You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. Caroline Flint ex MP saying wallpapergate was of no interest to voters in Hartlepool."Time after time, I heard this on the doorstep." Yet on PB the left on here were relishing it....
Let's not forget the thousands of tweets posted on the matter.
Tories haven't lost a single seat yet, according to Sky.
Actually they have lost Chelmsford Central to the LDs and Saffron Walden and Thaxted to the RA, that must be on a net basis ie including Tory gains in Nuneaton, Harlow and Sunderland
No, they were showing gains and losses for all the parties, not the net number. Maybe it's a definition thing, based on current control rather than at the previous election, or vice versa?
If it was council control not council seat losses maybe, as Foxy correctly points out the Tories have also lost a seat to Labour in Northumberland and also one to the Greens
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.
Tories haven't lost a single seat yet, according to Sky.
Actually they have lost Chelmsford Central to the LDs and Saffron Walden and Thaxted to the RA, that must be on a net basis ie including Tory gains in Nuneaton, Harlow and Sunderland
No, they were showing gains and losses for all the parties, not the net number. Maybe it's a definition thing, based on current control rather than at the previous election, or vice versa?
If it was council control not council seat losses maybe, as Foxy correctly points out the Tories have also lost a seat to Labour in Northumberland and also one to the Greens
It was seats. What it might explain it is if incomplete councils are not included.
You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. Caroline Flint ex MP saying wallpapergate was of no interest to voters in Hartlepool."Time after time, I heard this on the doorstep." Yet on PB the left on here were relishing it....
Yep. I did say I couldn't personally care a less even if he syphoned off money to do up his, frankly, pretty sub standard family flat for a world leader.
All I care about is that he gets jabs in our arms. And he is. Brilliantly.
She made an insipid speech and paused for applause when she beamed to herself about being the first woman to win Hartlepool.
The Tories won in spite of and not because of her. The Labour candidate, by contrast, made a bad situation worse.
So you repeatedly told us but I'm not so sure you're right about that. Not at all.
She comes across as plain and down to earth, northern.
Exactly hits the spot.
They couldn't give a shit that she's a well to do farmer from Thirsk who will rarely bother to visit her constituency. As long as she delivered the promised large sack of bribe money she will be safe as houses.
Starmer: nice guy, good looking, fairly normal, would obviously be a very competent prime minister from an administrative point of view, in office.
Has precisely zero political skills whatsoever.
His main problem is he spent a year in 2019 trying to prevent Brexit and looked all smug on TV when he had come up with his latest wheeze to prevent a democratic vote. Those who voted for Brexit are not going to vote for him.
I see the 3 most important Edinubrgh Seats are delcating today Edinburgh Central, Edinburgh Southern, Edinburgh Western
2 Seats with huge tactical votes last time and the knife edge Con majority in Central.
The election will be decided there.
The Tories made no real attempt to keep Edinburgh Central with a nice but inexperienced and young candidate who made no impact whatsoever. Its a nailed on SNP pick up but the election will not be decided there. How Labour do across Glasgow and the urban west and how the Tories do in the NE and Mid Scotland will be more important.
One of the downsides of the Scottish electoral system is that there is a lot of swings and roundabouts. So the Tory loss of central may well be offset by a gain on the list, for example. Swinney might lose South Perthshire but come back on the list etc. Its not the worst idea but it has proven an insurance policy for politicians who had otherwise been rejected by the public.
You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. Caroline Flint ex MP saying wallpapergate was of no interest to voters in Hartlepool."Time after time, I heard this on the doorstep." Yet on PB the left on here were relishing it....
Let's not forget the thousands of tweets posted on the matter.
Everyone really needs to get off Twitter, unless they like talking to themselves and others like themin the Village, while ignoring what’s going on the rest of the country.
Nailed on Tory gain. Called it. Majority north of 5,000. Called it. The end of Paul Williams short political career as he disappears in a puff of hubris? Called it.
Perhaps the PM now that he has finished dragging his fiance around for the cameras can get in with telling Pools residents how much money their reward is. He needs to send them their bribe money and he needs to send it sharpish or they'll get their monkey gallows out again.
The problem for Labour is that on yesterday’s Bank forecasts or better, there will indeed be bribe money to slosh around the red wall in the spending review (and initially visible in the Quern’s Speech).
The Quern´s Speech? That could be something of a millstone.
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.
The worst thing for Labour about Hartlepool is not that Con got it but it is that Labour share dropped (and by a lot). They can't spin it with "well, we were lucky last time to hold because of split opposition" when you can't confirm your 37%.
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.
Golly..what was phonegate.. its passed my memory circuits by.. just goes to show how much resonance these things have,,..
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.
Just a reminder for those like you. Corbyn only did relatively well in 2017 because no-one seriously thought he would be supported. The 'threat' was Theresa May wanting a 'super-majority' to do whatever she wanted on Brexit. He still got a very low number of seats, and went backwards in 2019. He should have lost many more seats like Hartlepool but Ref UK felt able to stand to pressure the Government.
Starmer is an improvement for many including me, and as I say above I voted labour yesterday for the first time in many years. That is mainly because he is not an anti-Semitic 70s throwback.
The fact he is not very good, but more people like him than Corbyn should worry you not be an inspiration.
I would say the reality is somewhat more complex. Corbyn's 2017 near-miss was genuinely a surprise to a lot of people on the right of the party, and it did have something to do with the unambiguous nationalising promises on rail, for instance. Conversely, the disastrous loss in 2019 was a surprise to many on the left, because they understimated the put-off of some aspects of Corbyn's past for the red wall, as well as the expansion of promises.
These two narratives, and understandings, are at the moment completely unbridgeable. Starmer has failed to find any coherence for the party so far, and must step up within the next year or so, or probably go.
I'm not a labour person clearly. But there is a block of genuinely swing voters who won't vote for a left wing Labour party and might be more likely to vote Labour than DE voters
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.
CWU Hartlepool by-election poll: Conservative 49%, Labour 42%. More importantly shows massive support for transformative policies (69% support free broadband, 67% more investment in public services, 57% support renationalising Royal Mail)
The problem is the Labour right would prefer the purity of telling the voters they are wrong because these ideas are too left wing for them.
The Labour right refuses to meet the public where it actually exists.
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.
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 see the 3 most important Edinubrgh Seats are delcating today Edinburgh Central, Edinburgh Southern, Edinburgh Western
2 Seats with huge tactical votes last time and the knife edge Con majority in Central.
The election will be decided there.
The Tories made no real attempt to keep Edinburgh Central with a nice but inexperienced and young candidate who made no impact whatsoever. Its a nailed on SNP pick up but the election will not be decided there. How Labour do across Glasgow and the urban west and how the Tories do in the NE and Mid Scotland will be more important.
One of the downsides of the Scottish electoral system is that there is a lot of swings and roundabouts. So the Tory loss of central may well be offset by a gain on the list, for example. Swinney might lose South Perthshire but come back on the list etc. Its not the worst idea but it has proven an insurance policy for politicians who had otherwise been rejected by the public.
Tbf some of those politicians have never been accepted by the public before being rejected. Maybe this is Murdo's big chance.
You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. Caroline Flint ex MP saying wallpapergate was of no interest to voters in Hartlepool."Time after time, I heard this on the doorstep." Yet on PB the left on here were relishing it....
And saying it will make fuck all difference to how people vote. At the moment Johnson can physically drag Nut Nut to the polling station and get applause. He could take a big shit on camera and get applause.
Wallpapergate - that at least once he has broken the ministerial code and the law by not declaring loans - isn't about trying to change how people vote. Its about trying to make his position untenable.
Alex "don't let him get near the women" Salmond said to me yesterday that the law didn't apply to him. Hopefully he will not be elected on Saturday - and if he is spending polling day buzzing round small rural villages like Cruden Bay and New Pitsligo he has no chance. Salmond may not think the law applies to him but the voters do. It will catch up to Johnson - if people think the law matters.
And if they don't I have moved to Scotland. England can enjoy its descent and it doesn't affect me much any more.
Starmer: nice guy, good looking, fairly normal, would obviously be a very competent prime minister from an administrative point of view, in office.
Has precisely zero political skills whatsoever.
His main problem is he spent a year in 2019 trying to prevent Brexit and looked all smug on TV when he had come up with his latest wheeze to prevent a democratic vote. Those who voted for Brexit are not going to vote for him.
And as he failed with his smug schemes in stopping Brexit, why should those who voted to Remain support him?
"Well, his heart was in the right place. Bless...." seems to be about all he has with Remainers. Who can now give their support to the LibDems or the Greens, making Labour's task Himalayan.
I think the most significant aspect of the Hartlepool result is the 9.7% vote for the Independent, who Wikipedia says was advocating the town become a Freeport - i.e. this was a vote for a government policy to be applied to this locality. And that on top of a >50% vote for the Tories.
The enthusiasm to vote for the government, or its policies, is quite something, when compared, say, with by-elections of the past like Leeds Central.
She made an insipid speech and paused for applause when she beamed to herself about being the first woman to win Hartlepool.
The Tories won in spite of and not because of her. The Labour candidate, by contrast, made a bad situation worse.
So you repeatedly told us but I'm not so sure you're right about that. Not at all.
She comes across as plain and down to earth, northern.
Exactly hits the spot.
Not to me, she doesn't. And she was from north Yorkshire - not local to the north-east or Hartlepool at all. I wasn't impressed.
I wasn't impressed with Trudy Harrison in Copeland either.
And you weren't impressed that she referred to being the first woman MP to represent Hartlepool.
Hmmm do I detect a trend there?
Last time I checked Yorkshire was up north. She sounds northern. Plain, straight, down to earth no nonsense ground-based message. She was focused on local issues, plain and simple.
It's not flamboyant enough for someone like you, perhaps, but that's because you are missing the point of what's wanted in these Red Wall seats.
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.
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, Labour being out of touch with its old base
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?
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'm not remotely sure things will be different. We got out our 2019 vote. You know, the one that got us an 80 seat majority.
She made an insipid speech and paused for applause when she beamed to herself about being the first woman to win Hartlepool.
The Tories won in spite of and not because of her. The Labour candidate, by contrast, made a bad situation worse.
So you repeatedly told us but I'm not so sure you're right about that. Not at all.
She comes across as plain and down to earth, northern.
Exactly hits the spot.
They couldn't give a shit that she's a well to do farmer from Thirsk who will rarely bother to visit her constituency. As long as she delivered the promised large sack of bribe money she will be safe as houses.
It will be interesting to see how long the SE is willing to pay for the pork barrel.
You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. Caroline Flint ex MP saying wallpapergate was of no interest to voters in Hartlepool."Time after time, I heard this on the doorstep." Yet on PB the left on here were relishing it....
Yep. I did say I couldn't personally care a less even if he syphoned off money to do up his, frankly, pretty sub standard family flat for a world leader.
All I care about is that he gets jabs in our arms. And he is. Brilliantly.
You are not the only voter who is happy for the law not to apply to your people. You would of course be unhappy for the law to be broken in ways that affect you badly. Once the rule of law no longer applies then it no longer applies to everyone. Someone wants to syphon off your money into their pockets? Why should the law stop them? You just said that you are happy for people to commit fraud.
I think the most significant aspect of the Hartlepool result is the 9.7% vote for the Independent, who Wikipedia says was advocating the town become a Freeport - i.e. this was a vote for a government policy to be applied to this locality. And that on top of a >50% vote for the Tories.
The enthusiasm to vote for the government, or its policies, is quite something, when compared, say, with by-elections of the past like Leeds Central.
Reading how she campaigned, I think adding her share to the Tory one is a stretch, even by PB Tory standards! Her campaign appears to have attracted a well-argued NOTA vote.
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!
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?
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.
Do we know the overall Left/Right swing in Hartlepool, including all the down ticket candidates. Had a quick trawl and can't v see the full result (not bundling others) posted anywhere.
I suspect map a very small overall Left -> Right swing, unify the Right vote (I've noted and am keeping an eye out for probable Heavy Woollen weakness) to Batley & Spen and Labour are in sizeable trouble there, and I don't think it's tenable to decline to have a by-election there either.
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.
I know - whilst I couldn't bring myself to predict more than a close Hartlepool victory for the Tories, I did repeatedly say that cushiongate was a nonsense. Putin has enriched his family to the tune of billions like so many other world leaders, and we are supposed to be irate about interior decoration at the prime minister's residence!
She made an insipid speech and paused for applause when she beamed to herself about being the first woman to win Hartlepool.
The Tories won in spite of and not because of her. The Labour candidate, by contrast, made a bad situation worse.
So you repeatedly told us but I'm not so sure you're right about that. Not at all.
She comes across as plain and down to earth, northern.
Exactly hits the spot.
Not to me, she doesn't. And she was from north Yorkshire - not local to the north-east or Hartlepool at all. I wasn't impressed.
I wasn't impressed with Trudy Harrison in Copeland either.
And you weren't impressed that she referred to being the first woman MP to represent Hartlepool.
Hmmm do I detect a trend there?
Last time I checked Yorkshire was up north. She sounds northern. Plain, straight, down to earth no nonsense ground-based message. She was focused on local issues, plain and simple.
It's not flamboyant enough for someone like you, perhaps, but that's because you are missing the point of what's wanted in these Red Wall seats.
Don't be a dick. Kemi Badenoch and Caroline Flint are great. But I call out crap candidates when I see them. And the fact you conflate anything in the North with "local" is rather hilarious. You clearly haven't been there.
I'm tired of this narcisstic "I'm the first candidate from minority group X to win in location Y" stuff. It's the first sign of Wokeness.
Even if it's true you make a speech to the whole community and you STFU about yourself and let your "achievement" - such as it is - speak for itself. FWIW I think her gender supremely irrelevant - she could have been anyone and given there's no innate bigotry against female candidates anymore such a statement is entirely facile and meaningless.
I don't expect any Tory to play the intersectionality game and it's a massive red flag to me if they do.
You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. Caroline Flint ex MP saying wallpapergate was of no interest to voters in Hartlepool."Time after time, I heard this on the doorstep." Yet on PB the left on here were relishing it....
And saying it will make fuck all difference to how people vote. At the moment Johnson can physically drag Nut Nut to the polling station and get applause. He could take a big shit on camera and get applause.
Wallpapergate - that at least once he has broken the ministerial code and the law by not declaring loans - isn't about trying to change how people vote. Its about trying to make his position untenable.
Alex "don't let him get near the women" Salmond said to me yesterday that the law didn't apply to him. Hopefully he will not be elected on Saturday - and if he is spending polling day buzzing round small rural villages like Cruden Bay and New Pitsligo he has no chance. Salmond may not think the law applies to him but the voters do. It will catch up to Johnson - if people think the law matters.
And if they don't I have moved to Scotland. England can enjoy its descent and it doesn't affect me much any more.
You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. Caroline Flint ex MP saying wallpapergate was of no interest to voters in Hartlepool."Time after time, I heard this on the doorstep." Yet on PB the left on here were relishing it....
And saying it will make fuck all difference to how people vote. At the moment Johnson can physically drag Nut Nut to the polling station and get applause. He could take a big shit on camera and get applause.
Wallpapergate - that at least once he has broken the ministerial code and the law by not declaring loans - isn't about trying to change how people vote. Its about trying to make his position untenable.
Alex "don't let him get near the women" Salmond said to me yesterday that the law didn't apply to him. Hopefully he will not be elected on Saturday - and if he is spending polling day buzzing round small rural villages like Cruden Bay and New Pitsligo he has no chance. Salmond may not think the law applies to him but the voters do. It will catch up to Johnson - if people think the law matters.
And if they don't I have moved to Scotland. England can enjoy its descent and it doesn't affect me much any more.
It clearly does . It doesn't matter where you actually live ,one still looks to home.. if I moved to America, I would still support St Helens..
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?
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.
@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.
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.
What are your predictions?
My one solid prediction is that the Conservatives are going to lose Oxfordshire (strictly speaking it’s NOC now, but that’s Con + a tiny number of Tory-lite independents). LDs and Lab are both going to pick up seats, probably more LD than Lab.
More tentatively I think we’ll see similar results across the Home Counties, which might swing a district or two. The rural Midlands shires will stay solidly Con though - given that we’re seeing big Tory gains in Redditch this morning, I can’t see the Tories losing many seats in Worcestershire. And so on.
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.
I see the 3 most important Edinubrgh Seats are delcating today Edinburgh Central, Edinburgh Southern, Edinburgh Western
2 Seats with huge tactical votes last time and the knife edge Con majority in Central.
The election will be decided there.
The Tories made no real attempt to keep Edinburgh Central with a nice but inexperienced and young candidate who made no impact whatsoever. Its a nailed on SNP pick up but the election will not be decided there. How Labour do across Glasgow and the urban west and how the Tories do in the NE and Mid Scotland will be more important.
One of the downsides of the Scottish electoral system is that there is a lot of swings and roundabouts. So the Tory loss of central may well be offset by a gain on the list, for example. Swinney might lose South Perthshire but come back on the list etc. Its not the worst idea but it has proven an insurance policy for politicians who had otherwise been rejected by the public.
Tbf some of those politicians have never been accepted by the public before being rejected. Maybe this is Murdo's big chance.
Oh yes, I really don't like the number of list MSPs elected because of their party label and internal politicking rather than any individual merit either.
I also feel very sorry for Gordon Lindhurst, for example, who is a sitting MSP but was moved to 4th on the Lothian list and will lose his seat although it will be nice to have him back at the bar. He didn't get on with Ruth and was shafted in the same sort of way that Joanna Cherry was by a leadership given way too much power by the list system.
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.
One of Labour's many problems is that most of its remaining vote were Remainers, even in the NE, and they have other places to go. Brexitism is both implausible from Starmer and antithetical to the residual voters.
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.
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?
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
To be fair Boris is doing pretty well dishing out more free money than anyone else.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Have you not been paying attention to Boris Johnson since December 2019?
It clearly does . It doesn't matter where you actually live ,one still looks to home.. if I moved to America, I would still support St Helens..
I am Lancastrian but have lived more than half my life elsewhere. Home is where you settle. I feel sorry for England like I feel sorry for America, but you get what you vote for. You can't save people from what they want if you disagree with them - either defeat them and make a change, or move. Other countries are available.
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.
@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.
The dialogue within the Labour Party as to What Do We Do Next? can't be undertaken behind closed doors. It couldn't be, even if they tried. We are seeing here the differing fiercely held views within hard left and soft-left (there isn't really a Labour right any longer).
But that in turn is going to feed into the view the public see, of a party being riven by division. Hard to see Labour polling improving any time soon.
So I wonder why Tony Blairs political analysis will ever be taken seriously again...
We not only got another leader but one he liked and wanted being guided by his fan club within the party.
This could not be more what Blair wanted outside of personally leading the party.
20 points ahead?!
20 points ahead?!
Tony you are a few decades behind the country, you need to take up something less taxing like golf or crossword puzzles.
Centrism is an electoral joke.
Is it? Johnson seems to be doing pretty good with centrism.
For the Labour party it is, also feel free to argue with me here but I don't think Johnsons appeal comes from being a centrist.
The last time Labour properly embraced centrism it won massive majorities.
The last time they properly embraced a left wing manifesto they won a massive mandate.
But being stuck in the last century is exactly what led Blair to being so disastrously wrong in his comments I mentioned above!
We need to move on from leaders selected in the past century because the electorate has moved on!
What Labour are doing now, which is going hilariously wrong is embracing centrism.
If Labour wants to win votes centrism is suicide as we can clearly see on the evidence. Stop talking with regards to what you want and look at the actual evidence instead.
The last time they properly embraced a left wing manifesto they won a massive mandate.
When was that, 50 years ago?
Your example is from a leader selected decades ago as well, the world has massive massively changed since Blairs original massive victory which combined with Conservative weakness gave him the next couple.
Atlee, Wilson, Blair, all are about as relevant as each other given the passage of time.
But instead of arguing how many decades ago counts and how many doesn't why don't we just look at evidence we have from right now in 2021?
Labour being centrist is a huge vote loser, it is much preferred by Tories on here that Labour is centrist. Call me cynical but are you sure it isn't just because you prefer the Tories to have an easy ride?
Hung parliament up against a lefty or easy historical gains against a centrist, I can understand why so many Tories are desperate for Labour to keep centre.
At least my example was a prime minister in this millennium. Labour will win if they tack to the center. Otherwise they'll be stuck in the wilderness.
Blairs 3 terms were almost secured in the first election (Conservative weakness added) he is from the last century.
All example from this century show the exact opposite of what you are saying.
Centrism electoral wilderness going left coming out of it.
The evidence is once again here tonight.
Blair is no more a magic answer than Atlee is, the evidence of how people vote in the modern day is here in recent elections not ones from leader selected in previous centuries, you just want Labour to stay right because it is easy to beat.
You remind me of UvdL, except that where she sees "more EU" as the solution to every problem, you see "more left wing".
I am a numbers guy, just going with the numbers.
I had to sit here and listen to the unelectable jibes but all the evidence is showing centrism is actually less electable (for Labour)
I am supposed to ignore evidence showing I am right?
Centrism is less electable, the numbers agree with me.
I think you are muddling your various concepts.
What you need to win is an appealing programme, delivered effectively by leaders who people can rationalise being in charge.
Early days but the BBC results have the Conservatives ahead on councillors in England, with Labour losing ground (only 15/143 in, though). Surprised by that.
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
So was I, although I didn't put any money on it. Still, we're in good company, backing the credible but ultimately flawed argumentation put forward by our esteemed Tory Mr Herdson.
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.
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.
So I wonder why Tony Blairs political analysis will ever be taken seriously again...
We not only got another leader but one he liked and wanted being guided by his fan club within the party.
This could not be more what Blair wanted outside of personally leading the party.
20 points ahead?!
20 points ahead?!
Tony you are a few decades behind the country, you need to take up something less taxing like golf or crossword puzzles.
Centrism is an electoral joke.
Is it? Johnson seems to be doing pretty good with centrism.
For the Labour party it is, also feel free to argue with me here but I don't think Johnsons appeal comes from being a centrist.
The last time Labour properly embraced centrism it won massive majorities.
The last time they properly embraced a left wing manifesto they won a massive mandate.
But being stuck in the last century is exactly what led Blair to being so disastrously wrong in his comments I mentioned above!
We need to move on from leaders selected in the past century because the electorate has moved on!
What Labour are doing now, which is going hilariously wrong is embracing centrism.
If Labour wants to win votes centrism is suicide as we can clearly see on the evidence. Stop talking with regards to what you want and look at the actual evidence instead.
The last time they properly embraced a left wing manifesto they won a massive mandate.
When was that, 50 years ago?
Your example is from a leader selected decades ago as well, the world has massive massively changed since Blairs original massive victory which combined with Conservative weakness gave him the next couple.
Atlee, Wilson, Blair, all are about as relevant as each other given the passage of time.
But instead of arguing how many decades ago counts and how many doesn't why don't we just look at evidence we have from right now in 2021?
Labour being centrist is a huge vote loser, it is much preferred by Tories on here that Labour is centrist. Call me cynical but are you sure it isn't just because you prefer the Tories to have an easy ride?
Hung parliament up against a lefty or easy historical gains against a centrist, I can understand why so many Tories are desperate for Labour to keep centre.
At least my example was a prime minister in this millennium. Labour will win if they tack to the center. Otherwise they'll be stuck in the wilderness.
Blairs 3 terms were almost secured in the first election (Conservative weakness added) he is from the last century.
All example from this century show the exact opposite of what you are saying.
Centrism electoral wilderness going left coming out of it.
The evidence is once again here tonight.
Blair is no more a magic answer than Atlee is, the evidence of how people vote in the modern day is here in recent elections not ones from leader selected in previous centuries, you just want Labour to stay right because it is easy to beat.
You remind me of UvdL, except that where she sees "more EU" as the solution to every problem, you see "more left wing".
I am a numbers guy, just going with the numbers.
I had to sit here and listen to the unelectable jibes but all the evidence is showing centrism is actually less electable (for Labour)
I am supposed to ignore evidence showing I am right?
Centrism is less electable, the numbers agree with me.
I think you are muddling your various concepts.
What you need to win is an appealing programme, delivered effectively by leaders who people can rationalise being in charge.
The doesn’t need to be left or right wing per se.
I think that's right. The debate appears to be between a programme that inspires some but repels too many others, versus having no ideas at all.
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?!
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.
Comments
All I care about is that he gets jabs in our arms. And he is. Brilliantly.
One of the downsides of the Scottish electoral system is that there is a lot of swings and roundabouts. So the Tory loss of central may well be offset by a gain on the list, for example. Swinney might lose South Perthshire but come back on the list etc. Its not the worst idea but it has proven an insurance policy for politicians who had otherwise been rejected by the public.
Stories emerging tallied with opinion polls and general trends. Labour weren't really value in this election at any point.
If what I'm seeing about high turnout is true I would be betting against an SNP majority.
Differential turnout is everything in Scotland give the low turnout for Holyrood, and Unionists are motivated to vote.
The voting might have ended but the counting hadn't started and constituency polls have been badly wrong before.
Round 1
Lab 43.8%
Con 28.5%
Round 2
Lab 59.8%
Con 40.2%
Maybe this is Murdo's big chance.
Wallpapergate - that at least once he has broken the ministerial code and the law by not declaring loans - isn't about trying to change how people vote. Its about trying to make his position untenable.
Alex "don't let him get near the women" Salmond said to me yesterday that the law didn't apply to him. Hopefully he will not be elected on Saturday - and if he is spending polling day buzzing round small rural villages like Cruden Bay and New Pitsligo he has no chance. Salmond may not think the law applies to him but the voters do. It will catch up to Johnson - if people think the law matters.
And if they don't I have moved to Scotland. England can enjoy its descent and it doesn't affect me much any more.
"Well, his heart was in the right place. Bless...." seems to be about all he has with Remainers. Who can now give their support to the LibDems or the Greens, making Labour's task Himalayan.
For the moment he needs to keep the left on side but work out what the problem is.
Oh and if SKS is reading this Lady Chapman is a lovely person but she hasn't a clue what the Labour party's problems actually are.
The enthusiasm to vote for the government, or its policies, is quite something, when compared, say, with by-elections of the past like Leeds Central.
Hmmm do I detect a trend there?
Last time I checked Yorkshire was up north. She sounds northern. Plain, straight, down to earth no nonsense ground-based message. She was focused on local issues, plain and simple.
It's not flamboyant enough for someone like you, perhaps, but that's because you are missing the point of what's wanted in these Red Wall seats.
- 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, Labour being out of touch with its old base
Why have I got precisely zero love from you for this?
Jeez.
I honestly, politely, think you need a re-think.
Now 82.
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!
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?
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.
I suspect map a very small overall Left -> Right swing, unify the Right vote (I've noted and am keeping an eye out for probable Heavy Woollen weakness) to Batley & Spen and Labour are in sizeable trouble there, and I don't think it's tenable to decline to have a by-election there either.
I'm tired of this narcisstic "I'm the first candidate from minority group X to win in location Y" stuff. It's the first sign of Wokeness.
Even if it's true you make a speech to the whole community and you STFU about yourself and let your "achievement" - such as it is - speak for itself. FWIW I think her gender supremely irrelevant - she could have been anyone and given there's no innate bigotry against female candidates anymore such a statement is entirely facile and meaningless.
I don't expect any Tory to play the intersectionality game and it's a massive red flag to me if they do.
https://twitter.com/Blazespage/status/1390559014254227458?s=20
Sunderland Central
Con 5 wards won yesterday
LD 3 wards
Lab 1 ward
Washington and Sunderland West
Lab 6
Con 1
1 split Con-Lab ward
Houghton and Sunderland South
Lab 5
LD 2
Con 1
https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1390557508176056321?s=20
* if confirmed.
But well done for topping up the Shadsy Christmas Party fund.
NOC now, but that’s Con + a tiny number of Tory-lite independents). LDs and Lab are both going to pick up seats, probably more LD than Lab.
More tentatively I think we’ll see similar results across the Home Counties, which might swing a district or two. The rural Midlands shires will stay solidly Con though - given that we’re seeing big Tory gains in Redditch this morning, I can’t see the Tories losing many seats in Worcestershire. And so on.
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/
I also feel very sorry for Gordon Lindhurst, for example, who is a sitting MSP but was moved to 4th on the Lothian list and will lose his seat although it will be nice to have him back at the bar. He didn't get on with Ruth and was shafted in the same sort of way that Joanna Cherry was by a leadership given way too much power by the list system.
One of Labour's many problems is that most of its remaining vote were Remainers, even in the NE, and they have other places to go. Brexitism is both implausible from Starmer and antithetical to the residual voters.
https://twitter.com/Sgt__Detritus/status/1390558501995520004
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.
Starmer should go down fighting. Expel everyone who invokes Palestine in their campaigns. The only way to save the party is remove the cancer.
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.
https://twitter.com/_KateForbes/status/1390223205269450757?s=20
So one each; a gentlemanly draw. To pull ahead, you'll have to vote LibDem in the likely 2023 GE!
A few quid lost this morning
But that in turn is going to feed into the view the public see, of a party being riven by division. Hard to see Labour polling improving any time soon.
https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/
What you need to win is an appealing programme, delivered effectively by leaders who people can rationalise being in charge.
The doesn’t need to be left or right wing per se.
Quite astounded by the result.
Early days but the BBC results have the Conservatives ahead on councillors in England, with Labour losing ground (only 15/143 in, though). Surprised by that.
They all have to try and work out how to become relevant again.
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?!
Call me unconvinced.