This rather ignores that this seat (or its predecessor) last returned a Tory in 1959. The Red Wall seems to be continuing to crumble.
Yet, what about elsewhere in the country? In my rather leafy Bucks village I have yet to see a single Tory banner. A few Labour but many Green signs. Locally the Greens have done quite well before and I would expect that to continue. Locally they don't have to worry about some of their more bonkers national policies. As a traditional Tory I am tempted to give them my vote in the locals which I would never do in a general election.
I don't think Stephen Bush is arguing what you think he is arguing at all.
They reassured me: ‘of course I vote Tory, I just don’t tell anyone’
And then everyone on the bus applauded.
Lol. If you don’t believe me then you literally don’t know a single wealthy Londoner, and you’ve never been to the nicer bits of London. Given what else you divulge, I doubt this
I must confess my support for the Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative but not banging on about Europe party is wavering this morning. If I was confident it still existed I might even be thinking about defecting from it. The Letterbox Party is just so much more focused on real problems.
The Tories could probably do with Street in the Commons after this. He has a lot to offer.
Does make me wonder where mayoralties rank, prestige wise.
Are they stepping stones to the Commons where theyd go from high profile locally to at the whim of the party leader? Are they are escape from Westminster for the disaffected and those whose career is going nowhere? Are they a means to develop high quality candidates too individual for the backbenches? Or do they actually matter?
I wonder if they go back to Commons they'll suffer from Archie Norman syndrome.
From Chief Executive of Asda to backbench (opposition) MP was too much of a drop for him.
No wonder he quit as an MP after two terms in Parliament.
Archie Norman was my MP when I was in the local CF in Tunbridge Wells, he was an OK local MP but really going from being a FTSE 100 CEO to backbench MP was not really in his gameplan, he entered politics to be in the Cabinet at least.
He was also a big supporter of Michael Portillo in 2001 and when IDS beat Portillo for the Tory leadership he lost his remaining enthusiasm for politics
What is CF and when were you in Tunbridge Wells? I lived in Crowborough in the late 80s early 90s so obviously knew TW well.
If you, but more importantly Labour, don't get this then there is no way they are returning to power anytime soon.
This is lazy analysis. Just because there's been some big political shifts in one area doesn't mean they cant be some in another.
If the Tories win Hartlepool by the amount suggested and IF (big if) the national polling is actually in the region of a 2% lead, rather than 10%, that suggests some big swings to Labour elsewhere...
This is interesting reading - but Labour only wins at best 26 seats, reducing the Tory majority a bit but nowhere near to power.
So their route to power seems to be the Biden approach.
Yes. And uncomfortably for the Labour Right and Left, that has to mean co-operation across the board, as Biden has engaged with both Sanders and the centrists, That is also the platform Starmer was elected on.
If it were me, I would be seriously considering an unofficial pact with the Lib Dems.
Stand down/put in paper candidates for Labour in Guildford, Winchester. Lib Dems stand down in much of London.
Bet it doesn't happen.
Labour was under 5% in Winchester in 2019, its already a Labour paper candidate.
If you, but more importantly Labour, don't get this then there is no way they are returning to power anytime soon.
This is lazy analysis. Just because there's been some big political shifts in one area doesn't mean they cant be some in another.
If the Tories win Hartlepool by the amount suggested and IF (big if) the national polling is actually in the region of a 2% lead, rather than 10%, that suggests some big swings to Labour elsewhere...
I don't know if anybody else heard the Starmer interview on R4 Today this morning, but it was quite interesting. He wasn't very good, actually (see, I am objective). But he did take the opportunity to set out briefly the 5 current top priorities for Labour at the next GE, whenever that is.
His 5 priorities had echoes of Blair's 1997 pledge card. Interestingly, the fifth priority was about bringing an end to the divisions caused by the 'culture war' (although he didn't use that expression, of course). Anyway, signs of an emerging Labour policy platform to fill the current policy vacuum.
That unherd piece by Tanya Gold is absolutely brilliant. It says what I was stating only much better.
I urge everyone, everyone, on here who thinks Brexit is done and dusted or who thinks the 2019 result was an aberration or who thinks Starmer is the answer or who doesn't believe that the Red Wall shift was for real or who ever bets on British politics to read this. Adjust your sights accordingly.
If you, but more importantly Labour, don't get this then there is no way they are returning to power anytime soon.
This is lazy analysis. Just because there's been some big political shifts in one area doesn't mean they cant be some in another.
If the Tories win Hartlepool by the amount suggested and IF (big if) the national polling is actually in the region of a 2% lead, rather than 10%, that suggests some big swings to Labour elsewhere...
If you, but more importantly Labour, don't get this then there is no way they are returning to power anytime soon.
This is lazy analysis. Just because there's been some big political shifts in one area doesn't mean they cant be some in another.
If the Tories win Hartlepool by the amount suggested and IF (big if) the national polling is actually in the region of a 2% lead, rather than 10%, that suggests some big swings to Labour elsewhere...
I must confess my support for the Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative but not banging on about Europe party is wavering this morning. If I was confident it still existed I might even be thinking about defecting from it. The Letterbox Party is just so much more focused on real problems.
Bloody right we are. We also have more related policies - transportation to the colonies for anyone who has a gate secured with a rusty bolt thats a bugger to shift without scratching yourself only to have a letterbox that is jammed up and you can't push anything through.
The Tories could probably do with Street in the Commons after this. He has a lot to offer.
Does make me wonder where mayoralties rank, prestige wise.
Are they stepping stones to the Commons where theyd go from high profile locally to at the whim of the party leader? Are they are escape from Westminster for the disaffected and those whose career is going nowhere? Are they a means to develop high quality candidates too individual for the backbenches? Or do they actually matter?
I wonder if they go back to Commons they'll suffer from Archie Norman syndrome.
From Chief Executive of Asda to backbench (opposition) MP was too much of a drop for him.
No wonder he quit as an MP after two terms in Parliament.
Archie Norman was my MP when I was in the local CF in Tunbridge Wells, he was an OK local MP but really going from being a FTSE 100 CEO to backbench MP was not really in his gameplan, he entered politics to be in the Cabinet at least.
He was also a big supporter of Michael Portillo in 2001 and when IDS beat Portillo for the Tory leadership he lost his remaining enthusiasm for politics
What is CF and when were you in Tunbridge Wells? I lived in Crowborough in the late 80s early 90s so obviously knew TW well.
Conservative Future, 1981-2000 (and intermittently after until about 2010)
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
I don't know if anybody else heard the Starmer interview on R4 Today this morning, but it was quite interesting. He wasn't very good, actually (see, I am objective). But he did take the opportunity to set out briefly the 5 current top priorities for Labour at the next GE, whenever that is.
His 5 priorities had echoes of Blair's 1997 pledge card. Interestingly, the fifth priority was about bringing an end to the divisions caused by the 'culture war' (although he didn't use that expression, of course). Anyway, signs of an emerging Labour policy platform to fill the current policy vacuum.
I've never understood why every party, every election, doesn't just have 5 policies and basically refuse to answer questions/campaign on anything else. Seems the obvious strategy. I imagine there is an obvious flaw to this plan, but it isn't obvious to me. Still have a full manifesto, but 5 pledges on the front page and talk about nothing else for the whole campaign.
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
They reassured me: ‘of course I vote Tory, I just don’t tell anyone’
And then everyone on the bus applauded.
Lol. If you don’t believe me then you literally don’t know a single wealthy Londoner, and you’ve never been to the nicer bits of London. Given what else you divulge, I doubt this
I wouldn't be so sure. Or does Greenwich RN College not count as London?
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
There was a need for a Brexit party when Mrs May was PM.
There wasn't when she got kicked out for Boris.
There may be a need in the future if the Hancock wing of the Con party continues to flex its water wings.
The Tories could probably do with Street in the Commons after this. He has a lot to offer.
Does make me wonder where mayoralties rank, prestige wise.
Are they stepping stones to the Commons where theyd go from high profile locally to at the whim of the party leader? Are they are escape from Westminster for the disaffected and those whose career is going nowhere? Are they a means to develop high quality candidates too individual for the backbenches? Or do they actually matter?
I was going to say: Would you go from popular Mayor of a City Region with modest but direct powers to 1 of 650 MPs where you were expected to follow the party whip and go on the radio every other weekend to defend the indefensible? I wouldn't.
A few quick comments on that Hartlepool poll. You may recall that last time the past vote was very odd - despite Brexit party getting 25% in 2019, Survation could barely find any former BP voters.
That is NOT the case this time - the sample looks fine on that front.
(I'm guessing that means Damian did what he suggested he might, and prompted on the recall Q)
Secondly, any phone poll like this you *still* get comments along the lines of "well, if you only ring landlines!"
No phone polls only ring landlines. It rang mobiles too.
The poll may be wrong, but it certainly won't be wrong for either of those reasons.
Even the Modeller of Doom admits this is nearly over.
Dan Bloom @danbloom1 NEW: Prof Neil Ferguson says we now "don’t see any prospect of the NHS being overwhelmed, with the one caveat around variants", in a third wave this summer/autumn
In which case there is no justification for any further restrictions.
The argument “elect an MP from the governing party because they can lobby the minister more effectively” is as old as time
But that's not the argument being made, he's saying ministers won't go the extra mile for non Tory councils.
It may also be illegal - if Ministers ignore the criteria determining how decisions should be made (see, for instance, Jenrick's decisions on the New Towns funds). If the criteria are A, B and C but the government ignores these and just gives the money based in whether they voted Tory or not. There is a fine line between being able to lobby effectively and potential illegality. Not that the latter seems to bother the Tories these days.
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
If you, but more importantly Labour, don't get this then there is no way they are returning to power anytime soon.
This is lazy analysis. Just because there's been some big political shifts in one area doesn't mean they cant be some in another.
If the Tories win Hartlepool by the amount suggested and IF (big if) the national polling is actually in the region of a 2% lead, rather than 10%, that suggests some big swings to Labour elsewhere...
Tanya Gold is a freelance journalist who also writes for the Guardian.
"Far Right" is high language for "stuff the left don't want to hear".
This quote from the Hartlepool voter stuck out for me.
"His conclusion is this: “Labour now is rich people telling poor people that other rich people are their problem.”"
Whereas the Conservatives are very rich people telling poor people that comfortably off people are their problem.
You're wrong - the people who have been switching to the Conservatives aren't the poor but the comfortably off whose families have traditionally voted Labour.
The Conservative party is people in the top 10% telling people in the middle 80% that people in the bottom 10% and top 10% are the problem.
The Labour party is people in the top 10% telling other people in the top 10% how horrible life is for the bottom 10% and either ignoring or abusing the middle 80%.
If you think ElectionMapsUk is a neutral arbiter then I have a bridge for sale.
Election Maps is some left leaning teenager who tried to steal Britain Elects' thunder and plays for likes and retweets. Britain Elects is the original trustworthy twitter polling source, and even though its partnered with the New Statesman it remains neutral.
I must confess my support for the Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative but not banging on about Europe party is wavering this morning. If I was confident it still existed I might even be thinking about defecting from it. The Letterbox Party is just so much more focused on real problems.
Bloody right we are. We also have more related policies - transportation to the colonies for anyone who has a gate secured with a rusty bolt thats a bugger to shift without scratching yourself only to have a letterbox that is jammed up and you can't push anything through.
If you listen to the other parties wittering on about the pandemic, depression, job losses, independence and Brexit you realise that they just have no insight to the true needs of the British people. What they really need is safely delivered political leaflets. They are just gagging for them. How would they know what to think otherwise?
If you, but more importantly Labour, don't get this then there is no way they are returning to power anytime soon.
This is lazy analysis. Just because there's been some big political shifts in one area doesn't mean they cant be some in another.
If the Tories win Hartlepool by the amount suggested and IF (big if) the national polling is actually in the region of a 2% lead, rather than 10%, that suggests some big swings to Labour elsewhere...
I agree. What has made the Tories so successful over the last decade is the increased efficiency of their vote compared to the days when they got within 3% of Blair and he got a very comfortable majority. This has happened so far because the very considerable ebbing of their strength in the south of England has merely reduced their majorities whilst they have suddenly become much more competitive in the midlands, the east and now the north.
But as Labour is finding in reverse there is a tipping point in these things. The seats Labour took for granted whilst it went fishing in the suburbs and university towns of the south have bitten back and it is all too possible that southern seats which were much more remainer, much more liberal and much more dominated by professional classes will in turn get fed up being taken for granted.
Overall this is a good thing. It was not healthy that the Tories were content to get a majority with only the odd rural seat north of Birmingham and the inability of Labour to relate to our most economically successful areas outside of the actual cities meant that they had little to say in that area. A situation where both our major parties have a fair degree of representation from most of our country improves the chances of the government being aware of the needs of all of the country.
Most of the problems there arise from the voting system, which directs all the political attention to those areas considered marginal, and neglects the safer areas for any party.
Whilst that is undoubtedly true it seems to me that Labour is going through an identity crises where they will become more potent in seats that are more like them, that is middle class, professional, well educated, dominated by the public sector and frankly rather more interested in the privileges of such people than those who have very little.
Those with little have caught on. They may come to realise that Boris doesn't really give a toss about them either but at least he pretends to listen and he is amusing rather than patronising.
Interestingly you could make the same point about the unions, which were created to defend and advance the interests of the then lowest in society, but now represent a reducing swathe of the relatively secure middle, with those most vulnerable workers - the younger, gig, zero hour folks - passing them by.
Even in a unionised industry, like the one I used to work in, unions tend to look out for the interests of the older, established, mostly male jobs and be less interested in the lower paid and part-time workforce (at least they did twenty years ago).
The big problem for Labour is the Red Wall voters have always been more socially conservative and nationalistic and it’s Tory austerity policies which stopped them moving across . The Tories have a very good vaccine programme combined with lots of economic help by Sunak which for Labour is a mountain to climb.
Unless the Tories go back to austerity post covid then it’s hard to see how Labour can rebuild the Red Wall which is currently crumbling .
Aswell as this Starmer is not really the right leader for those seats , I actually like Starmer but it’s easy for the Tories to label him as an out of touch metropolitan elite even though his upbringing is a lot more “real world “ compared to Johnson .
My interest on Thursday is really what happens in Scotland which is on a knife edge . Hartlepool is a lost cause and the council elections won’t have the political impact that a SNP majority will deliver .
If you, but more importantly Labour, don't get this then there is no way they are returning to power anytime soon.
This is lazy analysis. Just because there's been some big political shifts in one area doesn't mean they cant be some in another.
If the Tories win Hartlepool by the amount suggested and IF (big if) the national polling is actually in the region of a 2% lead, rather than 10%, that suggests some big swings to Labour elsewhere...
Tanya Gold is a freelance journalist who also writes for the Guardian.
"Far Right" is high language for "stuff the left don't want to hear".
This quote from the Hartlepool voter stuck out for me.
"His conclusion is this: “Labour now is rich people telling poor people that other rich people are their problem.”"
Whereas the Conservatives are very rich people telling poor people that comfortably off people are their problem.
You're wrong - the people who have been switching to the Conservatives aren't the poor but the comfortably off whose families have traditionally voted Labour.
The Conservative party is people in the top 10% telling people in the middle 80% that people in the bottom 10% and top 10% are the problem.
The Labour party is people in the top 10% telling other people in the top 10% how horrible life is for the bottom 10% and either ignoring or abusing the middle 80%.
You're needing a quick comparative look at Tory and Labour funding, I'm afraid.
I must confess my support for the Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative but not banging on about Europe party is wavering this morning. If I was confident it still existed I might even be thinking about defecting from it. The Letterbox Party is just so much more focused on real problems.
Bloody right we are. We also have more related policies - transportation to the colonies for anyone who has a gate secured with a rusty bolt thats a bugger to shift without scratching yourself only to have a letterbox that is jammed up and you can't push anything through.
I just need some clarification on who the leader of the new party is? Having suggested it I assume I am. If challenged and I lose, just to warn you, I might set up a rival 'Party of the Letterboxes'.
If you think ElectionMapsUk is a neutral arbiter then I have a bridge for sale.
Election Maps is some left leaning teenager who tried to steal Britain Elects' thunder and plays for likes and retweets. Britain Elects is the original trustworthy twitter polling source, and even though its partnered with the New Statesman it remains neutral.
In fairness, the comments in that tweet aren't really partisan. He's just pointing out that the local polls are completely at odds with the recent national polls and this needs explaining. And he's right.
Just imagine a young Mike Smithson, clutching his coppers (the coins, not the bill) as he steps up to the window, peering upward and piping, "Please sir, may I put a half crown on Sir Alec"? (Or whatever he - the laird, not Mike - was calling himself at that moment.)
The hardened bookie snorts in derision, "It'll be yer funeral, lad. Sure you don't want to invest in a half-pound of Turkish Delight instead?"
"No, Sir!"
And the rest, as they say, is history . . .
Alas my first political bet on the 1963 CON leadership was a foretaste of what was to come - a loser
So how did the rank outsider with the carry on voice beat Rab Butler? Some sort of backlash against those on front bench?
Off the top of the head, it was a smoke filled room election, not democracy?
Magic circle - SuperMac was in hospital so I assume they didn’t smoke there…
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
It was a pact, sanctioned from the top by Farage and Johnson, and whichever way it might be chatacterised. Until it was confirmed, the BXP was the fastest-growing political force, and would have damaged the Tories at the election.
As well as the resolution of the threat to violently attack me, made by a Scottish Nationalist, I have made a complaint against two former SNP MSPs under the Representation of the People Act 1983 under the section dealing with the making of knowingly false statements. https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1389475684662366208
Relevant to those of us who go electioneering, I will join ANY party who pledge to make letter boxes at the bottom of a front door illegal. Especially ones where they are behind two gates.
How about ones with a strong spring that closes on your fingers… just after the yappy nippy dog gets there
Or the ones with so much baffling behind them that your leaflet ends up a screwed up rag before the said yappy dog even gets a hold of it.
I think we should start 'The Letterbox Party'.
To add to the list:
a) Silent dogs (many and 1 hospital trip as a consequence)
b) Dogs that crash into the door at 100mph (many)
c) Those people who have considerately put a box at the front so you don't have to walk down the 100 metre drive but is now hidden in a hedge so you do walk down a 100 metre drive and waste 10 minutes looking for a letterbox that doesn't exist (several)
d) People who are ungrateful when you return their door keys which are still in the lock.
e) People who don't close their door properly so you land in their hall while putting the leaflet through the door (once)
e) has embarassed me more than once.
A worse variation on c) is when you have climbed up steps to said house, had a good look around for any way to insert the leaflet into the house and decided to leave it under a stone or stuck in the door jamb, then when you get back to the street you notice the hidden box and have to go back and retrieve the leaflet so they don’t conclude you’re an unobservant idiot.
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
It was a pact, sanctioned from the top by Farage and Johnson, and whichever way it's described. Until it was confirmed, the BXP was the fastest-growing political force , and would have damaged the Tories at the election.
Of course it was sanctioned by Johnson, it involved a rival party standing down in over 300 seats! But I don't think it is a pact or co-operation for the simple reason that the Tories didn't give anything up to get it. A deal, pact, whatever, involves something being given by both sides in return for what the other side is giving. But the Tories didn't give anything, Farage just accepted he had to stand down or risk splitting the vote.
The Tories could probably do with Street in the Commons after this. He has a lot to offer.
Does make me wonder where mayoralties rank, prestige wise.
Are they stepping stones to the Commons where theyd go from high profile locally to at the whim of the party leader? Are they are escape from Westminster for the disaffected and those whose career is going nowhere? Are they a means to develop high quality candidates too individual for the backbenches? Or do they actually matter?
I wonder if they go back to Commons they'll suffer from Archie Norman syndrome.
From Chief Executive of Asda to backbench (opposition) MP was too much of a drop for him.
No wonder he quit as an MP after two terms in Parliament.
I was once speaking to a cllr who had a major portfolio in a metropolitan council. I asked if he had any ambition to get to Westminster. He said no, why would I give up all this responsibility, power and status to be a backbencher?
If you, but more importantly Labour, don't get this then there is no way they are returning to power anytime soon.
This is lazy analysis. Just because there's been some big political shifts in one area doesn't mean they cant be some in another.
If the Tories win Hartlepool by the amount suggested and IF (big if) the national polling is actually in the region of a 2% lead, rather than 10%, that suggests some big swings to Labour elsewhere...
I agree. What has made the Tories so successful over the last decade is the increased efficiency of their vote compared to the days when they got within 3% of Blair and he got a very comfortable majority. This has happened so far because the very considerable ebbing of their strength in the south of England has merely reduced their majorities whilst they have suddenly become much more competitive in the midlands, the east and now the north.
But as Labour is finding in reverse there is a tipping point in these things. The seats Labour took for granted whilst it went fishing in the suburbs and university towns of the south have bitten back and it is all too possible that southern seats which were much more remainer, much more liberal and much more dominated by professional classes will in turn get fed up being taken for granted.
Overall this is a good thing. It was not healthy that the Tories were content to get a majority with only the odd rural seat north of Birmingham and the inability of Labour to relate to our most economically successful areas outside of the actual cities meant that they had little to say in that area. A situation where both our major parties have a fair degree of representation from most of our country improves the chances of the government being aware of the needs of all of the country.
Most of the problems there arise from the voting system, which directs all the political attention to those areas considered marginal, and neglects the safer areas for any party.
Whilst that is undoubtedly true it seems to me that Labour is going through an identity crises where they will become more potent in seats that are more like them, that is middle class, professional, well educated, dominated by the public sector and frankly rather more interested in the privileges of such people than those who have very little.
Those with little have caught on. They may come to realise that Boris doesn't really give a toss about them either but at least he pretends to listen and he is amusing rather than patronising.
"pretends to listen"? He delivered them their verdict on Brexit. Labour were set against doing so.
Yes, pretends to listen. Do the people of Hartlepool want Brexit because it is Brexit, or because what they hope it will bring them? Pools is a classic post industrial left behind backwater. People want back the jobs and prosperity and pride and hope that was taken from them. Brexit was the silver bullet to cure these ills which is why they were so enthusiastic for it.
Where the Tories will struggle is that they can't deliver what was promised. I have no doubt that Hartlepool will be thrown a few scraps once it goes Tory but it won't change the fundamental problems with the town and the region. One prime example - local Tories very excited by the prospect of a free port and how it will restore industry. Except that a free port makes it easier to IMPORT, it will do nothing but harm for local industry. But as nothing but harm has been on the menu for 40 years people are desperate and will try anything.
When salvation fails to arrive? Thats when the Tories are screwed. Not to Labour's benefit you understand, we're going to see a rise of the hard right. Think UKIP/Brexit with paramilitary activists...
I guess that they aren’t going to work in the new GE factory then?
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
It was a pact, sanctioned from the top by Farage and Johnson, and whichever way it's described. Until it was confirmed, the BXP was the fastest-growing political force , and would have damaged the Tories at the election.
Of course it was sanctioned by Johnson, it involved a rival party standing down in over 300 seats! But I don't think it is a pact or co-operation for the simple reason that the Tories didn't give anything up to get it. A deal, pact, whatever, involves something being given by both sides in return for what the other side is giving. But the Tories didn't give anything, Farage just accepted he had to stand down or risk splitting the vote.
The Tories gave Hard Brexit, with as few qualifications as possible, to the BXP. Likewise, Labour need to give PR to the Lib Dems and Greens, if they want to get anywhere in the future.
Relevant to those of us who go electioneering, I will join ANY party who pledge to make letter boxes at the bottom of a front door illegal. Especially ones where they are behind two gates.
How about ones with a strong spring that closes on your fingers… just after the yappy nippy dog gets there
Or the ones with so much baffling behind them that your leaflet ends up a screwed up rag before the said yappy dog even gets a hold of it.
I always carry a wooden kitchen spatula to push leaflets through difficult letterboxes.
This is the most useful tip you'll ever get from me.
I suppose bringing your own wooden spoon saves time for a LibDem…
Even the Modeller of Doom admits this is nearly over.
Dan Bloom @danbloom1 NEW: Prof Neil Ferguson says we now "don’t see any prospect of the NHS being overwhelmed, with the one caveat around variants", in a third wave this summer/autumn
I know that's partly toungue in cheek, but what was the 'doom' scenario? 500k deaths without restrictions? And we're at 130k (within 28 days of test) to 150k (on death certificate) with all the mitigations including multiple full lockdowns?
I don't find 500k dead without action implausible. Particularly with higher deaths/infections if healthcare systems had been overwhelmed.
However, this is very good news. "Don't see any prospect" means even the worst case scenarios, the ones people were getting upset about a few weeks ago wih the most pessimistic assumptions, are now coming out within what we can cope with. The most likely estimates will be for nothing much happening at all.
I don't know if anybody else heard the Starmer interview on R4 Today this morning, but it was quite interesting. He wasn't very good, actually (see, I am objective). But he did take the opportunity to set out briefly the 5 current top priorities for Labour at the next GE, whenever that is.
His 5 priorities had echoes of Blair's 1997 pledge card. Interestingly, the fifth priority was about bringing an end to the divisions caused by the 'culture war' (although he didn't use that expression, of course). Anyway, signs of an emerging Labour policy platform to fill the current policy vacuum.
Sir KS was rather waffly and failed to get any soundbites accross. The 5 top priorities were explained like a lawyer in conference setting out their reasoning. I think quite a lot of consideration has gone into those priorities, probably by Anneliese Dobbs, but the messaging around them is incomplete and need to be focus grouped. What do they actually mean in practice to the Labout marginal voter (ie the ones Labour need to attract)?
Relevant to those of us who go electioneering, I will join ANY party who pledge to make letter boxes at the bottom of a front door illegal. Especially ones where they are behind two gates.
How about ones with a strong spring that closes on your fingers… just after the yappy nippy dog gets there
Or the ones with so much baffling behind them that your leaflet ends up a screwed up rag before the said yappy dog even gets a hold of it.
I think we should start 'The Letterbox Party'.
To add to the list:
a) Silent dogs (many and 1 hospital trip as a consequence)
b) Dogs that crash into the door at 100mph (many)
c) Those people who have considerately put a box at the front so you don't have to walk down the 100 metre drive but is now hidden in a hedge so you do walk down a 100 metre drive and waste 10 minutes looking for a letterbox that doesn't exist (several)
d) People who are ungrateful when you return their door keys which are still in the lock.
e) People who don't close their door properly so you land in their hall while putting the leaflet through the door (once)
e) has embarassed me more than once.
A worse variation on c) is when you have climbed up steps to said house, had a good look around for any way to insert the leaflet into the house and decided to leave it under a stone or stuck in the door jamb, then when you get back to the street you notice the hidden box and have to go back and retrieve the leaflet so they don’t conclude you’re an unobservant idiot.
Yep done the latter a few times (so frustrating). Re the not properly closed door, yes quite a few times, but only once have I made a spectacular entrance. Only thing missing was the fanfare.
They reassured me: ‘of course I vote Tory, I just don’t tell anyone’
And then everyone on the bus applauded.
Lol. If you don’t believe me then you literally don’t know a single wealthy Londoner, and you’ve never been to the nicer bits of London. Given what else you divulge, I doubt this
I wouldn't be so sure. Or does Greenwich RN College not count as London?
Greenwich was the staff college for future admirals. ie not me.
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
It was a pact, sanctioned from the top by Farage and Johnson, and whichever way it might be chatacterised. Until it was confirmed, the BXP was the fastest-growing political force, and would have damaged the Tories at the election.
Utter bollocks far a far left extremist. It was not sanctioned by Johnson, though he welcomed his opposition standing down unilaterally that was a decision by them. Why wouldn't he welcome his opponents standing down?
The BXP was not a fast growing political force, it was a fast fading political farce by that date already. Check the opinion polls, they'd gone from over 20 points in the polls, to the teens and by that date were already in the single digits and fading fast.
Labour have been a woeful opposition, even under Starmer.
But there is, dare I say it, a touch of hubris in the air this morning. Remember May won Copeland - a Labour seat since forever. Stunning victory etc etc. Trudi Harrison, my MP now, is now Boris's PPS. She has been conspicuously silent on the problems facing farmers and hospitality in the constituency. It is Tim Farron in the neighbouring constituency who has made all the running on this and the plight of outdoor centres. The one big jobs development in the area - the mine - has been put on hold.
Husband takes the cynical view that better to have a Tory MP as there is a chance that an area which has largely been neglected might get something. Daughter sees an MP who has said and done little and has yet to have the meeting with her to discuss the issues around hospitality and small businesses she was promised since before Xmas.
Anyway, a few months after Copeland the Tories lost their majority. Now of course the PM is a better campaigner than May, he won't call a GE etc etc. But still - a touch of humility might not go amiss. The Tories are in danger of taking their new voters just as much for granted as Labour have done, unless there are real and visible improvements.
Improving the roads would be something - round where I live the potholes are something that would disgrace a poor African village.
The Tories could probably do with Street in the Commons after this. He has a lot to offer.
Does make me wonder where mayoralties rank, prestige wise.
Are they stepping stones to the Commons where theyd go from high profile locally to at the whim of the party leader? Are they are escape from Westminster for the disaffected and those whose career is going nowhere? Are they a means to develop high quality candidates too individual for the backbenches? Or do they actually matter?
I was going to say: Would you go from popular Mayor of a City Region with modest but direct powers to 1 of 650 MPs where you were expected to follow the party whip and go on the radio every other weekend to defend the indefensible? I wouldn't.
Houchen would. The Tees Valley Mayor was designed as a non-job supervising the 5 local authorities, and comes with a suitable non-job salary of £35k. He is very good at using social media to broadcast his triumphs but they either aren't really his or aren't really triumphs ("I've created new jobs" vs employment being down, "I've bought an airport" vs it being a financial basket case which won't be able to sustain the advertised flights assuming some of them actually take off at all).
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
It was a pact, sanctioned from the top by Farage and Johnson, and whichever way it's described. Until it was confirmed, the BXP was the fastest-growing political force , and would have damaged the Tories at the election.
Of course it was sanctioned by Johnson, it involved a rival party standing down in over 300 seats! But I don't think it is a pact or co-operation for the simple reason that the Tories didn't give anything up to get it. A deal, pact, whatever, involves something being given by both sides in return for what the other side is giving. But the Tories didn't give anything, Farage just accepted he had to stand down or risk splitting the vote.
The Tories gave Hard Brexit, with as few qualifications as possible, to the BXP. Likewise, Labour need to give PR to the Lib Dems and Greens, if they want to get anywhere in the future.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree about whether Johnson's Brexit Deal was a concession to one party or just what he thought was the best policy for him to adopt generally. The problem with Labour offering PR is that it is a totemic issue to LD/Green activists but no-one else. By contrast, Hard Brexit was a totemic issue to a load of voters.
If you, but more importantly Labour, don't get this then there is no way they are returning to power anytime soon.
This is lazy analysis. Just because there's been some big political shifts in one area doesn't mean they cant be some in another.
If the Tories win Hartlepool by the amount suggested and IF (big if) the national polling is actually in the region of a 2% lead, rather than 10%, that suggests some big swings to Labour elsewhere...
I agree. What has made the Tories so successful over the last decade is the increased efficiency of their vote compared to the days when they got within 3% of Blair and he got a very comfortable majority. This has happened so far because the very considerable ebbing of their strength in the south of England has merely reduced their majorities whilst they have suddenly become much more competitive in the midlands, the east and now the north.
But as Labour is finding in reverse there is a tipping point in these things. The seats Labour took for granted whilst it went fishing in the suburbs and university towns of the south have bitten back and it is all too possible that southern seats which were much more remainer, much more liberal and much more dominated by professional classes will in turn get fed up being taken for granted.
Overall this is a good thing. It was not healthy that the Tories were content to get a majority with only the odd rural seat north of Birmingham and the inability of Labour to relate to our most economically successful areas outside of the actual cities meant that they had little to say in that area. A situation where both our major parties have a fair degree of representation from most of our country improves the chances of the government being aware of the needs of all of the country.
Most of the problems there arise from the voting system, which directs all the political attention to those areas considered marginal, and neglects the safer areas for any party.
Whilst that is undoubtedly true it seems to me that Labour is going through an identity crises where they will become more potent in seats that are more like them, that is middle class, professional, well educated, dominated by the public sector and frankly rather more interested in the privileges of such people than those who have very little.
Those with little have caught on. They may come to realise that Boris doesn't really give a toss about them either but at least he pretends to listen and he is amusing rather than patronising.
Interestingly you could make the same point about the unions, which were created to defend and advance the interests of the then lowest in society, but now represent a reducing swathe of the relatively secure middle, with those most vulnerable workers - the younger, gig, zero hour folks - passing them by.
Even in a unionised industry, like the one I used to work in, unions tend to look out for the interests of the older, established, mostly male jobs and be less interested in the lower paid and part-time workforce (at least they did twenty years ago).
Unions have done quite a lot, in fairness, in promoting equal pay claims and these have generally helped poorly paid female workers but yes, Unions generally seem to be more interested in protecting the rights of those already in (who, of course, are paying their wages through their dues) than they are about future members or opportunities for the young.
I would have voted for Phillips if she hadn't been so woeful in the leadership contest, I am not alone.
TBF she used to be crass and immature but I saw her a few weeks back talking about female homicide victims - I know it’s one of her focus topics - but she was thoughtful and impressive. If she’s improved like that over the full spectrum it may be worth revisiting her
Labour aren't going to get anywhere because Starmer is utterly shit. It doesn't matter if you're shit and the incumbent because well better the devil you know and all that. The Tories are talking jobs, Labour is banging on about some wallpaper or other. Burnham is going to smash G Manchester because he does actually have a bit about him unlike the frankly dire Starmer. Greater Manchester was once not that much more Labour than the West Midsor North East. It probably still isn't but they'll do well there because Burnham is believed in.
Labour made a huge mistake picking Corbyn over Burnham in 2017, had they chosen Burnham they would probably have won most seats ahead of May's Tories in 2017. Starmer ironically backed Burnham for leader then
Yeah there are structural changes going on but Labour should really have won stuff like Northfield in 2019. If Labour can't more or less sweep major city seats they'll never, ever win.
I think one thing that fools Labour is the political changes within their social and professional circles.
There's been a huge change in graduate and upper-middle class support since the noughties, particularly amongst educated graduate women. I can think of three friends who supported the Tories even during the Blair years and went for Cameron in GE2010 who are now solidly centre-left. Educated graduate males have also slipped to Lib Dem, or Green, or "alternative" - usually not Labour, funnily enough - as they've sensed the Conservatives no longer speak to their values.
I occupy a lonely place politically within my friendship group, now, and largely don't mention politics - except to a handful on a 1:1 basis who I know are sympathetic (male professionals who keep it under the radar).
I struggle to understand anyone supporting the Conservatives from 1997-2010, now supporting left wing parties, but you are right, it is a real phenomenon. Brexit is obviously part of the story, but only part of it.
It is class politics played out in a different way. I live in Highgate. In 2019, the bigger the house, the greater chance they would show a Labour poster. The terraces (the Muswell Hill side obviously) tended to have Lib Dem ones.
But even if every single owner of every huge house in Highgate had voted Labour in 2019 it would not have been close to enough for Labour to win the majority it did in Holborn and St Pancras. Like it or not, in London Labour wins because it gets the votes of ordinary Londoners on average or below average wages living in rented private or council accommodation. Labour's problem is that most of the rest of England is not like London.
'It's housing, stupid.'
It's not a problem that the rest of the country can afford their own homes, it's a problem that Londoners can't.
A problem Saddiq has done the square root of zero to fix, which is why he is going to be handsomely rewarded by the electorate.
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
It was a pact, sanctioned from the top by Farage and Johnson, and whichever way it might be chatacterised. Until it was confirmed, the BXP was the fastest-growing political force, and would have damaged the Tories at the election.
Utter bollocks far a far left extremist. It was not sanctioned by Johnson, though he welcomed his opposition standing down unilaterally that was a decision by them. Why wouldn't he welcome his opponents standing down?
The BXP was not a fast growing political force, it was a fast fading political farce by that date already. Check the opinion polls, they'd gone from over 20 points in the polls, to the teens and by that date were already in the single digits and fading fast.
Farage said he was standing down in 300 seats across the country because the Tories were doing what he wanted on Brexit policy. It was a simple quid pro quo, and first official and then unofficial pacts, however exercised you might be feeling about it.
I must confess my support for the Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative but not banging on about Europe party is wavering this morning. If I was confident it still existed I might even be thinking about defecting from it. The Letterbox Party is just so much more focused on real problems.
Bloody right we are. We also have more related policies - transportation to the colonies for anyone who has a gate secured with a rusty bolt thats a bugger to shift without scratching yourself only to have a letterbox that is jammed up and you can't push anything through.
I just need some clarification on who the leader of the new party is? Having suggested it I assume I am. If challenged and I lose, just to warn you, I might set up a rival 'Party of the Letterboxes'.
I am assuming it is going to be an all mail in ballot? With a free post, natch?
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
It was a pact, sanctioned from the top by Farage and Johnson, and whichever way it's described. Until it was confirmed, the BXP was the fastest-growing political force , and would have damaged the Tories at the election.
Of course it was sanctioned by Johnson, it involved a rival party standing down in over 300 seats! But I don't think it is a pact or co-operation for the simple reason that the Tories didn't give anything up to get it. A deal, pact, whatever, involves something being given by both sides in return for what the other side is giving. But the Tories didn't give anything, Farage just accepted he had to stand down or risk splitting the vote.
The Tories gave Hard Brexit, with as few qualifications as possible, to the BXP. Likewise, Labour need to give PR to the Lib Dems and Greens, if they want to get anywhere in the future.
The Tories didn't give that to the BXP, they gave it to the voters. That's why the voters switched. Thats why the voters abandoned the BXP leaving Farage powerless to avoid humiliation so having no choice but to stand down.
Do you really think LD or Green voters (as opposed to LD or Green candidates) are obsessed by PR?
I must confess my support for the Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative but not banging on about Europe party is wavering this morning. If I was confident it still existed I might even be thinking about defecting from it. The Letterbox Party is just so much more focused on real problems.
Bloody right we are. We also have more related policies - transportation to the colonies for anyone who has a gate secured with a rusty bolt thats a bugger to shift without scratching yourself only to have a letterbox that is jammed up and you can't push anything through.
I just need some clarification on who the leader of the new party is? Having suggested it I assume I am. If challenged and I lose, just to warn you, I might set up a rival 'Party of the Letterboxes'.
Can we have a Party For People Who Want Political Leaflets Put Straight Into The Bin, please?
The problem Labour has, is there are not nearly enough Southern seats to counter those lost in the Red Wall. Anyone run the numbers on that, isn't it something like they need to win JRM's seat to undo the Red Wall
Labour need to be threatening (not necessarily winning) JRM's seat to win an OM, but of course need to do much less to deny the Tories an OM. A Labour OM is, unless a Blair shaped Black Swan arrives, completely impossible - and the current odds are ludicrous (7/2).
Among their target seats in terms of crude numbers (swing required) are completely different backgrounds, in particular compare 'marginal' seats where the Labour tide is going out (the old red wall etc) and the ones where the Labour tide is coming in (urban, BAME and posh/educated/Toynbee territory), I think there are fewer of the latter than the former mostly because they already hold that ground and because there aren't so many to start with.
Think squirrels. If you want an exciting and exotic one, search for a red one. They exist in enclaves in different parts and are wonderful. But if you want to win a squirrel election look for the greys. They are boring and everywhere. Tories hold almost all the boring seats - the ones the chattering classes visit every 20 years to write about, like The Economist mentioned mine recently (BTW we still have red squirrels).
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
It was a pact, sanctioned from the top by Farage and Johnson, and whichever way it might be chatacterised. Until it was confirmed, the BXP was the fastest-growing political force, and would have damaged the Tories at the election.
Utter bollocks far a far left extremist. It was not sanctioned by Johnson, though he welcomed his opposition standing down unilaterally that was a decision by them. Why wouldn't he welcome his opponents standing down?
The BXP was not a fast growing political force, it was a fast fading political farce by that date already. Check the opinion polls, they'd gone from over 20 points in the polls, to the teens and by that date were already in the single digits and fading fast.
Farage said he was standing down in 300 seats across the country because the Tories were doing what he wanted on Brexit policy. It was a simple quid pro quo, and first official and then unofficial pacts, however exercised you might be feeling about it.
The Tories could probably do with Street in the Commons after this. He has a lot to offer.
Does make me wonder where mayoralties rank, prestige wise.
Are they stepping stones to the Commons where theyd go from high profile locally to at the whim of the party leader? Are they are escape from Westminster for the disaffected and those whose career is going nowhere? Are they a means to develop high quality candidates too individual for the backbenches? Or do they actually matter?
I was going to say: Would you go from popular Mayor of a City Region with modest but direct powers to 1 of 650 MPs where you were expected to follow the party whip and go on the radio every other weekend to defend the indefensible? I wouldn't.
Houchen would. The Tees Valley Mayor was designed as a non-job supervising the 5 local authorities, and comes with a suitable non-job salary of £35k. He is very good at using social media to broadcast his triumphs but they either aren't really his or aren't really triumphs ("I've created new jobs" vs employment being down, "I've bought an airport" vs it being a financial basket case which won't be able to sustain the advertised flights assuming some of them actually take off at all).
What's wrong with London (Darlington) airport as Ryanair will undoubtedly call it.
If you, but more importantly Labour, don't get this then there is no way they are returning to power anytime soon.
This is lazy analysis. Just because there's been some big political shifts in one area doesn't mean they cant be some in another.
If the Tories win Hartlepool by the amount suggested and IF (big if) the national polling is actually in the region of a 2% lead, rather than 10%, that suggests some big swings to Labour elsewhere...
I agree. What has made the Tories so successful over the last decade is the increased efficiency of their vote compared to the days when they got within 3% of Blair and he got a very comfortable majority. This has happened so far because the very considerable ebbing of their strength in the south of England has merely reduced their majorities whilst they have suddenly become much more competitive in the midlands, the east and now the north.
But as Labour is finding in reverse there is a tipping point in these things. The seats Labour took for granted whilst it went fishing in the suburbs and university towns of the south have bitten back and it is all too possible that southern seats which were much more remainer, much more liberal and much more dominated by professional classes will in turn get fed up being taken for granted.
Overall this is a good thing. It was not healthy that the Tories were content to get a majority with only the odd rural seat north of Birmingham and the inability of Labour to relate to our most economically successful areas outside of the actual cities meant that they had little to say in that area. A situation where both our major parties have a fair degree of representation from most of our country improves the chances of the government being aware of the needs of all of the country.
Most of the problems there arise from the voting system, which directs all the political attention to those areas considered marginal, and neglects the safer areas for any party.
Whilst that is undoubtedly true it seems to me that Labour is going through an identity crises where they will become more potent in seats that are more like them, that is middle class, professional, well educated, dominated by the public sector and frankly rather more interested in the privileges of such people than those who have very little.
Those with little have caught on. They may come to realise that Boris doesn't really give a toss about them either but at least he pretends to listen and he is amusing rather than patronising.
"pretends to listen"? He delivered them their verdict on Brexit. Labour were set against doing so.
Yes, pretends to listen. Do the people of Hartlepool want Brexit because it is Brexit, or because what they hope it will bring them? Pools is a classic post industrial left behind backwater. People want back the jobs and prosperity and pride and hope that was taken from them. Brexit was the silver bullet to cure these ills which is why they were so enthusiastic for it.
Where the Tories will struggle is that they can't deliver what was promised. I have no doubt that Hartlepool will be thrown a few scraps once it goes Tory but it won't change the fundamental problems with the town and the region. One prime example - local Tories very excited by the prospect of a free port and how it will restore industry. Except that a free port makes it easier to IMPORT, it will do nothing but harm for local industry. But as nothing but harm has been on the menu for 40 years people are desperate and will try anything.
When salvation fails to arrive? Thats when the Tories are screwed. Not to Labour's benefit you understand, we're going to see a rise of the hard right. Think UKIP/Brexit with paramilitary activists...
I guess that they aren’t going to work in the new GE factory then?
A perfect example. Can you show me where in the Mayor's remit he has had anything to do with GE coming to Teesside? Its got literally fuck all to do with him and the same would have been true if (shudder) Jessie Joe Jacobs becomes mayor. She also claims all kinds of crap that are absolutely miles outside the remit of this non-job.
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
It was a pact, sanctioned from the top by Farage and Johnson, and whichever way it's described. Until it was confirmed, the BXP was the fastest-growing political force , and would have damaged the Tories at the election.
Of course it was sanctioned by Johnson, it involved a rival party standing down in over 300 seats! But I don't think it is a pact or co-operation for the simple reason that the Tories didn't give anything up to get it. A deal, pact, whatever, involves something being given by both sides in return for what the other side is giving. But the Tories didn't give anything, Farage just accepted he had to stand down or risk splitting the vote.
The Tories gave Hard Brexit, with as few qualifications as possible, to the BXP. Likewise, Labour need to give PR to the Lib Dems and Greens, if they want to get anywhere in the future.
The Tories didn't give that to the BXP, they gave it to the voters. That's why the voters switched. Thats why the voters abandoned the BXP leaving Farage powerless to avoid humiliation so having no choice but to stand down.
Do you really think LD or Green voters (as opposed to LD or Green candidates) are obsessed by PR?
Well, your sense of giving it to the voters is the more subjective one. What we can say for certain is that it was the cornerstone of the BXP's manifesto demands. On the LDs and Greens, PR is what Labour needs to give their leadership, once again.
If you, but more importantly Labour, don't get this then there is no way they are returning to power anytime soon.
This is lazy analysis. Just because there's been some big political shifts in one area doesn't mean they cant be some in another.
If the Tories win Hartlepool by the amount suggested and IF (big if) the national polling is actually in the region of a 2% lead, rather than 10%, that suggests some big swings to Labour elsewhere...
I agree. What has made the Tories so successful over the last decade is the increased efficiency of their vote compared to the days when they got within 3% of Blair and he got a very comfortable majority. This has happened so far because the very considerable ebbing of their strength in the south of England has merely reduced their majorities whilst they have suddenly become much more competitive in the midlands, the east and now the north.
But as Labour is finding in reverse there is a tipping point in these things. The seats Labour took for granted whilst it went fishing in the suburbs and university towns of the south have bitten back and it is all too possible that southern seats which were much more remainer, much more liberal and much more dominated by professional classes will in turn get fed up being taken for granted.
Overall this is a good thing. It was not healthy that the Tories were content to get a majority with only the odd rural seat north of Birmingham and the inability of Labour to relate to our most economically successful areas outside of the actual cities meant that they had little to say in that area. A situation where both our major parties have a fair degree of representation from most of our country improves the chances of the government being aware of the needs of all of the country.
Most of the problems there arise from the voting system, which directs all the political attention to those areas considered marginal, and neglects the safer areas for any party.
Whilst that is undoubtedly true it seems to me that Labour is going through an identity crises where they will become more potent in seats that are more like them, that is middle class, professional, well educated, dominated by the public sector and frankly rather more interested in the privileges of such people than those who have very little.
Those with little have caught on. They may come to realise that Boris doesn't really give a toss about them either but at least he pretends to listen and he is amusing rather than patronising.
"pretends to listen"? He delivered them their verdict on Brexit. Labour were set against doing so.
Yes, pretends to listen. Do the people of Hartlepool want Brexit because it is Brexit, or because what they hope it will bring them? Pools is a classic post industrial left behind backwater. People want back the jobs and prosperity and pride and hope that was taken from them. Brexit was the silver bullet to cure these ills which is why they were so enthusiastic for it.
Where the Tories will struggle is that they can't deliver what was promised. I have no doubt that Hartlepool will be thrown a few scraps once it goes Tory but it won't change the fundamental problems with the town and the region. One prime example - local Tories very excited by the prospect of a free port and how it will restore industry. Except that a free port makes it easier to IMPORT, it will do nothing but harm for local industry. But as nothing but harm has been on the menu for 40 years people are desperate and will try anything.
When salvation fails to arrive? Thats when the Tories are screwed. Not to Labour's benefit you understand, we're going to see a rise of the hard right. Think UKIP/Brexit with paramilitary activists...
I guess that they aren’t going to work in the new GE factory then?
That's in Boro and it's likely to be pulling people in from Redcar who used to work at the Steelworks.
I must confess my support for the Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative but not banging on about Europe party is wavering this morning. If I was confident it still existed I might even be thinking about defecting from it. The Letterbox Party is just so much more focused on real problems.
Bloody right we are. We also have more related policies - transportation to the colonies for anyone who has a gate secured with a rusty bolt thats a bugger to shift without scratching yourself only to have a letterbox that is jammed up and you can't push anything through.
I just need some clarification on who the leader of the new party is? Having suggested it I assume I am. If challenged and I lose, just to warn you, I might set up a rival 'Party of the Letterboxes'.
Can we have a Party For People Who Want Political Leaflets Put Straight Into The Bin, please?
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
Labour have been a woeful opposition, even under Starmer.
But there is, dare I say it, a touch of hubris in the air this morning. Remember May won Copeland - a Labour seat since forever. Stunning victory etc etc. Trudi Harrison, my MP now, is now Boris's PPS. She has been conspicuously silent on the problems facing farmers and hospitality in the constituency. It is Tim Farron in the neighbouring constituency who has made all the running on this and the plight of outdoor centres. The one big jobs development in the area - the mine - has been put on hold.
Husband takes the cynical view that better to have a Tory MP as there is a chance that an area which has largely been neglected might get something. Daughter sees an MP who has said and done little and has yet to have the meeting with her to discuss the issues around hospitality and small businesses she was promised since before Xmas.
Anyway, a few months after Copeland the Tories lost their majority. Now of course the PM is a better campaigner than May, he won't call a GE etc etc. But still - a touch of humility might not go amiss. The Tories are in danger of taking their new voters just as much for granted as Labour have done, unless there are real and visible improvements.
Improving the roads would be something - round where I live the potholes are something that would disgrace a poor African village.
In the short term the blue wave is unstoppable. The Tories problem is that unless they deliver substantial progress it will recede pretty quickly. As you say, many of these new Tory MPs are beyond useless and having been parachuted into places they know or care very little about are absolutely anonymous. As the people of Hartlepool are about to find out...
Labour have been a woeful opposition, even under Starmer.
But there is, dare I say it, a touch of hubris in the air this morning. Remember May won Copeland - a Labour seat since forever. Stunning victory etc etc. Trudi Harrison, my MP now, is now Boris's PPS. She has been conspicuously silent on the problems facing farmers and hospitality in the constituency. It is Tim Farron in the neighbouring constituency who has made all the running on this and the plight of outdoor centres. The one big jobs development in the area - the mine - has been put on hold.
Husband takes the cynical view that better to have a Tory MP as there is a chance that an area which has largely been neglected might get something. Daughter sees an MP who has said and done little and has yet to have the meeting with her to discuss the issues around hospitality and small businesses she was promised since before Xmas.
Anyway, a few months after Copeland the Tories lost their majority. Now of course the PM is a better campaigner than May, he won't call a GE etc etc. But still - a touch of humility might not go amiss. The Tories are in danger of taking their new voters just as much for granted as Labour have done, unless there are real and visible improvements.
Improving the roads would be something - round where I live the potholes are something that would disgrace a poor African village.
If there were a by-election in Chingford or Kensington, or Wycombe, Labour would probably win it by a country mile. That article on the Blue Wall was interesting.
The Tories could probably do with Street in the Commons after this. He has a lot to offer.
Does make me wonder where mayoralties rank, prestige wise.
Are they stepping stones to the Commons where theyd go from high profile locally to at the whim of the party leader? Are they are escape from Westminster for the disaffected and those whose career is going nowhere? Are they a means to develop high quality candidates too individual for the backbenches? Or do they actually matter?
I was going to say: Would you go from popular Mayor of a City Region with modest but direct powers to 1 of 650 MPs where you were expected to follow the party whip and go on the radio every other weekend to defend the indefensible? I wouldn't.
Houchen would. The Tees Valley Mayor was designed as a non-job supervising the 5 local authorities, and comes with a suitable non-job salary of £35k. He is very good at using social media to broadcast his triumphs but they either aren't really his or aren't really triumphs ("I've created new jobs" vs employment being down, "I've bought an airport" vs it being a financial basket case which won't be able to sustain the advertised flights assuming some of them actually take off at all).
What's wrong with London (Darlington) airport as Ryanair will undoubtedly call it.
Naah - its in the same country as the destination, their trick was flying people into the neighbouring country and sticking them on a coach.
Teesside Airport's problem is the same as all the other small sub-regional airports: costs outstrip demand. There isn't a sufficiently big enough catchment to make the airport viable, so costs shoot up making the few seats available bonkers money compared to the big regional airports. So few people fly and the airlines pull out. As they have already done once from Teesside.
I must confess my support for the Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative but not banging on about Europe party is wavering this morning. If I was confident it still existed I might even be thinking about defecting from it. The Letterbox Party is just so much more focused on real problems.
Bloody right we are. We also have more related policies - transportation to the colonies for anyone who has a gate secured with a rusty bolt thats a bugger to shift without scratching yourself only to have a letterbox that is jammed up and you can't push anything through.
I just need some clarification on who the leader of the new party is? Having suggested it I assume I am. If challenged and I lose, just to warn you, I might set up a rival 'Party of the Letterboxes'.
I am assuming it is going to be an all mail in ballot? With a free post, natch?
That means we have to appoint a returning officer and I guess you know who I am going to suggest for that role?
I don't know if anybody else heard the Starmer interview on R4 Today this morning, but it was quite interesting. He wasn't very good, actually (see, I am objective). But he did take the opportunity to set out briefly the 5 current top priorities for Labour at the next GE, whenever that is.
His 5 priorities had echoes of Blair's 1997 pledge card. Interestingly, the fifth priority was about bringing an end to the divisions caused by the 'culture war' (although he didn't use that expression, of course). Anyway, signs of an emerging Labour policy platform to fill the current policy vacuum.
This rather ignores that this seat (or its predecessor) last returned a Tory in 1959. The Red Wall seems to be continuing to crumble.
Yet, what about elsewhere in the country? In my rather leafy Bucks village I have yet to see a single Tory banner. A few Labour but many Green signs. Locally the Greens have done quite well before and I would expect that to continue. Locally they don't have to worry about some of their more bonkers national policies. As a traditional Tory I am tempted to give them my vote in the locals which I would never do in a general election.
Here in leafy Jeremy Hunt-land SWS Surrey (Godalming, Fasrnham, Haslemere) the Tory campaign is bizarrely lacklustre. I've had 2 A4 leaflets from them, both closely-typed screeds saying things like "[If the other parties win] we could be faced with higher council tax bills to fund grand visions that have no detailed plan for implementation." Even though I'm heavily involved I have no idea what they're talking about - the only major "vision" I've seen lately is the Tory plan to merge councils into a unitary. It's all perfecvtly unobjectionable stuff, but...?
The LibDem campaign is a bit dull too - lots of A3 leaflets (six, I think) with pictures of the candidates, sayinbg they have a record of success and Labour can't win here, but not many proposals. Labour is focusing on two seats and has put out a lot of leaflets (4) there, but starting from a low base - from zero in one case, as we stood down last time. I've seen a few posters for each party but it's all very quiet. Greens have endorsed LibDems in the towns and are only standing in some villages. Oddly, voters seem quite interested - in phone canvassing, I'm only rarely getting a "won't bother" response, and quite a few warmly endorsing each of the three parties. Prediction - LibDems may be either +1 or -1 vis-a-vis Tories, otherwise no change.
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
It was a pact, sanctioned from the top by Farage and Johnson, and whichever way it's described. Until it was confirmed, the BXP was the fastest-growing political force , and would have damaged the Tories at the election.
Of course it was sanctioned by Johnson, it involved a rival party standing down in over 300 seats! But I don't think it is a pact or co-operation for the simple reason that the Tories didn't give anything up to get it. A deal, pact, whatever, involves something being given by both sides in return for what the other side is giving. But the Tories didn't give anything, Farage just accepted he had to stand down or risk splitting the vote.
The Tories gave Hard Brexit, with as few qualifications as possible, to the BXP. Likewise, Labour need to give PR to the Lib Dems and Greens, if they want to get anywhere in the future.
The Tories didn't give that to the BXP, they gave it to the voters. That's why the voters switched. Thats why the voters abandoned the BXP leaving Farage powerless to avoid humiliation so having no choice but to stand down.
Do you really think LD or Green voters (as opposed to LD or Green candidates) are obsessed by PR?
Well, your sense of giving it to the voters is the more subjective one. What we can say for certain is that it was the cornerstone of the BXP's manifesto demands. On the LDs and Greens, PR is what Labour needs to give their leadership, once again.
It was the cornerstone of what the voters wanted, which is why they abandoned May and went to the BXP - and why when Johnson repositioned the party the voters abandoned the BXP and switched to Johnson's Party. Whether you call it populism or democracy, appealling to the voters works.
On the LDs and the Greens, asking yourself why their voters are backing those Parties instead of Labour is the question that needs addressing. If the answer to that question is that the voters want PR then giving it to them may make the voters switch, without a need for a pact - and thus potentially seeing the other parties standing down as a result.
But if the answer is that the voters want something else, that's not why the voters aren't backing Labour, then the voters will likely continue to not back Labour and vote for something else instead. Or not vote at all.
You are trying to short-circuit the voters, rather than learning the lesson of what Johnson did which is appeal over the top of the other parties directly to their voters.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour aren't going to get anywhere because Starmer is utterly shit. It doesn't matter if you're shit and the incumbent because well better the devil you know and all that. The Tories are talking jobs, Labour is banging on about some wallpaper or other. Burnham is going to smash G Manchester because he does actually have a bit about him unlike the frankly dire Starmer. Greater Manchester was once not that much more Labour than the West Midsor North East. It probably still isn't but they'll do well there because Burnham is believed in.
Labour made a huge mistake picking Corbyn over Burnham in 2017, had they chosen Burnham they would probably have won most seats ahead of May's Tories in 2017. Starmer ironically backed Burnham for leader then
Yeah there are structural changes going on but Labour should really have won stuff like Northfield in 2019. If Labour can't more or less sweep major city seats they'll never, ever win.
I think one thing that fools Labour is the political changes within their social and professional circles.
There's been a huge change in graduate and upper-middle class support since the noughties, particularly amongst educated graduate women. I can think of three friends who supported the Tories even during the Blair years and went for Cameron in GE2010 who are now solidly centre-left. Educated graduate males have also slipped to Lib Dem, or Green, or "alternative" - usually not Labour, funnily enough - as they've sensed the Conservatives no longer speak to their values.
I occupy a lonely place politically within my friendship group, now, and largely don't mention politics - except to a handful on a 1:1 basis who I know are sympathetic (male professionals who keep it under the radar).
I struggle to understand anyone supporting the Conservatives from 1997-2010, now supporting left wing parties, but you are right, it is a real phenomenon. Brexit is obviously part of the story, but only part of it.
It is class politics played out in a different way. I live in Highgate. In 2019, the bigger the house, the greater chance they would show a Labour poster. The terraces (the Muswell Hill side obviously) tended to have Lib Dem ones.
But even if every single owner of every huge house in Highgate had voted Labour in 2019 it would not have been close to enough for Labour to win the majority it did in Holborn and St Pancras. Like it or not, in London Labour wins because it gets the votes of ordinary Londoners on average or below average wages living in rented private or council accommodation. Labour's problem is that most of the rest of England is not like London.
'It's housing, stupid.'
It's not a problem that the rest of the country can afford their own homes, it's a problem that Londoners can't.
A problem Saddiq has done the square root of zero to fix, which is why he is going to be handsomely rewarded by the electorate.
Why would Khan want to fix it? The last thing he wants to see is more Londoners owning their own home and becoming Tories like most of the rest of the country, keeping most Londoners renting keeps them voting Labour
I must confess my support for the Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative but not banging on about Europe party is wavering this morning. If I was confident it still existed I might even be thinking about defecting from it. The Letterbox Party is just so much more focused on real problems.
Bloody right we are. We also have more related policies - transportation to the colonies for anyone who has a gate secured with a rusty bolt thats a bugger to shift without scratching yourself only to have a letterbox that is jammed up and you can't push anything through.
I just need some clarification on who the leader of the new party is? Having suggested it I assume I am. If challenged and I lose, just to warn you, I might set up a rival 'Party of the Letterboxes'.
A split before it even comes into being is pretty impressive. Not even UKIP splinter factions manage that.
This rather ignores that this seat (or its predecessor) last returned a Tory in 1959. The Red Wall seems to be continuing to crumble.
Yet, what about elsewhere in the country? In my rather leafy Bucks village I have yet to see a single Tory banner. A few Labour but many Green signs. Locally the Greens have done quite well before and I would expect that to continue. Locally they don't have to worry about some of their more bonkers national policies. As a traditional Tory I am tempted to give them my vote in the locals which I would never do in a general election.
Here in leafy Jeremy Hunt-land SWS Surrey (Godalming, Fasrnham, Haslemere) the Tory campaign is bizarrely lacklustre. I've had 2 A4 leaflets from them, both closely-typed screeds saying things like "[If the other parties win] we could be faced with higher council tax bills to fund grand visions that have no detailed plan for implementation." Even though I'm heavily involved I have no idea what they're talking about - the only major "vision" I've seen lately is the Tory plan to merge councils into a unitary. It's all perfecvtly unobjectionable stuff, but...?
The LibDem campaign is a bit dull too - lots of A3 leaflets (six, I think) with pictures of the candidates, sayinbg they have a record of success and Labour can't win here, but not many proposals. Labour is focusing on two seats and has put out a lot of leaflets (4) there, but starting from a low base - from zero in one case, as we stood down last time. I've seen a few posters for each party but it's all very quiet. Greens have endorsed LibDems in the towns and are only standing in some villages. Oddly, voters seem quite interested - in phone canvassing, I'm only rarely getting a "won't bother" response, and quite a few warmly endorsing each of the three parties. Prediction - LibDems may be either +1 or -1 vis-a-vis Tories, otherwise no change.
As a fellow Surrey resident what I would say is...'it's surrey', I'll probably be voting Lib dem, but only out of a general 'lets not keep the tories too safe and keep them on their toes' way.
The Tories could probably do with Street in the Commons after this. He has a lot to offer.
Does make me wonder where mayoralties rank, prestige wise.
Are they stepping stones to the Commons where theyd go from high profile locally to at the whim of the party leader? Are they are escape from Westminster for the disaffected and those whose career is going nowhere? Are they a means to develop high quality candidates too individual for the backbenches? Or do they actually matter?
I was going to say: Would you go from popular Mayor of a City Region with modest but direct powers to 1 of 650 MPs where you were expected to follow the party whip and go on the radio every other weekend to defend the indefensible? I wouldn't.
Houchen would. The Tees Valley Mayor was designed as a non-job supervising the 5 local authorities, and comes with a suitable non-job salary of £35k. He is very good at using social media to broadcast his triumphs but they either aren't really his or aren't really triumphs ("I've created new jobs" vs employment being down, "I've bought an airport" vs it being a financial basket case which won't be able to sustain the advertised flights assuming some of them actually take off at all).
What's wrong with London (Darlington) airport as Ryanair will undoubtedly call it.
Naah - its in the same country as the destination, their trick was flying people into the neighbouring country and sticking them on a coach.
Teesside Airport's problem is the same as all the other small sub-regional airports: costs outstrip demand. There isn't a sufficiently big enough catchment to make the airport viable, so costs shoot up making the few seats available bonkers money compared to the big regional airports. So few people fly and the airlines pull out. As they have already done once from Teesside.
Yep - it's a numbers game but even in it's pre-refresh state it was a far nicer airport to fly from than Newcastle.
Had the Oil industry not existed it would have gone years ago (the AMS journeys were great as literally everyone has priority boarding) so the question is will the new Treasury site helps things along as Oil dies out.
The problem Labour has, is there are not nearly enough Southern seats to counter those lost in the Red Wall. Anyone run the numbers on that, isn't it something like they need to win JRM's seat to undo the Red Wall
Labour need to be threatening (not necessarily winning) JRM's seat to win an OM, but of course need to do much less to deny the Tories an OM. A Labour OM is, unless a Blair shaped Black Swan arrives, completely impossible - and the current odds are ludicrous (7/2).
Among their target seats in terms of crude numbers (swing required) are completely different backgrounds, in particular compare 'marginal' seats where the Labour tide is going out (the old red wall etc) and the ones where the Labour tide is coming in (urban, BAME and posh/educated/Toynbee territory), I think there are fewer of the latter than the former mostly because they already hold that ground and because there aren't so many to start with.
Think squirrels. If you want an exciting and exotic one, search for a red one. They exist in enclaves in different parts and are wonderful. But if you want to win a squirrel election look for the greys. They are boring and everywhere. Tories hold almost all the boring seats - the ones the chattering classes visit every 20 years to write about, like The Economist mentioned mine recently (BTW we still have red squirrels).
I like the Squirrel Theory of Electoral Success. Also explains the Isle of Wight being a bit unique.
I must confess my support for the Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative but not banging on about Europe party is wavering this morning. If I was confident it still existed I might even be thinking about defecting from it. The Letterbox Party is just so much more focused on real problems.
Bloody right we are. We also have more related policies - transportation to the colonies for anyone who has a gate secured with a rusty bolt thats a bugger to shift without scratching yourself only to have a letterbox that is jammed up and you can't push anything through.
I just need some clarification on who the leader of the new party is? Having suggested it I assume I am. If challenged and I lose, just to warn you, I might set up a rival 'Party of the Letterboxes'.
Can we have a Party For People Who Want Political Leaflets Put Straight Into The Bin, please?
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
I voted for Nandy but thanks for calling me a tosspot.
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
It was a pact, sanctioned from the top by Farage and Johnson, and whichever way it's described. Until it was confirmed, the BXP was the fastest-growing political force , and would have damaged the Tories at the election.
Of course it was sanctioned by Johnson, it involved a rival party standing down in over 300 seats! But I don't think it is a pact or co-operation for the simple reason that the Tories didn't give anything up to get it. A deal, pact, whatever, involves something being given by both sides in return for what the other side is giving. But the Tories didn't give anything, Farage just accepted he had to stand down or risk splitting the vote.
The Tories gave Hard Brexit, with as few qualifications as possible, to the BXP. Likewise, Labour need to give PR to the Lib Dems and Greens, if they want to get anywhere in the future.
The Tories didn't give that to the BXP, they gave it to the voters. That's why the voters switched. Thats why the voters abandoned the BXP leaving Farage powerless to avoid humiliation so having no choice but to stand down.
Do you really think LD or Green voters (as opposed to LD or Green candidates) are obsessed by PR?
Farage not kicking up a fuss about the exit deal was genuinely shocking.
Labour have been a woeful opposition, even under Starmer.
But there is, dare I say it, a touch of hubris in the air this morning. Remember May won Copeland - a Labour seat since forever. Stunning victory etc etc. Trudi Harrison, my MP now, is now Boris's PPS. She has been conspicuously silent on the problems facing farmers and hospitality in the constituency. It is Tim Farron in the neighbouring constituency who has made all the running on this and the plight of outdoor centres. The one big jobs development in the area - the mine - has been put on hold.
Husband takes the cynical view that better to have a Tory MP as there is a chance that an area which has largely been neglected might get something. Daughter sees an MP who has said and done little and has yet to have the meeting with her to discuss the issues around hospitality and small businesses she was promised since before Xmas.
Anyway, a few months after Copeland the Tories lost their majority. Now of course the PM is a better campaigner than May, he won't call a GE etc etc. But still - a touch of humility might not go amiss. The Tories are in danger of taking their new voters just as much for granted as Labour have done, unless there are real and visible improvements.
Improving the roads would be something - round where I live the potholes are something that would disgrace a poor African village.
If there were a by-election in Chingford or Kensington, or Wycombe, Labour would probably win it by a country mile. That article on the Blue Wall was interesting.
And, in a way, that's the key thing that some commentators have forgotten here this morning.
If today's poll is even half-right, Hartlepool is a goner. Well, duh. Without Tice's intervention, it would have fallen easily in December 2019.
But if yesterday's polls are right, the national picture is that the government, despite all its triumphs, is barely ahead of this terrible Labour party led by terrible old Starmer.
The problem Labour has, is there are not nearly enough Southern seats to counter those lost in the Red Wall. Anyone run the numbers on that, isn't it something like they need to win JRM's seat to undo the Red Wall
Labour need to be threatening (not necessarily winning) JRM's seat to win an OM, but of course need to do much less to deny the Tories an OM. A Labour OM is, unless a Blair shaped Black Swan arrives, completely impossible - and the current odds are ludicrous (7/2).
Among their target seats in terms of crude numbers (swing required) are completely different backgrounds, in particular compare 'marginal' seats where the Labour tide is going out (the old red wall etc) and the ones where the Labour tide is coming in (urban, BAME and posh/educated/Toynbee territory), I think there are fewer of the latter than the former mostly because they already hold that ground and because there aren't so many to start with.
Think squirrels. If you want an exciting and exotic one, search for a red one. They exist in enclaves in different parts and are wonderful. But if you want to win a squirrel election look for the greys. They are boring and everywhere. Tories hold almost all the boring seats - the ones the chattering classes visit every 20 years to write about, like The Economist mentioned mine recently (BTW we still have red squirrels).
Labour aren't going to get anywhere because Starmer is utterly shit. It doesn't matter if you're shit and the incumbent because well better the devil you know and all that. The Tories are talking jobs, Labour is banging on about some wallpaper or other. Burnham is going to smash G Manchester because he does actually have a bit about him unlike the frankly dire Starmer. Greater Manchester was once not that much more Labour than the West Midsor North East. It probably still isn't but they'll do well there because Burnham is believed in.
Labour made a huge mistake picking Corbyn over Burnham in 2017, had they chosen Burnham they would probably have won most seats ahead of May's Tories in 2017. Starmer ironically backed Burnham for leader then
Yeah there are structural changes going on but Labour should really have won stuff like Northfield in 2019. If Labour can't more or less sweep major city seats they'll never, ever win.
I think one thing that fools Labour is the political changes within their social and professional circles.
There's been a huge change in graduate and upper-middle class support since the noughties, particularly amongst educated graduate women. I can think of three friends who supported the Tories even during the Blair years and went for Cameron in GE2010 who are now solidly centre-left. Educated graduate males have also slipped to Lib Dem, or Green, or "alternative" - usually not Labour, funnily enough - as they've sensed the Conservatives no longer speak to their values.
I occupy a lonely place politically within my friendship group, now, and largely don't mention politics - except to a handful on a 1:1 basis who I know are sympathetic (male professionals who keep it under the radar).
I struggle to understand anyone supporting the Conservatives from 1997-2010, now supporting left wing parties, but you are right, it is a real phenomenon. Brexit is obviously part of the story, but only part of it.
It is class politics played out in a different way. I live in Highgate. In 2019, the bigger the house, the greater chance they would show a Labour poster. The terraces (the Muswell Hill side obviously) tended to have Lib Dem ones.
But even if every single owner of every huge house in Highgate had voted Labour in 2019 it would not have been close to enough for Labour to win the majority it did in Holborn and St Pancras. Like it or not, in London Labour wins because it gets the votes of ordinary Londoners on average or below average wages living in rented private or council accommodation. Labour's problem is that most of the rest of England is not like London.
Inner city working class people are the wrong kind of working class.
This rather ignores that this seat (or its predecessor) last returned a Tory in 1959. The Red Wall seems to be continuing to crumble.
Yet, what about elsewhere in the country? In my rather leafy Bucks village I have yet to see a single Tory banner. A few Labour but many Green signs. Locally the Greens have done quite well before and I would expect that to continue. Locally they don't have to worry about some of their more bonkers national policies. As a traditional Tory I am tempted to give them my vote in the locals which I would never do in a general election.
The farmers who used to plaster rural areas with big Tory posters seem strangely less keen this time around. Has anything happened recently?
Just seen the Hartlepool poll - bloody hell if accurate that is grim for Labour and Starmer.
What’s interesting is what this sort of polling means for the medium to long term for the state of the parties. I know I’ve said Labour can’t complacently rely on events leading to a swing back. BUT at some point there will be a non Tory government. If the old northern strongholds become the new Tory safe seats, what are the new Labour targets that form their new base in a future majority government?
In lots of the Home Counties the Tories are weakening substantially, Labour's issue is that it's usually the LDs in the best place to capitalise.
This is the second issue for the left-of-centre, as well as Labour remaining stubbornly more left-right factional than the US Democrats. Unless they learn to co-operate with the Lib Dems and Greens, as the Tories did with the Brexit Party, and get over their factional hatred of them, they may never get back into power.
Did the Tories really cooperate with The Brexit Party? What did the Tories give them, electorally? It seems to me the Tories ate The Brexit Party in terms of policy and voters, and while Labour would be very happy for all the LD/Green voters to abandon those parties they aren't willing (not entirely unreasonably) to adopt their central policies to do so. Besides, Labour has adopted a lot of Green policies and it hasn't helped.
The Tories and Brexit Party formed official and unofficial pacts in various constituencies, IIRC.
You recall wrong then.
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
It was a pact, sanctioned from the top by Farage and Johnson, and whichever way it's described. Until it was confirmed, the BXP was the fastest-growing political force , and would have damaged the Tories at the election.
Of course it was sanctioned by Johnson, it involved a rival party standing down in over 300 seats! But I don't think it is a pact or co-operation for the simple reason that the Tories didn't give anything up to get it. A deal, pact, whatever, involves something being given by both sides in return for what the other side is giving. But the Tories didn't give anything, Farage just accepted he had to stand down or risk splitting the vote.
The Tories gave Hard Brexit, with as few qualifications as possible, to the BXP. Likewise, Labour need to give PR to the Lib Dems and Greens, if they want to get anywhere in the future.
The Tories didn't give that to the BXP, they gave it to the voters. That's why the voters switched. Thats why the voters abandoned the BXP leaving Farage powerless to avoid humiliation so having no choice but to stand down.
Do you really think LD or Green voters (as opposed to LD or Green candidates) are obsessed by PR?
Well, your sense of giving it to the voters is the more subjective one. What we can say for certain is that it was the cornerstone of the BXP's manifesto demands. On the LDs and Greens, PR is what Labour needs to give their leadership, once again.
It was the cornerstone of what the voters wanted, which is why they abandoned May and went to the BXP - and why when Johnson repositioned the party the voters abandoned the BXP and switched to Johnson's Party. Whether you call it populism or democracy, appealling to the voters works.
On the LDs and the Greens, asking yourself why their voters are backing those Parties instead of Labour is the question that needs addressing. If the answer to that question is that the voters want PR then giving it to them may make the voters switch, without a need for a pact - and thus potentially seeing the other parties standing down as a result.
But if the answer is that the voters want something else, that's not why the voters aren't backing Labour, then the voters will likely continue to not back Labour and vote for something else instead. Or not vote at all.
You are trying to short-circuit the voters, rather than learning the lesson of what Johnson did which is appeal over the top of the other parties directly to their voters.
You're propounding here an extremely rosy account of the entire Brexit process as from-the-ground-up, organic democracy, as Spiked et al also tend to do.
The only reason Cameron agreed to a referendum in the very first place was solely two forms of party-political calculation. Firstly, that the right of his party was beginning to pose a threat to his position internally, but more importantly, because UKIP was beginning to threaten him at local and european elections, and before most voters even much cared about the european topic at all, according to all the surveys of the time.
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Future#Controversy_and_closure
This quote from the Hartlepool voter stuck out for me.
"His conclusion is this: “Labour now is rich people telling poor people that other rich people are their problem.”"
His 5 priorities had echoes of Blair's 1997 pledge card. Interestingly, the fifth priority was about bringing an end to the divisions caused by the 'culture war' (although he didn't use that expression, of course). Anyway, signs of an emerging Labour policy platform to fill the current policy vacuum.
Trouble is, it looks really bad if you are also engaging in a culture war with said poor people
‘Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains, you disgusting, smelly racists’
That is basically the Labour message, now. Indeed it is the message of the Left across the West, which speaks of many problems ahead
There wasn't when she got kicked out for Boris.
There may be a need in the future if the Hancock wing of the Con party continues to flex its water wings.
That is NOT the case this time - the sample looks fine on that front.
(I'm guessing that means Damian did what he suggested he might, and prompted on the recall Q)
Secondly, any phone poll like this you *still* get comments along the lines of "well, if you only ring landlines!"
No phone polls only ring landlines. It rang mobiles too.
The poll may be wrong, but it certainly won't be wrong for either of those reasons.
https://twitter.com/anthonyjwells/status/1389512587851751426
The Tories ruled out a pact and just absorbed BXP voters to the point even BXP candidates were choosing to stand down and endorse the Tories. At which point their leader faced facts and chose to stand down in most of the nation rather than be stood down, so he could act like he had influence.
If Labour wishes to start appealling to Liberal Democrat voters perhaps they should start with asking those voters why they support the Liberal Democrats and not Labour in the first place?
The Conservative party is people in the top 10% telling people in the middle 80% that people in the bottom 10% and top 10% are the problem.
The Labour party is people in the top 10% telling other people in the top 10% how horrible life is for the bottom 10% and either ignoring or abusing the middle 80%.
Even in a unionised industry, like the one I used to work in, unions tend to look out for the interests of the older, established, mostly male jobs and be less interested in the lower paid and part-time workforce (at least they did twenty years ago).
Unless the Tories go back to austerity post covid then it’s hard to see how Labour can rebuild the Red Wall which is currently crumbling .
Aswell as this Starmer is not really the right leader for those seats , I actually like Starmer but it’s easy for the Tories to label him as an out of touch metropolitan elite even though his upbringing is a lot more “real world “ compared to Johnson .
My interest on Thursday is really what happens in Scotland which is on a knife edge . Hartlepool is a lost cause and the council elections won’t have the political impact that a SNP majority will deliver .
Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9
Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0
Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017
Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9
Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3
P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019
Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8
S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3
Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50377396
https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1389475684662366208
A worse variation on c) is when you have climbed up steps to said house, had a good look around for any way to insert the leaflet into the house and decided to leave it under a stone or stuck in the door jamb, then when you get back to the street you notice the hidden box and have to go back and retrieve the leaflet so they don’t conclude you’re an unobservant idiot.
Wait until you hear about all those other red wall seats that were lost under Corbyn’s leadership.
I don't find 500k dead without action implausible. Particularly with higher deaths/infections if healthcare systems had been overwhelmed.
However, this is very good news. "Don't see any prospect" means even the worst case scenarios, the ones people were getting upset about a few weeks ago wih the most pessimistic assumptions, are now coming out within what we can cope with. The most likely estimates will be for nothing much happening at all.
PLP will conclude SKS is too much of a Corbynite
I went to BRNC Dartmouth/RNFTF Roborough.
The BXP was not a fast growing political force, it was a fast fading political farce by that date already. Check the opinion polls, they'd gone from over 20 points in the polls, to the teens and by that date were already in the single digits and fading fast.
And a week before Farage faced the inevitable, his own candidates had begun endorsing the Tories. That was the narrative at the time: https://www.expressandstar.com/news/politics/general-election-2019/2019/12/07/brexit-party-candidate-only-the-tories-can-deliver-brexit/
But there is, dare I say it, a touch of hubris in the air this morning. Remember May won Copeland - a Labour seat since forever. Stunning victory etc etc. Trudi Harrison, my MP now, is now Boris's PPS. She has been conspicuously silent on the problems facing farmers and hospitality in the constituency. It is Tim Farron in the neighbouring constituency who has made all the running on this and the plight of outdoor centres. The one big jobs development in the area - the mine - has been put on hold.
Husband takes the cynical view that better to have a Tory MP as there is a chance that an area which has largely been neglected might get something. Daughter sees an MP who has said and done little and has yet to have the meeting with her to discuss the issues around hospitality and small businesses she was promised since before Xmas.
Anyway, a few months after Copeland the Tories lost their majority. Now of course the PM is a better campaigner than May, he won't call a GE etc etc. But still - a touch of humility might not go amiss. The Tories are in danger of taking their new voters just as much for granted as Labour have done, unless there are real and visible improvements.
Improving the roads would be something - round where I live the potholes are something that would disgrace a poor African village.
It's not a problem that the rest of the country can afford their own homes, it's a problem that Londoners can't.
A problem Saddiq has done the square root of zero to fix, which is why he is going to be handsomely rewarded by the electorate.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Do you really think LD or Green voters (as opposed to LD or Green candidates) are obsessed by PR?
Among their target seats in terms of crude numbers (swing required) are completely different backgrounds, in particular compare 'marginal' seats where the Labour tide is going out (the old red wall etc) and the ones where the Labour tide is coming in (urban, BAME and posh/educated/Toynbee territory), I think there are fewer of the latter than the former mostly because they already hold that ground and because there aren't so many to start with.
Think squirrels. If you want an exciting and exotic one, search for a red one. They exist in enclaves in different parts and are wonderful. But if you want to win a squirrel election look for the greys. They are boring and everywhere. Tories hold almost all the boring seats - the ones the chattering classes visit every 20 years to write about, like The Economist mentioned mine recently (BTW we still have red squirrels).
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
https://twitter.com/Jefferson_MFG/status/1389464002984660999
Teesside Airport's problem is the same as all the other small sub-regional airports: costs outstrip demand. There isn't a sufficiently big enough catchment to make the airport viable, so costs shoot up making the few seats available bonkers money compared to the big regional airports. So few people fly and the airlines pull out. As they have already done once from Teesside.
The LibDem campaign is a bit dull too - lots of A3 leaflets (six, I think) with pictures of the candidates, sayinbg they have a record of success and Labour can't win here, but not many proposals. Labour is focusing on two seats and has put out a lot of leaflets (4) there, but starting from a low base - from zero in one case, as we stood down last time. I've seen a few posters for each party but it's all very quiet. Greens have endorsed LibDems in the towns and are only standing in some villages. Oddly, voters seem quite interested - in phone canvassing, I'm only rarely getting a "won't bother" response, and quite a few warmly endorsing each of the three parties. Prediction - LibDems may be either +1 or -1 vis-a-vis Tories, otherwise no change.
SKS needs one election to bring in a quality cohort. Only then can he make a push for govt.
He's a decade away from power.
On the LDs and the Greens, asking yourself why their voters are backing those Parties instead of Labour is the question that needs addressing. If the answer to that question is that the voters want PR then giving it to them may make the voters switch, without a need for a pact - and thus potentially seeing the other parties standing down as a result.
But if the answer is that the voters want something else, that's not why the voters aren't backing Labour, then the voters will likely continue to not back Labour and vote for something else instead. Or not vote at all.
You are trying to short-circuit the voters, rather than learning the lesson of what Johnson did which is appeal over the top of the other parties directly to their voters.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Sounds like it was cooked up on east European party drugs.
https://twitter.com/Holbornlolz/status/1389470990590267393
Had the Oil industry not existed it would have gone years ago (the AMS journeys were great as literally everyone has priority boarding) so the question is will the new Treasury site helps things along as Oil dies out.
If today's poll is even half-right, Hartlepool is a goner. Well, duh. Without Tice's intervention, it would have fallen easily in December 2019.
But if yesterday's polls are right, the national picture is that the government, despite all its triumphs, is barely ahead of this terrible Labour party led by terrible old Starmer.
Both things can be true at once.
The only reason Cameron agreed to a referendum in the very first place was solely two forms of party-political calculation. Firstly, that the right of his party was beginning to pose a threat to his position internally, but more importantly, because UKIP was beginning to threaten him at local and european elections, and before most voters even much cared about the european topic at all, according to all the surveys of the time.