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The Tories look set to take Hartlepool which has seen a huge turnout – politicalbetting.com

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  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,796
    The Welsh Nude and Proud Party is the best spoof I have seen in ages. That someone has gone to the time and expense of printing and delivering election leaflets for a party that doesn't exist is brilliant! I hope some people in Newport did a write in. We need wipe-down seats on buses and trains!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513

    kle4 said:

    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Sad to see Jezziah delighted and celebrating a poor Labour performance. Clearly part of the problem.

    The party is badly split. Its not good to have an ineffective opposition when the soul of Labour is going to be fought over again....
    Yup, part of Starmers apparent weakness is that he has been papering over cracks a mile wide. If Labour doesn’t act FPTP will consign it to the dustbin. I fear it is already too late.
    This is the way I see it.

    Many on the right of Labour didn't want Corbyn, they wanted a right wing leader. So they attacked him, one of those attacks was being unelectable, in fact it was the main one prior to 2017. They got proven wrong (if he got to that position in 2017 it clearly wasn't impossible)

    So they worked overtime to make sure they were right and he would lose so they could get the right wing leader they wanted. Now we have a right wing leader the left are not expected to reciprocate.

    And then presumably even if the left didn't reciprocate if they did happen to get another left wing leader, the right would just do exactly the same thing over again until we ended up with a right wing leader again because why the hell wouldn't they?

    They got everything they wanted prior to the kickback from left wingers so what reason to change their behaviour would there be?

    None.

    So basically left wing Labour members were told you can never get what you want and must always do what we want, also we must behave like the right behaved during Corbyn's entire leadership which I am sure sounds like a perfect reasonable compromise from a Labour right wing point of view.

    Unsurprisingly it isn't one anyone would accept.
    Problem is FPTP is a tough old beast - if left and right of Labour are this at odds how can they win? It's not like theyll just let the other party of ostensibly the same party win apparently.

    Long dominance is not good for the country, we need Labour factions to have some kind of armistice at some point.
    Speaking personally, I like to be even with people. We get to wreck their leader. Then we start back again with a left wing leadership and then the left must act how the right act under this hypothetical new leadership under a future right wing one. Obviously Corbyn would have to be back in as well.

    Or basically the left should do what it has done but this time with the right behaving itself and the left faithfully copying again.
    There's only two options for Labour, as I see it ; either a new and inspired group of advisors to a uniting leadership, channelling Wilson's very broad base of social, material, educational and progressive aspiration, of the 1960s, or a complete realignment of the centre left. The second option would mean Labour agreeing to an amicable split, but only if the terms of a grand left-of-centre coalition were agreed first, with PR offered to the Greens and Lib Dems in reward for support.
    PR would, if nothing else, allow the electorate to adjudicate the absurd internecine Labour wars.
    God knows neither side will otherwise admit the other has claim to any votes at all.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,207

    So according to Momentum and their fellow travellers, if only we'd stuck with the strategy that cost us just about every other seat in County Durham we'd have held Hartlepool.

    Call me unconvinced.

    Just saw that - unreal
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,555

    fox327 said:

    It seems that Labour are just digging themselves deeper into the hole with everything that they do. The asteroid sent the dinosaurs extinct in 65 million BC. The iceberg sank the Titanic in 1912. The pandemic is finishing Labour off in 2021.

    Labour has an outdated image and core values. Only total fundamental change can save the Labour party but that is exactly what its activists do not want.

    Social democrat and socialist parties have been in trouble all over europe (some exceptions of course). Look at Germany's SPD.

    They all have to try and work out how to become relevant again.
    It’s the traditional parties that are in trouble. The Tories have currently survived by becoming BLUKIP and hooking their wagon to a snake oil showman. Where they go next is also anyone’s guess.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,362
    TOPPING said:

    @TOPPING FWIW I think you were right to take a few quid on Labour at 23s last night.

    The voting might have ended but the counting hadn't started and constituency polls have been badly wrong before.

    There was not a single piece of polling, insight, anecdote or even gut feeling that has suggested for weeks this would be anything but a tidy Tory win.

    But well done for topping up the Shadsy Christmas Party fund.
    Don't be a polling slave.
    You are demonstrating that you have no political nous whatsoever.

    None.

    The only person betting for Labour to win was someone who had seen all the relevant information laid out before them - and come to 180 degrees the wrong interpretation.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,069
    Worse than that, France pulled ahead of the UK.😲
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,549
    edited May 2021

    Pulpstar said:

    Labour's natural vote is becoming very middle class. They need to look to Biden tbh

    Biden almost lost the House, didn't take the Senate and only took the Presidency because he was up against a madman. For a verdict on Biden we need to see how the blue collar belt respond to him in 2022 and 2024.

    British politics are very different to American politics - we already import far too much nonsense from there IMHO.
    The chances of Biden standing in the next POTUS election are smaller than a very very small thing. In fact, the chances of him still being POTUS this time next year don’t exist. He is mentally gone already and was before he was elected. Everyone in the USA media knew it but they were so desperate to get the bad orange man out they would have ignored it if he had died.


    Biden as Demented Vegetable. "Everybody in the USA media knew it".

    What a load of total horseshit.

    Next you'll be telling us that Trumpsky is still the Secret President.

    Biden is gonna run for re-election in 2024. Wait for it.

    As for 2022, his COVID response plus infrastructure & other action targeted to middle/working class taxpayers will help him in his quest to do what most presidents have done before: pick up seats in Congress in their first mid-term election.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,477

    Foxy said:

    One good result last night.

    Arsenal out of the Europa League means 4th place is a Champions League spot, of interest to LCFC, Chelsea, Liverpool and West Ham fans.

    Yes and erm, Tottenham too. They're only 1 point behind West Ham and Chelsea-Leicester have to play each other and then the final game is Spurs v Leicester.

    Outside chance but a chance nonetheless, especially if they play like they did Sunday.
    Indeed. Tottenham shouldn’t be discounted because they have a winnable run-in. They play Leeds away in pouring rain tomorrow lunchtime though - that’s not easy.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,695

    IanB2 said:

    So the national polls are either dead wrong - although Survation called the by election almost spot on and is also seeing a smaller Tory lead - or Labour are piling up votes somewhere else. But where?

    The polls were wrong - they were measuring disapproval over wallpapergate.

    A few of us called that here over the weekend whilst the usual suspects were hyperventilating.
    Indeed. I was very glad that you weren't fooled for a second. The parallels with 'Phonegate' days before GE2019 are even more striking now, and form a pattern that we'll probably see again in the future: the media goes all in on a non-story of Boris looking like a wally about something inconsequential; the Tories drop in the polls and the usual suspects wet themselves with joy. Then the public vote and Boris crushes the opposition.

    Rinse and repeat.
    It will be interesting to compare Tory performance in the shire counties. Wallpapergate (which is better considered johnlewisgate) is an issue more likely to play with middle class voters.
    Yes. I’m pretty sure that Sunday’s results will tell a different story for the Conservatives. But by then the media narrative will have been set.
    I suspect you are correct. The Tories definitely look like they are getting some impressive results in Brexit areas this morning at the expense of Labour. We seem to be seeing a realignment of the country.

    I saw the interview of the new MP for Hartlepool this morning. She sounded Ok.

    Re the comments on Wallpapergate not coming through are missing the point. Of course it didn't in Hartlepool. That doesn't make it acceptable. It isn't.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401

    Pulpstar said:

    Labour's natural vote is becoming very middle class. They need to look to Biden tbh

    Biden almost lost the House, didn't take the Senate and only took the Presidency because he was up against a madman. For a verdict on Biden we need to see how the blue collar belt respond to him in 2022 and 2024.

    British politics are very different to American politics - we already import far too much nonsense from there IMHO.
    The chances of Biden standing in the next POTUS election are smaller than a very very small thing. In fact, the chances of him still being POTUS this time next year don’t exist. He is mentally gone already and was before he was elected. Everyone in the USA media knew it but they were so desperate to get the bad orange man out they would have ignored it if he had died.
    Biden is gonna run for re-election in 2024.

    Biden as Demented Vegetable. "Everybody in the USA media knew it".

    What a load of total horseshit.

    Next you'll be telling us that Trumpsky is still the Secret President.As for 2022, his COVID response plus infrastructure & other action targeted to middle/working class taxpayers will help him in his quest to do what most presidents have done before: pick up seats in Congress in their first mid-term election.
    "The chances of Biden standing in the next POTUS election are smaller than a very very small thing."

    That's a keeper.

    Biden will be standing.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513

    kle4 said:

    Can someday explain why Jess Phillips would do better if Brexit is the issue. She opposed it and then refused during the leadership contest to say if she’d ever support rejoin. At least Nandy and Starmer answered that.

    Until there is somebody better than Starmer. He should stay. He’s got a year for me then I will call for him to resign if no progress.

    I dont actually think past stance is key. The right person in the right place at the right time can get away with doing a 180 after all. Problem is that requires opponent weakness and a lot of talent
    It's a cliché but I don't think Starmer can fake sincerity. That's not to say he isn't sincere about what he believes in, probably much more so than Johnson, but Starmer's just incapable of sounding convincing about it. That's a terrible handicap for a politician.
    What you mean is that he's no good at expressing real sincerity ?
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,555

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think the Labour Left can win on economic policies, because free stuff is always popular, but do need to jettison the foreign policy obsessions, such as Palestine. The Middle East is none of our business anymore, and rightly so.

    Our lefty Middle Eastern policy is to stop interfering, recognise Palestine and stop providing weapons to Saudi's and Israel. Do you mean the left should abandon the idea to stop interfering?

    Others will or might want more but I am talking about actual policy, the above was our interference in the Middle East under Corbyn and Ed (mostly I am pretty sure) which I would argue is more about stopping interfering than interfering more!
    I mean stop speaking about Palestine and Israel at all.
    It would be helpful if some people appeared to care as much for problems in Portsmouth, Plymouth or Preston as they did Palestine.
    Doesn't this go much more for the pro-Israeli MPs within Labour?

    Some of them were willing to torpedo their own party and the policies that would help people in those areas because the party leader was insufficiently supportive of Israel?!

    What kind of fucked up priority system is that?

    The anti-occupation lot didn't declare all our war when you had Blair in charge, they didn't even when Keir took over and declared himself a Zionist without qualification or something, so surely it is the Labour right you need to look at here.

    Why the hell do they care more about the Middle East than normal working people in Britain?!
    There you go again, Blaming others, banging on about Blair, not looking for ways to come together and ignoring your own issues. Sure, the whole Labour Party needs to focus on the needs of voters and took more about domestic issues.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,796

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think the Labour Left can win on economic policies, because free stuff is always popular, but do need to jettison the foreign policy obsessions, such as Palestine. The Middle East is none of our business anymore, and rightly so.

    Our lefty Middle Eastern policy is to stop interfering, recognise Palestine and stop providing weapons to Saudi's and Israel. Do you mean the left should abandon the idea to stop interfering?

    Others will or might want more but I am talking about actual policy, the above was our interference in the Middle East under Corbyn and Ed (mostly I am pretty sure) which I would argue is more about stopping interfering than interfering more!
    I mean stop speaking about Palestine and Israel at all.
    It would be helpful if some people appeared to care as much for problems in Portsmouth, Plymouth or Preston as they did Palestine.
    Doesn't this go much more for the pro-Israeli MPs within Labour?

    Some of them were willing to torpedo their own party and the policies that would help people in those areas because the party leader was insufficiently supportive of Israel?!

    What kind of fucked up priority system is that?

    The anti-occupation lot didn't declare all our war when you had Blair in charge, they didn't even when Keir took over and declared himself a Zionist without qualification or something, so surely it is the Labour right you need to look at here.

    Why the hell do they care more about the Middle East than normal working people in Britain?!
    And here it is. British Jews who are doing the bidding of Israel. It is straight up anti-semitism. Its a good thing you quit the party, saves them having to expel you.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,207

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think the Labour Left can win on economic policies, because free stuff is always popular, but do need to jettison the foreign policy obsessions, such as Palestine. The Middle East is none of our business anymore, and rightly so.

    Our lefty Middle Eastern policy is to stop interfering, recognise Palestine and stop providing weapons to Saudi's and Israel. Do you mean the left should abandon the idea to stop interfering?

    Others will or might want more but I am talking about actual policy, the above was our interference in the Middle East under Corbyn and Ed (mostly I am pretty sure) which I would argue is more about stopping interfering than interfering more!
    I mean stop speaking about Palestine and Israel at all.
    It would be helpful if some people appeared to care as much for problems in Portsmouth, Plymouth or Preston as they did Palestine.
    Doesn't this go much more for the pro-Israeli MPs within Labour?

    Some of them were willing to torpedo their own party and the policies that would help people in those areas because the party leader was insufficiently supportive of Israel?!

    What kind of fucked up priority system is that?

    The anti-occupation lot didn't declare all our war when you had Blair in charge, they didn't even when Keir took over and declared himself a Zionist without qualification or something, so surely it is the Labour right you need to look at here.

    Why the hell do they care more about the Middle East than normal working people in Britain?!
    You need more flags Jez, just Palestinian not the Union Jack

    Keep fighting the good fight :wink:
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401
    edited May 2021
    "The last ten years of what we have been doing in Labour have brought us to this point" - Mandelson.

    (R4)
  • TheJezziahTheJezziah Posts: 3,840

    Foxy said:



    I think the Labour Left can win on economic policies, because free stuff is always popular, but do need to jettison the foreign policy obsessions, such as Palestine. The Middle East is none of our business anymore, and rightly so.

    Our lefty Middle Eastern policy is to stop interfering, recognise Palestine and stop providing weapons to Saudi's and Israel. Do you mean the left should abandon the idea to stop interfering?

    Others will or might want more but I am talking about actual policy, the above was our interference in the Middle East under Corbyn and Ed (mostly I am pretty sure) which I would argue is more about stopping interfering than interfering more!
    No, I think he means that "the left" should stop endlessly and anti-semitically obsessing about fucking Palestine and demanding that British Jews explain / apologise.

    Starmer should go down fighting. Expel everyone who invokes Palestine in their campaigns. The only way to save the party is remove the cancer.
    Just admit that you were upset that Labour members didn't get as excited about supporting killing Palestinians as you did, still clearly upsets you to this day.
    Palestine is no different to any of the other trouble spots around the world of which there are many. The mad left only go on exclusively about Palestine because they are anti-semites.
    Just admit that you were upset that Labour members didn't get as excited about supporting killing Palestinians as you did, still clearly upsets you to this day.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401
    We have to change or we will be here again and again says Mandelson.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Crushing defeat for Labour in Hartlepool. Not possible to blame Jeremy Corbyn for this result. Labour won the seat twice under his leadership. Keir Starmer must think again about his strategy #HartlepoolByElection

    https://twitter.com/HackneyAbbott/status/1390553244636680193?s=20
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077
    Floater said:

    So according to Momentum and their fellow travellers, if only we'd stuck with the strategy that cost us just about every other seat in County Durham we'd have held Hartlepool.

    Call me unconvinced.

    Just saw that - unreal
    The seat was lost before the by-election started (it would have been lost in 2019 had Farage not played politics).

    The answer is what happens in 3 years time come the next election. Will things have changed and Hartlepool have hope or will nothing have changed and Hartlepool move to the next option.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,549
    GIN1138 said:

    So I guess Hartlepool really didn't care about Boris Johnson's wallpaper? :D

    Yes. The love it!

    Carrie will be marketing her own line of home furnishings, the Martha Stewart of True Blue Britain.
  • TheJezziahTheJezziah Posts: 3,840
    Floater said:

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think the Labour Left can win on economic policies, because free stuff is always popular, but do need to jettison the foreign policy obsessions, such as Palestine. The Middle East is none of our business anymore, and rightly so.

    Our lefty Middle Eastern policy is to stop interfering, recognise Palestine and stop providing weapons to Saudi's and Israel. Do you mean the left should abandon the idea to stop interfering?

    Others will or might want more but I am talking about actual policy, the above was our interference in the Middle East under Corbyn and Ed (mostly I am pretty sure) which I would argue is more about stopping interfering than interfering more!
    I mean stop speaking about Palestine and Israel at all.
    It would be helpful if some people appeared to care as much for problems in Portsmouth, Plymouth or Preston as they did Palestine.
    Doesn't this go much more for the pro-Israeli MPs within Labour?

    Some of them were willing to torpedo their own party and the policies that would help people in those areas because the party leader was insufficiently supportive of Israel?!

    What kind of fucked up priority system is that?

    The anti-occupation lot didn't declare all our war when you had Blair in charge, they didn't even when Keir took over and declared himself a Zionist without qualification or something, so surely it is the Labour right you need to look at here.

    Why the hell do they care more about the Middle East than normal working people in Britain?!
    You need more flags Jez, just Palestinian not the Union Jack

    Keep fighting the good fight :wink:
    Flags are just a little bit of window dressing, Starmer needs a hell of a lot more than just flags to save him.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401
    My feeling is that Starmer isn't strong enough to change the party sufficiently to win again the way Blair/Brown/Mandelson did.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,153

    We have to change or we will be here again and again says Mandelson.

    Well he was a big part of trying to overturn the Leave vote so he's got no room to criticize anyone.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    TimT said:

    BTW, does anyone know why the predecessor to current Hartlepool constituency, was called "The Hartlepools"

    Which sound even dumber than West Bromwich West. Or West Bromwich East.

    Locally we have a New Old Baltimore Road.
    If you are driving north on the m25 you need to take the M4(west) to head east
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    16% swing to the Tories after 11 years in office. This is really beyond Labour's worst nightmare. The local election results look bad too. Their best hope is that with results spread over several days it will not be apparent just how bad they are and they won't have the same impact as they would have done had the counting been last night.

    There is a simple explanation for it once you recognise that the 2016 - political era is very different to the 1979 - 2016 political era. The political map has been redrawn with two new movements called Leave and Remain. The Conservatives have become Labour of old - there are not that many differences between Tory policies and Labour of a few generations ago.

    The map is changing colour - as it did in America - as the shift in political allegiances means the party names stay but what they stand for flips over. The Tories are winning all these former Labour areas because the current version of the Tories are the party of the working class and the current Labour Party are the metropolitan elite sneering down their nose at ordinary people.

    Jezziah / BJO are right that the current leader isn't cutting it, but they're utterly wrong with their insight and diagnosis. Sir Keir Starmer is Peter Lilley of 1993. Replacing him with Dicky Di Do Burgon or another hard left lunatic will only make it worse. None of the left have a clue what working people want because the entire Labour overton window currently sits where the Tories of Major and Hague used to sit. "The left" of a party of southern elites is not the "left" that working people across England are voting for in the modern Tories.
    I don't disagree. Labour is now the party of middle class professionals who largely work in the public sector. They care about the thing that those people care about: sexual politics, minority issues and the BLM agenda with a good dollop of middle class privileges thrown in.
    It's worth noting, when people say I'm making it all up and it's only on Twitter, that's *precisely* where I work with most of my clients most of the time.
    I think we've reached the nub of the problem then.

    You seem to think this nonsense will spread across the rest of the nation. I don't think it will or is relevant any more than Palestine or any other Twitter obsessions.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,477

    Worse than that, France pulled ahead of the UK.😲
    It’s hardly been noticed that the major European economies are powering forward now. It’s great to see. Serious numbers coming out of France, Germany and so on now.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401
    Sam Coates Sky
    @SamCoatesSky
    ·
    53m
    Corbyn-supporting left this morning NOT calling for Keir Starmer to go.

    Instead as a first step they are calling for him to embrace the 2019 Corbyn manifesto (which it appears they doubt will happen).

    Will he listen to them? Or to the critique from elsewhere in the party?
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,798

    RobD said:
    I would doubt that - maybe 87% turnout of postal voters?
    Aye, 'tis the postals

    https://twitter.com/Blazespage/status/1390565342896873473?s=20
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Mandelson really sticking the knife into Corbyn on R4 "this election was about two Cs - COVID and Corbyn"
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 3,027
    DavidL said:

    RobD said:
    I really don't think that there is any doubt that Scottish turnout is going to be massively up on 2016, possibly even at referendum levels. After such a lackluster campaign by all sides it is remarkable.
    And who will that favour? Or impossible to tell?
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077
    edited May 2021
    This sums up Labours current problem

    https://twitter.com/gabrielmilland/status/1390563632551976964


    Labour currently looked doomed anywhere more than five miles from a branch of Whole Foods.

    What is double ironic is the owner of Whole Foods is Amazon something your typical Labour voter will be 100% against.
  • UnpopularUnpopular Posts: 877

    Foxy said:



    I think the Labour Left can win on economic policies, because free stuff is always popular, but do need to jettison the foreign policy obsessions, such as Palestine. The Middle East is none of our business anymore, and rightly so.

    Our lefty Middle Eastern policy is to stop interfering, recognise Palestine and stop providing weapons to Saudi's and Israel. Do you mean the left should abandon the idea to stop interfering?

    Others will or might want more but I am talking about actual policy, the above was our interference in the Middle East under Corbyn and Ed (mostly I am pretty sure) which I would argue is more about stopping interfering than interfering more!
    Labour will never win with free this and that, enough people know that free lunches have to be paid for.
    I think people want left wing politics for me, but right wing politics for thee. The Conservative's are currently combining all the popular bits of left and right, which is winning them votes. I don't think this is tenable in the long term and others have talked about this idea of realignment and increasing support for Labour party in traditionally Conservative areas (though not sure if that will translate to seats any time soon).
  • Mandelson is absolutely right.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401

    Mandelson really sticking the knife into Corbyn on R4 "this election was about two Cs - COVID and Corbyn"

    Says a voter told him to "sort yourselves out. You elected the wrong brother and then Corbyn. Sort yourselves out"

  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,123

    Mandelson really sticking the knife into Corbyn on R4 "this election was about two Cs - COVID and Corbyn"

    https://mobile.twitter.com/HackneyAbbott/status/1390553244636680193

    Crushing defeat for Labour in Hartlepool. Not possible to blame Jeremy Corbyn for this result. Labour won the seat twice under his leadership. Keir Starmer must think again about his strategy
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,190

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think the Labour Left can win on economic policies, because free stuff is always popular, but do need to jettison the foreign policy obsessions, such as Palestine. The Middle East is none of our business anymore, and rightly so.

    Our lefty Middle Eastern policy is to stop interfering, recognise Palestine and stop providing weapons to Saudi's and Israel. Do you mean the left should abandon the idea to stop interfering?

    Others will or might want more but I am talking about actual policy, the above was our interference in the Middle East under Corbyn and Ed (mostly I am pretty sure) which I would argue is more about stopping interfering than interfering more!
    I mean stop speaking about Palestine and Israel at all.
    Labour would regularly talk about other things, do you genuinely think the left were there being asked about their economic policies and said no lets talk about Israel Palestine instead?

    It didn't happen, the right would focus on it in a way they don't focus on pro Israel or pro Saudi policy because they don't like it so try to make it a story. The truth is the majority of the public don't care one way on stuff like Israel-Palestine or Saudi-Yemen but Labour voters are more often left wing on foreign policy, so just keep the policy and don't talk about it (as much as possible) is the best way not to lose votes rather than say adopt a right wing foreign policy.
    The problem you have is that fighting the war on the Palestinian front doesn't get you elected. You are better off electing a party that is popular because it does what the majority of voters want it to do back in the UK, but has a moral conscience when it comes to dealing with, for example Saudi Arabia. I agree with you that Blair was not that Prime Minister, but neither was Corbyn ( or Burgon , or RLB) because they are all unelectable.
  • Mandelson really sticking the knife into Corbyn on R4 "this election was about two Cs - COVID and Corbyn"

    Says a voter told him to "sort yourselves out. You elected the wrong brother and then Corbyn. Sort yourselves out"

    To me this feels right, they're still in the doldrums from Corbynism, Starmer needs to continue to show they've moved on - and so does the next leader whenever that is.

    The solution is not doubling down on the 2019 failure.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,796

    Foxy said:



    I think the Labour Left can win on economic policies, because free stuff is always popular, but do need to jettison the foreign policy obsessions, such as Palestine. The Middle East is none of our business anymore, and rightly so.

    Our lefty Middle Eastern policy is to stop interfering, recognise Palestine and stop providing weapons to Saudi's and Israel. Do you mean the left should abandon the idea to stop interfering?

    Others will or might want more but I am talking about actual policy, the above was our interference in the Middle East under Corbyn and Ed (mostly I am pretty sure) which I would argue is more about stopping interfering than interfering more!
    No, I think he means that "the left" should stop endlessly and anti-semitically obsessing about fucking Palestine and demanding that British Jews explain / apologise.

    Starmer should go down fighting. Expel everyone who invokes Palestine in their campaigns. The only way to save the party is remove the cancer.
    Just admit that you were upset that Labour members didn't get as excited about supporting killing Palestinians as you did, still clearly upsets you to this day.
    Palestine is no different to any of the other trouble spots around the world of which there are many. The mad left only go on exclusively about Palestine because they are anti-semites.
    Just admit that you were upset that Labour members didn't get as excited about supporting killing Palestinians as you did, still clearly upsets you to this day.
    And to think that you objected to my description of you as an anus.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    https://twitter.com/RobertJenrick/status/1390563949272256512?s=20

    The best ever by-election result by a governing party.

    A terrific achievement by @Jill4Hartlepool and all the @Conservatives team.



  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    So the national polls are either dead wrong - although Survation called the by election almost spot on and is also seeing a smaller Tory lead - or Labour are piling up votes somewhere else. But where?

    The polls were wrong - they were measuring disapproval over wallpapergate.

    A few of us called that here over the weekend whilst the usual suspects were hyperventilating.
    Indeed. I was very glad that you weren't fooled for a second. The parallels with 'Phonegate' days before GE2019 are even more striking now, and form a pattern that we'll probably see again in the future: the media goes all in on a non-story of Boris looking like a wally about something inconsequential; the Tories drop in the polls and the usual suspects wet themselves with joy. Then the public vote and Boris crushes the opposition.

    Rinse and repeat.
    It will be interesting to compare Tory performance in the shire counties. Wallpapergate (which is better considered johnlewisgate) is an issue more likely to play with middle class voters.
    Yes. I’m pretty sure that Sunday’s results will tell a different story for the Conservatives. But by then the media narrative will have been set.
    It will be interesting to see. Attempting to look at it analytically, for the Tories:

    - factors that play as well in the South as the North: Vaccine rollout; Labour's general failure to inspire

    - factors that don't play as well in the South: Brexit, the wider re-alignment of the Tory base, perhaps a bigger dent from JohnLewisgate, perhaps more local LibDem campaigning
    I voted Lib Dem yesterday.

    Why have I got precisely zero love from you for this?

    Jeez.
    Maybe because I had an early night, and missed the excitement. I had read the instructions and Coronavirus precautions for our local count, and it was clear there was going to be nothing worth staying up for.

    Congratulations on taking the first step toward being a free-thinking shop-around voter. Very on trend.

    In the last five years, you've actually now voted LibDem more times than I have. Who'd have thunk it?
    That's very weird!
    And not quite true; I had forgotten the Euros. My last two local election votes were Green in 2017 and Indy in 2021; PCC 2021 was Indy; my last two General Election votes were both Green. But I did vote LibDem in the Euros.

    So one each; a gentlemanly draw. To pull ahead, you'll have to vote LibDem in the likely 2023 GE!
    Yeah, that's not gonna happen mate 😉
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513

    Pulpstar said:

    Labour's natural vote is becoming very middle class. They need to look to Biden tbh

    Biden almost lost the House, didn't take the Senate and only took the Presidency because he was up against a madman. For a verdict on Biden we need to see how the blue collar belt respond to him in 2022 and 2024.

    British politics are very different to American politics - we already import far too much nonsense from there IMHO.
    The chances of Biden standing in the next POTUS election are smaller than a very very small thing. In fact, the chances of him still being POTUS this time next year don’t exist. He is mentally gone already and was before he was elected. Everyone in the USA media knew it but they were so desperate to get the bad orange man out they would have ignored it if he had died.


    Biden as Demented Vegetable. "Everybody in the USA media knew it".

    What a load of total horseshit.

    Next you'll be telling us that Trumpsky is still the Secret President.

    Biden is gonna run for re-election in 2024. Wait for it.

    As for 2022, his COVID response plus infrastructure & other action targeted to middle/working class taxpayers will help him in his quest to do what most presidents have done before: pick up seats in Congress in their first mid-term election.
    Agreed. If he gets his infrastructure bill through Congress.
    Might be rather tougher should the Republicans succeed in gutting it in the Senate. (& Manchin is wobbling.)
  • HYUFD said:

    If anyone asks, this is the worst Lib Dem by-election result since Rochester and Strood in 2014.

    Mind you the LDs have gained Chelmsford Central from the Tories this morning in the county council elections, their results will generally be much better south of Watford.

    Indeed outside Scotland the LDs do not currently have a single MP from Wales, the North and Midlands now apart from Farron's in rural Cumbria in Westmoreland and Lonsdale and even there Farron won by just 3% in 2019
    It will indeed be a peculiar political landscape if the de-industrialised areas of the country become the home of separatists and Conservatives. It shows how abandoning/ignoring/insulting the people your party is named after can destroy you. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the loss of potential governance can lead to Labours new middle class heartlands drifting to the Greens and LDs.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,362

    Worse than that, France pulled ahead of the UK.😲
    It’s hardly been noticed that the major European economies are powering forward now. It’s great to see. Serious numbers coming out of France, Germany and so on now.
    Which does rather provoke the question: where are they getting their vaccines from?
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077
    edited May 2021
    tlg86 said:

    Mandelson really sticking the knife into Corbyn on R4 "this election was about two Cs - COVID and Corbyn"

    https://mobile.twitter.com/HackneyAbbott/status/1390553244636680193

    Crushing defeat for Labour in Hartlepool. Not possible to blame Jeremy Corbyn for this result. Labour won the seat twice under his leadership. Keir Starmer must think again about his strategy
    Diana is absolutely right - but the strategy required isn't anything like the one she thinks it is.

    And it needs to be pointed out in large letters - if you are a Labour MP in a constituency where the Brexit party got more votes than your majority you are there because Farage gifted you the seat.

    The Tories really should have a majority of 110-120 seats and Labour needs to be making the changes that sort of defeat would have forced upon them

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994

    Well, I put my hands up. I was completely and utterly wrong that Labour would scrape home in Hartlepool.

    A few quid lost this morning :disappointed:

    It's happened to all of us. You'll get a nice payout next time, I'm sure.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,190
    GIN1138 said:

    So I guess Hartlepool really didn't care about Boris Johnson's wallpaper? :D

    Very true, but perhaps they should.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,477

    Pulpstar said:

    Labour's natural vote is becoming very middle class. They need to look to Biden tbh

    Biden almost lost the House, didn't take the Senate and only took the Presidency because he was up against a madman. For a verdict on Biden we need to see how the blue collar belt respond to him in 2022 and 2024.

    British politics are very different to American politics - we already import far too much nonsense from there IMHO.
    The chances of Biden standing in the next POTUS election are smaller than a very very small thing. In fact, the chances of him still being POTUS this time next year don’t exist. He is mentally gone already and was before he was elected. Everyone in the USA media knew it but they were so desperate to get the bad orange man out they would have ignored it if he had died.


    Biden as Demented Vegetable. "Everybody in the USA media knew it".

    What a load of total horseshit.

    Next you'll be telling us that Trumpsky is still the Secret President.

    Biden is gonna run for re-election in 2024. Wait for it.

    As for 2022, his COVID response plus infrastructure & other action targeted to middle/working class taxpayers will help him in his quest to do what most presidents have done before: pick up seats in Congress in their first mid-term election.
    If you want to find utter horseshit analysis about Joe Biden, you have come to right place. PB is riddled with nonentities who endlessly underestimate the Potus. I mean, it was possible to find PBers tipping Virginia for Trump at the election in 2020. Biden won the state by ten points.

    Meantime, Biden is, er, extremely popular with the American public - a reality that has seemingly passed the PB Biden Experts by.
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,638
    Looks like my call of LAB hold Hartlepool wasn't quite right! 😊

    Shocking result for LAB, but still it's only a bye election.

    Maybe Shaun Bailey has won London after all? 👍

  • CursingStoneCursingStone Posts: 421

    Biden makes the EU look like the bad guys
    The US president is not only often as tough as Trump on Europe — he’s also stealing the moral high ground the EU loves.


    https://www.politico.eu/article/biden-makes-the-eu-look-like-the-bad-guys/

    The fun thing is Biden is stealing lots of Trump policies


    Including the policy of holding children separated from their parents on the Mexican border. An example of everything that is fishy in politics. When a policy that was initiated by Obama and barely commented in was carried out and strengthened by Trump it became the most egregious example of evil ever undertaken by the federal government. Many column inches, social media posts, high profile campaigns and in-depth news programmes on tv about the uncompromising evil of it all.
    Renamed under Biden as a ‘surge facility’ it’s now “move along nothing to see”. With a lot of “yeah but this is different”. When it isn’t…

    It’s almost as if people were more concerned with bashing Trump than the welfare of the children they shed their crocodile tears over.

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    @TheJezziah

    Gentle tip. No-one gives a toss about either Israel or Palestine.

    It's like me going on about the tragedy of the partition of British India in 1947.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401

    Looks like my call of LAB hold Hartlepool wasn't quite right! 😊

    Shocking result for LAB, but still it's only a bye election.

    Maybe Shaun Bailey has won London after all? 👍

    Glad I wasn't the only one predicting a LAB hold.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,513

    GIN1138 said:

    So I guess Hartlepool really didn't care about Boris Johnson's wallpaper? :D

    Yes. The love it!

    Carrie will be marketing her own line of home furnishings, the Martha Stewart of True Blue Britain.
    Dirty sleazy Tories on the rise. 🤨
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,216
    Stephen Bush:

    most of Labour’s electoral problems are a consequence of the vaccine bounce. That will get worse before it gets better as we reopen further and the economy recovers. But it’s also correct to say that Keir Starmer has bungled the handful of calls he could make: an unorthodox candidate selection, the bold decision to hold the election on the same day as the other Hartlepool contests. Part of being a successful opposition leader is getting the few things you can control right: and while Starmer has a pretty convincing alibi for the electoral problem he has today, he doesn’t have one for the political choices that may give him a different electoral problem tomorrow.

    https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2021/05/why-did-labour-do-so-badly-hartlepool-election
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401

    Well, I put my hands up. I was completely and utterly wrong that Labour would scrape home in Hartlepool.

    A few quid lost this morning :disappointed:

    It's happened to all of us. You'll get a nice payout next time, I'm sure.
    Thanks. I won a fair chunk on Biden, so I can't complain.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,753

    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:



    I think the Labour Left can win on economic policies, because free stuff is always popular, but do need to jettison the foreign policy obsessions, such as Palestine. The Middle East is none of our business anymore, and rightly so.

    Our lefty Middle Eastern policy is to stop interfering, recognise Palestine and stop providing weapons to Saudi's and Israel. Do you mean the left should abandon the idea to stop interfering?

    Others will or might want more but I am talking about actual policy, the above was our interference in the Middle East under Corbyn and Ed (mostly I am pretty sure) which I would argue is more about stopping interfering than interfering more!
    I mean stop speaking about Palestine and Israel at all.
    It would be helpful if some people appeared to care as much for problems in Portsmouth, Plymouth or Preston as they did Palestine.
    Doesn't this go much more for the pro-Israeli MPs within Labour?

    Some of them were willing to torpedo their own party and the policies that would help people in those areas because the party leader was insufficiently supportive of Israel?!

    What kind of fucked up priority system is that?

    The anti-occupation lot didn't declare all our war when you had Blair in charge, they didn't even when Keir took over and declared himself a Zionist without qualification or something, so surely it is the Labour right you need to look at here.

    Why the hell do they care more about the Middle East than normal working people in Britain?!
    QED

    Shocking polling for Lab (so far) and the discussion is on Israel.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,362
    UKIP lost all their remaining* 6 seats in Thurrock.

    Are they still a thing?

    * "remaining" sounds all wrong when discussing UKIP!
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,549
    Nigelb said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Labour's natural vote is becoming very middle class. They need to look to Biden tbh

    Biden almost lost the House, didn't take the Senate and only took the Presidency because he was up against a madman. For a verdict on Biden we need to see how the blue collar belt respond to him in 2022 and 2024.

    British politics are very different to American politics - we already import far too much nonsense from there IMHO.
    The chances of Biden standing in the next POTUS election are smaller than a very very small thing. In fact, the chances of him still being POTUS this time next year don’t exist. He is mentally gone already and was before he was elected. Everyone in the USA media knew it but they were so desperate to get the bad orange man out they would have ignored it if he had died.


    Biden as Demented Vegetable. "Everybody in the USA media knew it".

    What a load of total horseshit.

    Next you'll be telling us that Trumpsky is still the Secret President.

    Biden is gonna run for re-election in 2024. Wait for it.

    As for 2022, his COVID response plus infrastructure & other action targeted to middle/working class taxpayers will help him in his quest to do what most presidents have done before: pick up seats in Congress in their first mid-term election.
    Agreed. If he gets his infrastructure bill through Congress.
    Might be rather tougher should the Republicans succeed in gutting it in the Senate. (& Manchin is wobbling.)
    My take is that Manchin is negotiating, not just with White House but with the Senate GOP (with & without Mitch McC) as a semi-autonomous but still connected part of the Biden team.

    Meaning he will be with the Dems in the end. And maybe help bring a few Republicans (such as fellow WV Senator Shelley Moore Capito, who isn't up for re-election until 2026) with him, which would be helpful.
  • UnpopularUnpopular Posts: 877

    My feeling is that Starmer isn't strong enough to change the party sufficiently to win again the way Blair/Brown/Mandelson did.

    That's my fear. I mean Brown/Blair/Mandelson didn't change it themselves and a lot of work was done by Kinnock. Is Starmer Kinnock 2.0? Part of me hopes not, because I think he would make a decent PM but we're all limited by the constraints of our time. If that is Starmer's legacy, then so be it.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077

    Sam Coates Sky
    @SamCoatesSky
    ·
    53m
    Corbyn-supporting left this morning NOT calling for Keir Starmer to go.

    Instead as a first step they are calling for him to embrace the 2019 Corbyn manifesto (which it appears they doubt will happen).

    Will he listen to them? Or to the critique from elsewhere in the party?

    So Starmer should adopt a manifesto that has already been implemented (almost completely) by Boris
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,753

    TOPPING said:

    @TOPPING FWIW I think you were right to take a few quid on Labour at 23s last night.

    The voting might have ended but the counting hadn't started and constituency polls have been badly wrong before.

    There was not a single piece of polling, insight, anecdote or even gut feeling that has suggested for weeks this would be anything but a tidy Tory win.

    But well done for topping up the Shadsy Christmas Party fund.
    Don't be a polling slave.
    You are demonstrating that you have no political nous whatsoever.

    None.

    The only person betting for Labour to win was someone who had seen all the relevant information laid out before them - and come to 180 degrees the wrong interpretation.
    Were the aperçus and gut feel about the Hartlepool election result particularly emphatic in the leafy West Country?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,123

    Stephen Bush:

    most of Labour’s electoral problems are a consequence of the vaccine bounce. That will get worse before it gets better as we reopen further and the economy recovers. But it’s also correct to say that Keir Starmer has bungled the handful of calls he could make: an unorthodox candidate selection, the bold decision to hold the election on the same day as the other Hartlepool contests. Part of being a successful opposition leader is getting the few things you can control right: and while Starmer has a pretty convincing alibi for the electoral problem he has today, he doesn’t have one for the political choices that may give him a different electoral problem tomorrow.

    https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2021/05/why-did-labour-do-so-badly-hartlepool-election

    Would holding the by-election on another day have helped? It would have looked bad to have done so.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556

    https://twitter.com/RobertJenrick/status/1390563949272256512?s=20

    The best ever by-election result by a governing party.

    A terrific achievement by @Jill4Hartlepool and all the @Conservatives team.



    The aristeia continues! Another pointless witch-hunt by the media & Opposition, another multi-decade electoral record broken...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586

    Labour MP says there has been a “breach of trust” with voters. Obviously true. The problem is how can it show repentance or change without breaching the trust of the majority of its voters who think the exact opposite?

    https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1390557508176056321?s=20

    After the uprising of the 17th of June
    The Secretary of the Writers' Union
    Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee
    Stating that the people
    Had forfeited the confidence of the government
    And could only win it back
    By increased work quotas. Would it not in that case be simpler
    for the government
    To dissolve the people
    And elect another?
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,700
    Miss Vance, the pathetic kneeling photo was a weak point for Starmer.

    Mr. Unpopular, welcome to PB. I'd take Kinnock 2.0 every day of the week over the potential alternative of Corbyn 2.0. If Labour can take steps back to the land of the sane (which has already happened to an extent) that's not only good for them but the country as a whole.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,871
    eek said:

    This sums up Labours current problem

    https://twitter.com/gabrielmilland/status/1390563632551976964


    Labour currently looked doomed anywhere more than five miles from a branch of Whole Foods.

    What is double ironic is the owner of Whole Foods is Amazon something your typical Labour voter will be 100% against.

    Errr such people may be against Amazon, Uber, Just Eats, Facebook and so on in theory, but not I suspect in practice.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994

    https://twitter.com/RobertJenrick/status/1390563949272256512?s=20

    The best ever by-election result by a governing party.

    A terrific achievement by @Jill4Hartlepool and all the @Conservatives team.



    The aristeia continues! Another pointless witch-hunt by the media & Opposition, another multi-decade electoral record broken...
    Swingback is dead.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,774
    Sunderland Final Result #LE2021:

    LAB: 15 (-9)
    CON: 8 (+6)
    LDM: 5 (+4)
    GRN: 0 (-1)

    Council Now: LAB 42, CON 18, LDM 12, UKIP 3.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,050
    edited May 2021
    Not much sign of Labour epiphany on Today. Mandelson harking back to 1997 and 2001, and McDonnell doing the reverse.

    McDonnell was right that there was no particular agenda or policy offer in this election, though, and Mandelson was right that Labour may have understimated the way in which Brexit may have permanently shifted cultural identity in some areas.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    Pulpstar said:

    Labour's natural vote is becoming very middle class. They need to look to Biden tbh

    Biden almost lost the House, didn't take the Senate and only took the Presidency because he was up against a madman. For a verdict on Biden we need to see how the blue collar belt respond to him in 2022 and 2024.

    British politics are very different to American politics - we already import far too much nonsense from there IMHO.
    The chances of Biden standing in the next POTUS election are smaller than a very very small thing. In fact, the chances of him still being POTUS this time next year don’t exist. He is mentally gone already and was before he was elected. Everyone in the USA media knew it but they were so desperate to get the bad orange man out they would have ignored it if he had died.


    Biden as Demented Vegetable. "Everybody in the USA media knew it".

    What a load of total horseshit.

    Next you'll be telling us that Trumpsky is still the Secret President.

    Biden is gonna run for re-election in 2024. Wait for it.

    As for 2022, his COVID response plus infrastructure & other action targeted to middle/working class taxpayers will help him in his quest to do what most presidents have done before: pick up seats in Congress in their first mid-term election.
    If you want to find utter horseshit analysis about Joe Biden, you have come to right place. PB is riddled with nonentities who endlessly underestimate the Potus. I mean, it was possible to find PBers tipping Virginia for Trump at the election in 2020. Biden won the state by ten points.

    Meantime, Biden is, er, extremely popular with the American public - a reality that has seemingly passed the PB Biden Experts by.
    I know, it is even possible to find people who thought the Democrats were going to take Alaska in the Senate
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,069

    Worse than that, France pulled ahead of the UK.😲
    It’s hardly been noticed that the major European economies are powering forward now. It’s great to see. Serious numbers coming out of France, Germany and so on now.
    Which does rather provoke the question: where are they getting their vaccines from?
    European production- the Pfizer production network has scaled up massively. Always likely to happen, but it's exceeding expectations.

    https://twitter.com/jfkirkegaard/status/1389982878872842243?s=20
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,280
    edited May 2021

    Pulpstar said:

    Labour's natural vote is becoming very middle class. They need to look to Biden tbh

    Biden almost lost the House, didn't take the Senate and only took the Presidency because he was up against a madman. For a verdict on Biden we need to see how the blue collar belt respond to him in 2022 and 2024.

    British politics are very different to American politics - we already import far too much nonsense from there IMHO.
    The chances of Biden standing in the next POTUS election are smaller than a very very small thing. In fact, the chances of him still being POTUS this time next year don’t exist. He is mentally gone already and was before he was elected. Everyone in the USA media knew it but they were so desperate to get the bad orange man out they would have ignored it if he had died.


    Biden as Demented Vegetable. "Everybody in the USA media knew it".

    What a load of total horseshit.

    Next you'll be telling us that Trumpsky is still the Secret President.

    Biden is gonna run for re-election in 2024. Wait for it.

    As for 2022, his COVID response plus infrastructure & other action targeted to middle/working class taxpayers will help him in his quest to do what most presidents have done before: pick up seats in Congress in their first mid-term election.
    If you want to find utter horseshit analysis about Joe Biden, you have come to right place. PB is riddled with nonentities who endlessly underestimate the Potus. I mean, it was possible to find PBers tipping Virginia for Trump at the election in 2020. Biden won the state by ten points.

    Meantime, Biden is, er, extremely popular with the American public - a reality that has seemingly passed the PB Biden Experts by.
    Biden has a net positive rating still but his rating at this stage is lower than Obama's was in 2009 at this point for example and the Democrats went onto lose the House in 2010 still.

    I expect the Democrats to lose seats in 2022 as the President's party normally does and the GOP only need to win 5 Democratic seats to take control
  • https://twitter.com/theousherwood/status/1390556060436602882

    This seems right.

    Immediately Starmer must remove the left from the Shadow Cabinet and come back to the centre. That means dumping the useless Dodds

    I agree about Dodds just in terms of performance, but I don't agree that being seen to act against the Left further will necessarily help. Starmer still hasn't recovered the percentage he lost to the Greens and others after the expulsion of Corbyn, for instance. The problem is more about coherence and direction, and finding consensus across the board and appeal outside the party, I think.
    It is a shame as Annaliese Dodds is one of the nicest politicians I have ever met. However she is in the wrong time and place for today’s politics.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401
    Greens pick up council seats in England
    We are picking up suggestions that the Green Party could be living up to their campaign hope of gaining seats from the main parties.

    So far they have seen an increase in their votes in places like South Tyneside, Stockport and Colchester.

    The co-leader, Jonathan Bartley has been celebrating on Twitter this morning.

    Feels like one to watch as the day unfolds.

    bbc blog

  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,314

    GIN1138 said:

    So I guess Hartlepool really didn't care about Boris Johnson's wallpaper? :D

    Actually, they thought it looked quite nice.

    They were even more impressed that some rich bloke picked up the tab, rather than them....
    Indeed. For all the process arguments that the Village gosipmongers love to go on about, the one thing that’s been clear is that taxpayers weren’t paying for the expensive renovations of No.10. Which, in the eyes of most normal voters, makes it a massive fuss over nothing.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401
    edited May 2021
    Oh well, the good news is no come back for Farage will be possible any time soon after Reform's absolute pasting in Hartlepool.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,706
    IanB2 said:

    Sunderland Final Result #LE2021:

    LAB: 15 (-9)
    CON: 8 (+6)
    LDM: 5 (+4)
    GRN: 0 (-1)

    Council Now: LAB 42, CON 18, LDM 12, UKIP 3.

    Painfully slow counting on the locals but so far Labour are losing nearly 1/3rd of their councillors. This is the sort of hollowing out that is supposed to happen to governments, not oppositions. In Sunderland they seem to have done even worse.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,753
    edited May 2021

    I was going to respond to @TheJezziah claiming I was a nazi but he appears to have been cancelled.

    The loony left are obsessed by Palestine and only Palestine. They say nothing comparable about any of the other trouble spots in the world. Basic anti-semitism - treat the jewish state different to every other state. Then they focus in on Labour Friends of Israel. But not left wingers like Thornberry or Phillips or Stringer or Gardiner. Just the Jewish ones.

    Which is how we get the likes of Berger and Ellman and Hodge and Smeeth driven either to despair or out of the party completely as the anti-semitic left scream racist abuse at them then claim to be anti-racists.

    Until labour expel all these racists there are a lot of people who won't touch them with a pole.

    Oh. Has he been cancelled/banned? I really hope not.

    I very much appreciate what he says - although if he called you a nazi that is out of order - if only as an illumination of where his flank of Lab is.

    A semi-light hearted call for Lab to focus less on Israel is met by five paragraphs of diatribe from him about Israel.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 6,772
    Honestly I want to put the Labour Party in a paper bag and shake them up.

    For the last 6 years (charitably - you could go back to 13 and Brown’s reign) the elections roll round and we get the usual soul searching, recriminations, agony, moaning...

    Their problem is fundamental. It is not a problem that will magically get better with some tinkerings around the leadership and a few stunts in John Lewis. Their traditional vote has deserted them and they are not going to win it back by the odd lurch to the left or centre depending on their mood at any given time.

    To be fair to Starmer I think he gets this in part but he’s not willing (either because ideologically as a metropolitan professional it dismays him, or he’s not willing to ignite a civil war to end all civil wars) to do what needs to be done here. You either go all in as the party of urban and young Britain, with a decent pitch to aspirational middle classes and hope you outflank the Tories in the counties in the same way as they have outflanked Labour in the red wall, or you take real steps to get back in touch with working class sensibilities (reconcile to Brexit, drop wokeism etc). It needs to make a decision or both wings are just going to desert it and the party is dead.

    Labour doesn’t need a clause 4 moment anymore, it needs about 10 of them.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    HYUFD said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Labour's natural vote is becoming very middle class. They need to look to Biden tbh

    Biden almost lost the House, didn't take the Senate and only took the Presidency because he was up against a madman. For a verdict on Biden we need to see how the blue collar belt respond to him in 2022 and 2024.

    British politics are very different to American politics - we already import far too much nonsense from there IMHO.
    The chances of Biden standing in the next POTUS election are smaller than a very very small thing. In fact, the chances of him still being POTUS this time next year don’t exist. He is mentally gone already and was before he was elected. Everyone in the USA media knew it but they were so desperate to get the bad orange man out they would have ignored it if he had died.


    Biden as Demented Vegetable. "Everybody in the USA media knew it".

    What a load of total horseshit.

    Next you'll be telling us that Trumpsky is still the Secret President.

    Biden is gonna run for re-election in 2024. Wait for it.

    As for 2022, his COVID response plus infrastructure & other action targeted to middle/working class taxpayers will help him in his quest to do what most presidents have done before: pick up seats in Congress in their first mid-term election.
    If you want to find utter horseshit analysis about Joe Biden, you have come to right place. PB is riddled with nonentities who endlessly underestimate the Potus. I mean, it was possible to find PBers tipping Virginia for Trump at the election in 2020. Biden won the state by ten points.

    Meantime, Biden is, er, extremely popular with the American public - a reality that has seemingly passed the PB Biden Experts by.
    Biden has a net positive rating still but his rating at this stage is lower than Obama's was in 2009 at this point for example and the Democrats went onto lose the House in 2010 still.

    I expect the Democrats to lose seats in 2022 as the President's party normally does and the GOP only need to win 5 Democratic seats to take control
    Don't dispute the facts @HYUFD Biden is the most popular President ever, amazing, wonderful, brilliant President, destined to be the most successful President in the Republic.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 62,749

    Foxy said:

    One good result last night.

    Arsenal out of the Europa League means 4th place is a Champions League spot, of interest to LCFC, Chelsea, Liverpool and West Ham fans.

    Yes and erm, Tottenham too. They're only 1 point behind West Ham and Chelsea-Leicester have to play each other and then the final game is Spurs v Leicester.

    Outside chance but a chance nonetheless, especially if they play like they did Sunday.
    Indeed. Tottenham shouldn’t be discounted because they have a winnable run-in. They play Leeds away in pouring rain tomorrow lunchtime though - that’s not easy.
    With the Champions league guaranteeing either City or Chelsea to gain automatic entry into next year's competition and should Man United win the European league, with again automatic qualification to next year's champions league, does that mean 6 Premier clubs go into next year competition

    I cannot see that happening, so does anyone know how next seasons places will be awarded
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,207

    Stephen Bush:

    most of Labour’s electoral problems are a consequence of the vaccine bounce. That will get worse before it gets better as we reopen further and the economy recovers. But it’s also correct to say that Keir Starmer has bungled the handful of calls he could make: an unorthodox candidate selection, the bold decision to hold the election on the same day as the other Hartlepool contests. Part of being a successful opposition leader is getting the few things you can control right: and while Starmer has a pretty convincing alibi for the electoral problem he has today, he doesn’t have one for the political choices that may give him a different electoral problem tomorrow.

    https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2021/05/why-did-labour-do-so-badly-hartlepool-election

    We were told the vaccine bounce had passed weren't we?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,774
    edited May 2021

    RobD said:
    I would doubt that - maybe 87% turnout of postal voters?
    Aye, 'tis the postals

    https://twitter.com/Blazespage/status/1390565342896873473?s=20
    My rule of thumb for PV turnout was around 70% for locals and 80% for Generals. Given that this was a Scottish GE, and the PV list will have been boosted by certain-to-vote folks unwilling just this time to go down the polling station for fear of the virus, 87% is high bit not hugely remarkable.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 59,994
    And now, all eyes should be on Scotland.

    That's where the future of the UK is going to be revealed in the next 48 hours (it's already been decided).
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,153
    edited May 2021

    Mandelson really sticking the knife into Corbyn on R4 "this election was about two Cs - COVID and Corbyn"

    But not about multi-millionaire champagne socialists like him trying to ignore and overturn the leave vote of people in Hartlepool?
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    One of the pleasures of this Hartlepool result is looking down the list of Tory targets for 2024 and seeing Hartlepool at number 40-odd. Which...er.....has just fallen by 6,000 votes.

    Look then at the serious labour hitters who are utterly history if anything like this happened at a general. Cooper, Milliband etc. Atomised. Not even close.

    Then speculate as to whether Jarrow, tory target number 100 and odd, is in play. Yes that Jarrow. The march one.

    Its that sort of morning.
  • CorrectHorseBatteryCorrectHorseBattery Posts: 21,436
    edited May 2021
    https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1390571927060860928

    Yes candidate selection is going to have to get a lot better, personally if they backed Remain I think they should be ejected from any Leave-supporting seat automatically.

    Also, the interesting thing from a variety of accounts is that if Starmer wants to take any level of comfort, he did not get the visceral hatred that Corbyn got. Voters do not hate him like they did Corbyn. They however love Johnson and in general dislike Labour (strongly). You can surely put some of that down to Corbyn but not all.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077

    https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1390571509794676736

    The Labour Party must change like never before".

    Shadow communities and local government secretary, Steve Reed, says Labour must "either reconnect with the British people...or we become irrelevant".

    The party does not need a change of leader, he adds.

    Absolutely right - but the issue is that Farage left the left of the party with ammunition by gifting labour 20-30 seats like Hartlepool that should have been lost.

    And it's those seats Labour are currently losing which is going to be a problem given where the next By-election is likely to be.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,706

    DavidL said:

    RobD said:
    I really don't think that there is any doubt that Scottish turnout is going to be massively up on 2016, possibly even at referendum levels. After such a lackluster campaign by all sides it is remarkable.
    And who will that favour? Or impossible to tell?
    I am concerned, I won't pretend otherwise. Having said that very high turnout in 2014 favoured Unionists quite strongly.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,528

    Worse than that, France pulled ahead of the UK.😲
    It’s hardly been noticed that the major European economies are powering forward now. It’s great to see. Serious numbers coming out of France, Germany and so on now.
    Which does rather provoke the question: where are they getting their vaccines from?
    Pfizer and AZ. Both have significantly upped production vs the first quarter.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 21,965
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    16% swing to the Tories after 11 years in office. This is really beyond Labour's worst nightmare. The local election results look bad too. Their best hope is that with results spread over several days it will not be apparent just how bad they are and they won't have the same impact as they would have done had the counting been last night.

    There is a simple explanation for it once you recognise that the 2016 - political era is very different to the 1979 - 2016 political era. The political map has been redrawn with two new movements called Leave and Remain. The Conservatives have become Labour of old - there are not that many differences between Tory policies and Labour of a few generations ago.

    The map is changing colour - as it did in America - as the shift in political allegiances means the party names stay but what they stand for flips over. The Tories are winning all these former Labour areas because the current version of the Tories are the party of the working class and the current Labour Party are the metropolitan elite sneering down their nose at ordinary people.

    Jezziah / BJO are right that the current leader isn't cutting it, but they're utterly wrong with their insight and diagnosis. Sir Keir Starmer is Peter Lilley of 1993. Replacing him with Dicky Di Do Burgon or another hard left lunatic will only make it worse. None of the left have a clue what working people want because the entire Labour overton window currently sits where the Tories of Major and Hague used to sit. "The left" of a party of southern elites is not the "left" that working people across England are voting for in the modern Tories.
    I don't disagree. Labour is now the party of middle class professionals who largely work in the public sector. They care about the thing that those people care about: sexual politics, minority issues and the BLM agenda with a good dollop of middle class privileges thrown in.

    Their former traditional supporters really don't care about any of that. They are concerned about employment, job security, housing, how badly their kids are being educated and are generally patriotic in that they want to cheer on the country rather than sneer at it and despise it.

    Boris is a long way from ticking every box for these people but he ticks a lot more boxes than SKS's Labour party does. Until that changes Labour will win the large cities and the University towns but get thrashed everywhere else.
    You know that, I know that, but those running the party still don't seem to get it.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,753

    Not much sign of Labour epiphany on Today. Mandelson harking back to 1997 and 2001, and McDonnell doing the reverse.

    McDonnell was right that there was no particular agenda or policy offer in this election, though, and Mandelson was right that Labour may have understimated the way in which Brexit may have permanently shifted cultural identity in some areas.

    Yes it is striking. Macca saying go back to "past manifestos" and Mandy saying without Blair Lab hasn't won for decades.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077
    glw said:

    eek said:

    This sums up Labours current problem

    https://twitter.com/gabrielmilland/status/1390563632551976964


    Labour currently looked doomed anywhere more than five miles from a branch of Whole Foods.

    What is double ironic is the owner of Whole Foods is Amazon something your typical Labour voter will be 100% against.

    Errr such people may be against Amazon, Uber, Just Eats, Facebook and so on in theory, but not I suspect in practice.
    Oh I know that - it will be very much do as I vote - rather than my actual actions.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,401
    LibDem vote is appalling at Hartlepool. Used to get double figure % in 2000s
  • UnpopularUnpopular Posts: 877

    Miss Vance, the pathetic kneeling photo was a weak point for Starmer.

    Mr. Unpopular, welcome to PB. I'd take Kinnock 2.0 every day of the week over the potential alternative of Corbyn 2.0. If Labour can take steps back to the land of the sane (which has already happened to an extent) that's not only good for them but the country as a whole.

    Thank you! Agreed, a strong opposition is vital for the functioning of our democracy, and this is something we have lacked since 2015 (arguably since 2010, though Miliband did get some over on Cameron). I do comfort myself with the notion that the opposition has not had much chance to oppose so far, and has acted, in Parliament, broadly in the national interest. This is the right thing to do but it does not make a strong opposition. But hey, the road to 24 is long, COVID is nearly over and then we will see the kid gloves come off.
    Plus, election night's still young and the story might yet change.
This discussion has been closed.