voter that is what you wanted, useless opposition under Starmer.
I remember a conversation on here about how the Conservatives were going to have to abandon landlords and a landlord on here complaining about how things were already tough enough etc. well no worries, Labour wants to appeal to the kind of aspirational people that become landlords again, Conservatives can relax and go back to priding themselves on being better for landlords.
Outside of those silly people renting win, win.
But I also doubt that the clown will be swept back to office out of gratitude for a vaccination programme a month or three ahead of the rest of the world.
People were grateful to Churchill for much greater achievements, but when the election came turned their attention to the future. They'll be doing the same in 2024. Right now no-one is stepping up to the mark and I fear another contest for the least worst.
Of course, a government that did nothing on social media except regurgitate formal press releases and portraits of ministers would also be critisised for not ‘engaging’ with the public.
I’m one of the first to criticise governments wasting public money, but having a junior staffer trying to appeal to a younger audience on social media with dog-in-snow photos isn’t one of them.
My guess is it is a sexual lubricant, rather than a jellied meat foodstuff.
Whatever, Kim Il-Sung seems absolutely ecstatic to have a drumful of it.
Yep, that was definitely organised by the genius Labour leader who then succumbed to the biggest defeat in deacades.
Definitely nothing to do with the Remainer Tory MPs who were eventually ejected from the party.
But Tyndall told me it has mostly since been discredited.
Would you vote for her Tories or prefer Labour to beat them?
The mainstream media narrative is more favourable to Johnson than any other Prime Minister, I can recall, irrespective of how outrageous his behaviour or performance. Remember if you will the "Cenotaph affair".
It’s always better to be inside the tent pissing out, and Soubry would agree with more of my views than any Labour leader, even though we might disagree on matters European.
My understanding so far from some posters is absolutely anything positive achieved by Corbyn was done to luck and other people being useless and the reason people much better than him can't repeat these tricks is purely because Corbyn is uniquely lucky.
I've been a Manchester United fan for years, the amount of times I would hear luck used as an excuse is incredible, to the point where I fully embraced the saying I'd rather be lucky than good, truth is people like to overestimate luck when it suits them...
Although quite frankly if a left wing Labour leader will do better than a right wing one purely because of luck even though he is much worse than the far superior right wing one then let us pick lucky left wing leaders rather than unlucky right wing ones which do worse despite actually being much better by agreement of the press.
But I can't remember which parish church used to fly the Sinn Fein flag in the years after the war. Was it in Essex?
A GOTV program that motivates people to vote against you isn’t working. It doesn’t matter whether you "won the argument", it doesn’t matter if you were right on the issues - winning is what matters. Getting into power so you can execute on your program is what matters.
Corbyn failed at the latter. Twice. Did elements within the party conspire against him? Sure. Newsflash! Every party is riven with internal conflict - your job is to get & take power regardless. Were many of the Corbyn campaign policies good ones? Yes, absolutely! But the communication to the middle of the road voter was dire: If you appeal to the already committed but fail to convert the undecided then you will not take power in this country.
I see a lot of finger pointing over Corbyn & not much in the way of introspection.
Lets pick an example: the universal broadband offer. This is a good idea! Other countries already do it - you walk into an apartment in Finland and you can plug into the wall and get (slowish) internet access. But the communication was /awful/: the way it was sold was if Labour intended to nationalise the UK internet access industry. They didn’t seem to understand how the industry is structured in this country & promptly alienated the entire sector. They could have sold this policy in a way that didn’t scare off the entire industry very easily, but didn’t care to do so, with the result that the policy was ridiculed in the press with no good messaging in place to counter the inevitable pushback.
& the entire campaign was like this: refusing to do the work to understand how policies were going to look to the voters that Labour needed to convert in order to win & shape the messaging & possibly the detail of the policy to solve those problems. Which only fed into the perception that Labour weren’t actually serious about winning; that they were only really serious about appealing to the committed base, no matter how unfair that perception might be.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
But if Starmer- let's face it, he's pretty left wing- is a sellout then something's gone wrong with your calibration.
One snow shower there and it all stops. Snowflakes
A kindly person one on the railway forums highlighted this petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/564233
Restore Pre-Decimalisation Pounds, Shillings, and Pence Currency (£sd) System
I'm sure that this is something that can unite PBers.
1. Labour will do relatively poorly in the May elections.
2. The far left members and MPs of the party who seem to spend their every waking hour plotting to undermine Starmer will rejoice in that outcome.
From the after the election polling (2017) Corbyn was a more of a boost to the Labour vote than the Tory vote
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/07/11/why-people-voted-labour-or-conservative-2017-gener
Now anti Corbyn in the Tory vote column is 14 whereas pro Labour pro Corbyn is 13, so -1 there...
But manifesto is 28
and providing hope/fairness for the many is 12
The manifesto is more arguable, although it is hard to argue against the idea Labours manifesto was left wing because Corbyn was leader.
A Labour leader will always be attacked and thus have anti votes but will also always attract votes (even Starmer)
Considering how crap Labour have been for so long maybe they are better off with someone who can actually attract a decent number of voters even if it pushes a decent number of voters to the Tories as well.
Hoping to win via widespread apathy especially with the loss of Scotland sounds like more of a losing strategy than actually inspiring some people even if it also boosts the Conservative vote.
I mean I guess 2017 is the example there, probably drove up votes for both sides but Labour actually benefitted more it than the Conservatives.
Sorry, couldn't resist
It is not clear what actually led to the almost complete removal of the native population - disease is the most obvious cause with the new arrivals inadvertently bringing something with them that they themselves were immune to. But no one knows for sure.
This is how the Independent reported the new hypothesis back in 2018
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/stonehenge-neolithic-britain-history-ancestors-plague-archaeology-beaker-people-a8222341.html
Are they trying to make VAR look good?
The kids (and their parents and teachers) who have never worked in base 12 or 20, on the other hand...
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Population-transformation-in-Britain-associated-with-the-arrival-of-the-Beaker-complex_fig3_323916898
It's not all bad news. Chuka's infiltrated JP Morgan and will be continuing the fight from there. One good man on the inside of the machine is worth a thousand impotents yelling from the sidelines.
Nice to see you back anyway. Some strong points made too. Especially on the 17 election. That was close. Painting it as a rejection of the left is utter nonsense. Then in 19, awful but unwinnable. "Boris" and "Get Brexit Done" was a killer proposition for the country in the mood it was in. Just a matter of how big the Con win was going to be.
So let's not throw out the radical baby with the Corbyn bathwater. It's a balance for me. I want a Labour government to really change things. Otherwise what's the point? But I also do want a Labour government now and again. Otherwise what's the point?
I voted for Nandy but I'm ok with Starmer. Too early to be getting disillusioned. And eye ALWAYS vote Labour. I'm Labour soup to nuts, Foot to Blair.
Stay with us, Comrade, stay with us.
Starmers entire approach has been to punch left, what the hell would be the point in working your ass off to get rid of the left and piss them all off in the process to present a left wing manifesto which you intend to follow through with?
Just work with them to start with, it isn't complicated. The reason to take this route is because you don't want to go in a left wing direction.
I can't help thinking that whatever is put in place to replace ground rents will be more expensive to run.
Either new prices will go up to cover an annuity equivalent to a little less than the ground rent, or quality will fall to cover the difference, or supply will fall to exclude the unviable projects.
https://twitter.com/rishisunak/status/1360526121801023488?s=21
1.25% of the population per day.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-03-01..latest&country=USA~GBR~DEU~ARG~FRA~SRB~CHL®ion=World&vaccinationsMetric=true&interval=total&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=total_vaccinations_per_hundred&pickerSort=desc
It was also striking that although many in this group adopted "Remain" as their governing political identity once their career prospects in Labour took a dive, when the chance arose to try to bring down May and put in Corbyn as PM with a mandate to reverse Brexit and little else, most had no interest.
Remainers? Give me a break. Pure careerists.
Labour policies and positions along with Corbyn are a large part of why it did so much better in 2017 than previous leaders Brexit a large part of of the loss of votes from 2017 to 2019 (which combined with the previous big increases in Tory vote led to a disaster)
Looking at the reasons for the Tories big vote increase with Johnson mostly maintained rather increased Brexit is a massive factor.
One thing you could pin on Corbyn directly related to that, I don't think the Labour right would have worked as hard with others to force Labour to move to a peoples vote position if Labour had a right wing leader. They would have been more interested in electability, you can see that in how easily many of them dropped it (although some people did do it out of principle)
The argument for Corbyn being bad relies on a centrist Labour leader not only inspiring the same vote Corbyn did in 2017 to combat the Tories but actually an even better vote than that....
Look at Starmer, the any other leader would be 20 points ahead line was a joke from the very beginning. I don't see that a centrist leader would have got anywhere near achieving Labour biggest swing since 1945 in 2017 let alone bettering it and getting into government. 2019 was (in vote share) better than Brown and Miliband, and similar to current Labour polling. It was as poor as the standard centrist Labour leader, a reversion to the mean.
I can pick lots of individual faults with anyone given enough time and evidence but Corbyn was a better overall package than a couple before him and at least one after him.
Starmer is polling better against the same opponent, Johnson, than whopped your absolute boi just over a year ago.
Topping 2017 isn't going to work. Because Mrs May isn't PM anymore....
The district elections will likely see less progress for Starmer's party given Labour were 1% ahead there in 2016 and could even see Labour losses.
In London I expect Khan to be relected and the Tories could even lose the West Central seat and be wiped out at the constituency level in inner London in the Assembly, Labour will also hope to gain the West Midlands Mayoralty, beating Andy Street would be a big prize.
The LDs are likely to be on the defensive, in the 2017 county council elections they got 18% and in the 2016 district elections the LDs got 15% so on current polls the LDs would do well to avoid losing any councillors and just hold their own, though as David says even if they do the gain of the heavily Remain SW London Assembly seat where they now hold most of the MPs would somewhat compensate.
The biggest gainers in the local elections in England are also I agree likely to be the Greens, certainly on voteshare, benefiting from former Corbynistas shifting to them
I think taking the knee is absolute rot. People are entitled to do it. I'm entitled to criticise it.
Given how horrendous a Corbyn government would be and how destructive to people's livelihoods it would be if those you call the Labour right would prefer a Tory government than a Corbyn one then they're patriots putting country and their electorate before the party. Good for them.
We need to remember that many Local Authorities are *not* up for election at all this year.
eg Mansfield and Ashfield.
Does that apply to much of the Red Wall?
List of up for election, including current control. A quick inspection reveals that no of total councils with seats up for election is about the same for Lab / Con,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_Kingdom_local_elections
I appreciate your views are sincerely held but it's wrong of you to state your view of its impact as if it were fact. In all honesty how do you think you would have preceived the prospect of an Attlee government in the June 1945?
In 2019, Corbyn's reputation had been severely damaged by the anti-semitism controversy, and the programme jumped the shark with weird promises like free broadband. Johnson's cheery offer seemed the safer alternative to floating voters. But I agree with The Jezziah that the respoinse to the 2017 programme showed that people are up for a healthy dose of social democracy plus some nationalisation. I also think that offering nothing very much would be unwise - a boring Labour Party has no obvious appeal to anyone.
I noticed that yesterday. Why (how) is Chile doing so well?