Mandelson's deft political touch clearly deserted him a long time ago.
" Lord Mandleson, a former MP for Hartlepool and one of the architects of New Labour, said the party had to embrace “Brexit attitudes” if it wanted to win back voters in places like his old constituency. He said that during the campaign voters did not raise the issue of leaving the EU on the doorstep. But he suggested that “Brexit attitudes” were now more important than class in determining how people voted, and that Labour had to respond."
Such a one-dimensional strategy will just result in the loss of London and many similar places to the Lib Dems and Greens, and the reversal of the small inroads into the wider South Labour is making. Labour has to do something much more subtle and challenging than this - it needs to create a common thread between the two places. The Red Wall seats can't win it for Labour alone, clearly, if they lose large areas of metropolitan Britain, too. If Mandelson is advising Starmer purely on this basis, that doesn't inspire much confidence in Labour's future, to me.
Quite. London will not be voting for a party that has "Brexit attitudes".
FFS.
So London won't win general elections. Cool.
But Labour really are dead if they lose their grip on London. Which would happen if they junk progressive values in a concerted attempt to win back people who voted Ukip in 2015 and BXP in 2019 and Tory now. A voting record like that says something. It says, "Hey, Labs, don't bother me. Hey Labs, don't bother me. I really don't miss you, I don't care if I diss you, don't bother me."
One of the comments I think sums up accurately Biden's position on this - it is mostly virtue-signaling. The hint is in the reference to the need for negotiation at the WTO.
I'm happy to see this -- I think the previous situation where the Tories could have control of the county council with zero seats in Cambridge city was pretty terrible -- the county govt ought to feel politically motivated to consider the needs of both urban and rural parts of its area. Though balance-of-power is with the three or four indy councillors, so not sure how exactly it'll turn out.
At a guess, one of the Indy’s suddenly becomes chair of planning or somesuch, and hey presto....
Third labour loss in Durham. 1 seat to Lib Dem’s in Aycliffe north. It’s odd how the seats closer to Hartlepool are relatively good for labour.
What I found interesting that the urban core of Blyth and Ashington (in Northumberland) is still solidly Labour. It's the outskirts where the Persimmon new-builds are aplenty where the Tory vote is the strongest, like @Philip_Thompson says.
So, Bob has gone blue but Terry stays red?
Contra the mood music: Bob & Thelma should be avocado-scoffing metropolitan elitists while Terry would be rooting for good old Boris shagging his way to victory while giving a fake but convincing impression of sticking it to the establishment.
Used to love ‘the Lads’ when I were a lad.
That's right actually. Bob would be Remain, Terry Leave or can't be arsed to vote.
I liked it too. Can still happily watch a rerun episode. Perfect theme tune. Very evocative.
Joanne Marie Anderson, LAB - 38,958 Stephen Barry Loy Yip, IND - 22,047 Richard Kemp, LD - 17,166 Tom Crone, GREEN - 8,768 Steve Radford, LIB - 7,135 Katie Maria Burgess, CON - 4,187 Roger Bannister, TUSC - 2,912
Second round between Labour and the Independent
Is the Labour woman related to the disgraced predecessor?
Joanne Marie Anderson, LAB - 38,958 Stephen Barry Loy Yip, IND - 22,047 Richard Kemp, LD - 17,166 Tom Crone, GREEN - 8,768 Steve Radford, LIB - 7,135 Katie Maria Burgess, CON - 4,187 Roger Bannister, TUSC - 2,912
Second round between Labour and the Independent
Is the Labour woman related to the disgraced predecessor?
Not bad I think, but we want Novavax! Seriously though, I would really quite like to be vaccinated now (33 year old). I keep telling myself patience is a virtue...
When will there be a swingback to first doses ? June ?
I think a small one this month and a bigger one next month.
Swingback gave me a flash back. Rod Cosby ... Was he perma-banned?
Yes. He was a Holocaust denier who insisted on advocating for his theories on here
Joanne Marie Anderson, LAB - 38,958 Stephen Barry Loy Yip, IND - 22,047 Richard Kemp, LD - 17,166 Tom Crone, GREEN - 8,768 Steve Radford, LIB - 7,135 Katie Maria Burgess, CON - 4,187 Roger Bannister, TUSC - 2,912
Second round between Labour and the Independent
Is the Labour woman related to the disgraced predecessor?
So Labour lefties think that the reason they lost Hartlepool was because they weren't loony lefty enough? And the response to the huge defeat there is to double down on Corbyn policies? If that is the case they are deluded beyond belief. Sorry, Jezziah, but your diagnosis is so, so wrong.
In trying to hold both the metro elite and the working class Labour vote together SKS has an impossible task: you can't take the knee wrapped in the Union flag and please both constituencies; you end up alienating both of them. He needs to choose, as Casino mentioned upthread.
Despite people on the left of centre deriding the "culture war" as non-existent, to me it is very real. I was amazed by last evening's discussion on here that so many people had never experienced the impact of wokeness as work. I work for a large US (East Coast) global corporation and our senior management and HR are obsessed by it - our cooperate intranet is like the BBC home page with article after article on E, D & I. Maybe smaller UK firms have yet to be afflicted by it but if anyone has access to the CIPD magazine you will get an idea what is coming in terms of UK HR - the CIPD has bought into the woke agenda hook, line and sinker.
This stuff is not going away. The people of Hartlepool may not be exposed to it in the workplace (yet) but they can see the way it is affecting popular culture and they don't like it.
For now, the Conservatives have parked their tanks on Labour's lawn when it comes to government spending and Boris is seen as standing up for traditional British values. Labour's only response to government spending is to spend more, which lacks credibility, and it appears to be actively against traditional British values.
So what does Labour do? Is the plan to sit and wait for the Tories to implode (most likely when the COVID spending chickens come home to roost), keep the fragile coalition together and hope that by that time demographics have worked in its favour? It might work but it doesn't really address the fundamental issue of where it stands on the British values question.
Blair won for a reason; when the time came, mainstream Britain was not repelled by Labour. It is now.
I have worked in HR for many years. I am instinctively right of centre politically. Sorry to break it to you, but diversity and inclusion is not about "wokeness", it is about the fact that it has been clearly proven that diverse teams are more innovative, and paradoxically perhaps, more cohesive. Maintaining the team profiles (particularly senior ones) of yesteryear that were dominated by middle aged white men is not in any organisations' interest. Most companies are recognising this, though it is a difficult challenge to address without "positive discrimination" or "affirmative action" (as it is called in the US) which is illegal in this country. One of the ways to challenge it is to promote literature and documentation that promotes the change. Hope that helps!
Excellent post, Nigel. There are valid concerns about woke but my strong sense of the more ardent antiwokerati is they are a motley mix of the plain ignorant and those more knowing who are eminently comfortable with the old hierarchies and affronted by them being challenged.
That motley mix is quite a few people ... more than half the country?
Plain ignorant = someone who disagrees with you ;-)
But you make my argument for me with your point about people pushing back when their values and way of life are challenged. Do you think people will accept something that threatens them or that they disagree with? Maybe they will reject these ideas when given the opportunity to express themselves without fear of reprisal ... at the ballot box?
Nothing like half the country are "ardent antiwokerati", thank god! And, yes, it could be that many WWC people are voting as the 1st of those "W"s. They see the Tories as standing up for 'trad' values. They think Labour and the left are obsessed with minorities and women and don't care about class inequality. For me, this is nothing but a Tory talking point and attack line - that the Tories care intensely about devolving wealth & power towards working people is a notion I find ludicrous - but this doesn't mean it isn't swallowed by others. In fact, I fear it's believed quite widely and is a part of what's killing Labour at the ballot box right now.
One area where we'll disagree, I suspect, is in the definition of "ardent antiwokerati". As the woke agenda over-reaches, as I think it is at the moment, and becomes more uncompromising ("you can't say that") and ruthless ("cancel culture") the number of people in that anti camp is increasing. You can define them as racists or fascists or whatever you want but they are just ordinary folk who are going from mildly irritated by "PC gone mad" to "sh*t this stuff is quite scary and starting to affect my way of life and not in a good way".
Unless the woke movement dials it back, which I think they are incapable of doing, then election results like these are going to continue. So, Labour can either wait for the electorate to catch up with its, ahem, enlightened views or it can change the way it views more than half the country.
I don't buy that trade off, not at all. But assuming for the sake of argument it's there, the movement for social justice is imo more important than getting a Labour politician into number 10 Downing St.
I think they are showing a pretty consistent picture at the moment as long as you know the individual character of each constituency. The Banff result is not a surprise, the Dundee result is not a surprise. They are consistent with each other.
Third labour loss in Durham. 1 seat to Lib Dem’s in Aycliffe north. It’s odd how the seats closer to Hartlepool are relatively good for labour.
What I found interesting that the urban core of Blyth and Ashington (in Northumberland) is still solidly Labour. It's the outskirts where the Persimmon new-builds are aplenty where the Tory vote is the strongest, like @Philip_Thompson says.
So, Bob has gone blue but Terry stays red?
I'm just old enough to get that, but only due to repeats and due to my parents watching it.
Oh what happened to you? Whatever happened to me? How come we're voting Tory now? How the fuck can this be?
Labour need to turn around to its comfortably off middle class inner city elite base and say the following.
YOu f8ckers have never had it so good.
Sorry, but we will have to take you away from the front of the queue for a while.
The alternative is tory hegemony, and let me tell you ladies, that in that case Brexit is just the start. The tories will take the whole public sector/third sector/commentariat/media/legal sector/race industry gravy boat away and leave you with nothing.
So suck it up while we embrace brexit and get some working class votes back. Where else are you going to go?
The opposite.
And since it's your take on the 180, I think we can be quietly confident.
Third labour loss in Durham. 1 seat to Lib Dem’s in Aycliffe north. It’s odd how the seats closer to Hartlepool are relatively good for labour.
What I found interesting that the urban core of Blyth and Ashington (in Northumberland) is still solidly Labour. It's the outskirts where the Persimmon new-builds are aplenty where the Tory vote is the strongest, like @Philip_Thompson says.
So, Bob has gone blue but Terry stays red?
Contra the mood music: Bob & Thelma should be avocado-scoffing metropolitan elitists while Terry would be rooting for good old Boris shagging his way to victory while giving a fake but convincing impression of sticking it to the establishment.
Used to love ‘the Lads’ when I were a lad.
That's right actually. Bob would be Remain, Terry Leave or can't be arsed to vote.
I liked it too. Can still happily watch a rerun episode. Perfect theme tune. Very evocative.
"Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?" is a rare comedy that has aged well, and still watchable. I think only a few of the episodes of the original "The Likely Lads" from the 1960s survive.
Third labour loss in Durham. 1 seat to Lib Dem’s in Aycliffe north. It’s odd how the seats closer to Hartlepool are relatively good for labour.
What I found interesting that the urban core of Blyth and Ashington (in Northumberland) is still solidly Labour. It's the outskirts where the Persimmon new-builds are aplenty where the Tory vote is the strongest, like @Philip_Thompson says.
So, Bob has gone blue but Terry stays red?
Contra the mood music: Bob & Thelma should be avocado-scoffing metropolitan elitists while Terry would be rooting for good old Boris shagging his way to victory while giving a fake but convincing impression of sticking it to the establishment.
Used to love ‘the Lads’ when I were a lad.
That's right actually. Bob would be Remain, Terry Leave or can't be arsed to vote.
I liked it too. Can still happily watch a rerun episode. Perfect theme tune. Very evocative.
"Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?" is a rare comedy that has aged well, and still watchable. I think only a few of the episodes of the original "The Likely Lads" from the 1960s survive.
WHTTLL was one of a barrage of really, really good early 70s sitcoms, all of which aged well. I think it was released in the same year as Porridge and Dad's Army - and maybe one or two others too. Good sitcoms are amongst the most important parts of our postwar cultural history. A minor tragedy that that particular artform has waned so much. The original "Likely Lads" hasn't aged at all well, however. The genre was really still finding its feet, and wasn't yet as comfirtable on the telly as it had been on the radio. The actors spoke absurdly fast, as if they were afraid of silence.
Many years ago, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, the makers of AZT offered to sell the IP to a suitable international body. The UN was mentioned.
Everyone ran away screaming when it became clear that with the drug IP, they were going to hand over all the legal responsibilities as well...
Bottom line is that the development of vaccines has starkly demonstrated the value (economic as well as human) of having an effective pharmaceutical industry.
Some companies (Pfizer, for example) will make outsize profits this year and next; others will have spent quite a lot of money and seen little or no return on it. Confiscating the profits of the former will make it very unlikely that the latter will make the same effort next time. And along those lines, I'm fairly sceptical of the Biden administration's talk of bringing down prescription drug costs - which in any event make up a fairly small percentage of US health spending.
It's not a perfect system, but no one has yet suggested anything better.
One of the comments I think sums up accurately Biden's position on this - it is mostly virtue-signaling. The hint is in the reference to the need for negotiation at the WTO.
I don't disagree. And it helps Biden both with his more radical base, and in any negotiations with US pharma. At least in the short term.
We've yet to see a scottish result where the Scottish Green Party is standing a candidate in a green-friendly area. A strong Unionist tactical vote allied to an SNP to Green swing could make tings interesting - watch for Edinburgh N
For that, Sir, you deserve to spend the next 30 days listening to the "music" of Laurence Fox 24/7.
Can NOT be sentenced to this punishment, of course, as it would be clear violation of the Human Rights Act, Geneva Convention and Greater London Authority Anti-Noise Ordinance.
Third labour loss in Durham. 1 seat to Lib Dem’s in Aycliffe north. It’s odd how the seats closer to Hartlepool are relatively good for labour.
What I found interesting that the urban core of Blyth and Ashington (in Northumberland) is still solidly Labour. It's the outskirts where the Persimmon new-builds are aplenty where the Tory vote is the strongest, like @Philip_Thompson says.
So, Bob has gone blue but Terry stays red?
Contra the mood music: Bob & Thelma should be avocado-scoffing metropolitan elitists while Terry would be rooting for good old Boris shagging his way to victory while giving a fake but convincing impression of sticking it to the establishment.
Used to love ‘the Lads’ when I were a lad.
That's right actually. Bob would be Remain, Terry Leave or can't be arsed to vote.
I liked it too. Can still happily watch a rerun episode. Perfect theme tune. Very evocative.
"Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?" is a rare comedy that has aged well, and still watchable. I think only a few of the episodes of the original "The Likely Lads" from the 1960s survive.
Would help if one of them didn't have a Yorkshire accent. And the other toned down the Geordie so much that he sounded like a public school graduate from Jesmond rather than the full on working class lad he's portraying.
Comments
We'd lose dignity chasing these folk.
I liked it too. Can still happily watch a rerun episode. Perfect theme tune. Very evocative.
Con ahead
2016 Lab majority: 3.1%
2019 GE Con majority: 4.9%
Big swing to Con (10%) but SNP held with 2.3% majority
@BallotBoxScot
·
6m
Banffshire & Buchan Coast (North East) Constituency Vote:
SNP ~ 14920 (45.2%, -9.9)
Conservative ~ 14148 (42.9%, +10.7)
Labour ~ 2169 (6.6%, -1.7)
Lib Dem ~ 1071 (3.2%, -1.3)
Freedom Alliance ~ 347 (1.1%, +1.1)
Restore Scotland ~ 331 (1%, +1)
Godd one from Darren Grimes for ScottnPaste
And since it's your take on the 180, I think we can be quietly confident.
I win most on a major snp underperformance.
Northumberland
Duncan Crute (CON) - 38179
Kim McGuinness (LAB) - 37981
Julian Kilburn (IND) - 11792
Peter Maughan (LD) - 7539
Sunderland
Kim McGuinness (LAB) - 28757
Duncan Crute (CON) - 24143
Peter Maughan (LD) - 8160
Julian Kilburn (IND) - 6908
North Tyneside
Kim McGuinness(LAB) - 32696
Duncan Crute (CON) - 19781
Peter Maughan (LD) - 4001
Julian Kilburn (IND) - 4469
Newcastle
Kim McGuinness (LAB) - 36232
Duncan Crute (CON) - 15543
Peter Maughan (LD) - 10961
Julian Kilburn (IND) - 9487
Good sitcoms are amongst the most important parts of our postwar cultural history. A minor tragedy that that particular artform has waned so much.
The original "Likely Lads" hasn't aged at all well, however. The genre was really still finding its feet, and wasn't yet as comfirtable on the telly as it had been on the radio. The actors spoke absurdly fast, as if they were afraid of silence.
Some companies (Pfizer, for example) will make outsize profits this year and next; others will have spent quite a lot of money and seen little or no return on it. Confiscating the profits of the former will make it very unlikely that the latter will make the same effort next time.
And along those lines, I'm fairly sceptical of the Biden administration's talk of bringing down prescription drug costs - which in any event make up a fairly small percentage of US health spending.
It's not a perfect system, but no one has yet suggested anything better.
And it helps Biden both with his more radical base, and in any negotiations with US pharma. At least in the short term.
Can NOT be sentenced to this punishment, of course, as it would be clear violation of the Human Rights Act, Geneva Convention and Greater London Authority Anti-Noise Ordinance.