Most former PMs and govts would love midterm polling like this – politicalbetting.com
?? The latest from our poll tracker:CON: 40.8% (-0.4)LAB: 33.8% (+0.2)LDEM: 10.3% (+0.8)GRN: 5.6% (+0.1)via @BritainElects, 24 AugChgs. w/ 23 JulAll quiet on the polling front…More:https://t.co/C2F3jpmwxI pic.twitter.com/Ua9JEKucEp
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First...like Govey on the dance floor0
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well done Mr Swing0
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Morning all. A little warmer here, according to my app, but still very grey. Excellent day chez Cole yesterday, though, and no-one mentioned politics.
Apart from a couple of comments about current educational difficulties for the younger people, and the effect of the transport problems on the work of one of the older ones.0 -
It’s actually raining here.OldKingCole said:Morning all. A little warmer here, according to my app, but still very grey. Excellent day chez Cole yesterday, though, and no-one mentioned politics.
Apart from a couple of comments about current educational difficulties for the younger people, and the effect of the transport problems on the work of one of the older ones.
Knew I shouldn’t have said how dry it’s been…0 -
Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?1
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Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
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The alternative was Rebecca Long Bailey.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Other candidates who might have come forward had circumstances been different were Thornberry, Pidcock and Lavery.
So yes, they could easily have made a worse choice.11 -
Thornberry might have been OK. I know the Sun rubbished her ...... unfairly, but that's the Sun ...... but overall she seems sensible.ydoethur said:
The alternative was Rebecca Long Bailey.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Other candidates who might have come forward had circumstances been different were Thornberry, Pidcock and Lavery.
So yes, they could easily have made a worse choice.0 -
Yes.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Indeed, there were about 200 worse choices.
The problem is that - while Starmer is obviously a bit rubbish - all the alternatives were worse.
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Would have been interesting to see what effect Pier's Covid antics would have had on his brother's standing. It wouldn't have helped....especially if he was seen to have been less than savage in his condemnation.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
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I heartily agree with the header; it would be very strange, given historical trends, if the Tories didn’t win most seats and a majority given the current state of play.
Of course something extraordinary could happen, but that’s the risk you take, and I think both bets are great value.2 -
Both are fantastic value. I would say they should be 1.1 and 1.5.isam said:I heartily agree with the header; it would be very strange, given historical trends, if the Tories didn’t win most seats and a majority given the current state of play.
Of course something extraordinary could happen, but that’s the risk you take, and I think both bets are great value.2 -
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
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Where are we headed with boosters then? I am going for a small and limited subset of the vulnerable. Followed by a grave speech around half term time, when they claim they couldn’t possibly have known they’d need to do millions of doses until then.
Whether punters will continue giving the government the benefit of the doubt remains to be seen. The 60+ demographic ain’t daft and they want their boosters ASAP.0 -
Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?9 -
Agree. Lack of understanding, too, about why 2017 had been relatively successful.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
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I very much doubt if she would have been better than Starmer. Ultimately, Starmer’s issues come back to the fact that he’s a patronising London lawyer without much imagination. But he has at least lived in the north of England and had a career in management. Thornberry is a patronising London lawyer without imagination. She has spent all her life in London and the south and has never run anything.OldKingCole said:
Thornberry might have been OK. I know the Sun rubbished her ...... unfairly, but that's the Sun ...... but overall she seems sensible.ydoethur said:
The alternative was Rebecca Long Bailey.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Other candidates who might have come forward had circumstances been different were Thornberry, Pidcock and Lavery.
So yes, they could easily have made a worse choice.
So I don’t see how she would be better.5 -
Yep, the Tory odds currently are a steal. I very openly admit I have no idea why Johnson and co are so popular, but they have cemented in 40% of the vote and that means Labour cannot win. The one hope for those of us who favour a less mendacious, more competent government running the country is that on 40% or so the Tories can lose their overall majority if all the tactical voting winds blow in the right direction. That. though, is highly unlikely.2
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Labour's hope is that it can find another Blair. Somebody who can build a cross-party coalition of voters. But the chances of that person getting the opportunity to be leader seem nil - their political rise would be strangled at birth.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?2 -
Israel is looking very discouraging from that point of view.moonshine said:Where are we headed with boosters then? I am going for a small and limited subset of the vulnerable. Followed by a grave speech around half term time, when they claim they couldn’t possibly have known they’d need to do millions of doses until then.
Whether punters will continue giving the government the benefit of the doubt remains to be seen. The 60+ demographic ain’t daft and they want their boosters ASAP.
Equally, they only used Pfizer while a very large part of our vulnerable population had AZ.0 -
Greta's off Nippy's Christmas card list:
Campaigner Greta Thunberg says she doesn't regard Scotland as a world leader on climate change......
On the Scottish Greens' deal to enter government, she said some politicians were "less worse" than others.
But she said tackling climate change was not as easy as voting for a green party....
The Scottish government has previously described its climate change legislation as "world leading."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-583870172 -
The Trot entryists came with Miliband, not Corbyn. You may be right about regional pride and hope. I think Dominic Cummings would say so too.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?0 -
I could not agree more. The Tories have the "mustn't grumble", "it could be worse", "best foot forward" vote sown up - and that is a very large section of the electorate. For the rest, Labour has to find a way of articulating that settling for second best - and that delivered incompetently by mendacious grifters - really doesn't have to be the way forward. There are other, better, ways to run a country.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?
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The Trots stood against Labour in 2015. And then flooded in, some into Corbyn's inner circle or promoted to the Film Director of Hearts.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The Trot entryists came with Miliband, not Corbyn. You may be right about regional pride and hope. I think Dominic Cummings would say so too.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?0 -
Don’t forget though Blair was only one part of the puzzle, albeit probably the largest one. You had Brown‘s hard work rewriting economic policy, Mandelson and Campbell looking after comms, Jack Straw sorting out new policies on crime and Robin Cook and John Prescott acting as the guardians of Labour’s conscience and making it OK for doubters to follow.MarqueeMark said:
Labour's hope is that it can find another Blair. Somebody who can build a cross-party coalition of voters. But the chances of that person getting the opportunity to be leader seem nil - their political rise would be strangled at birth.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?
When you look at the New Labour project, it really was a quite extraordinary political achievement. Very hard to replicate (as Cameron found out). Starmer, who has to work more or less on his own and has a hostile left who still think (as we’ve seen from the likes of TheJezziah) that it was only Brexit and some press stories about anti-Semitism that cost them in 2019, has no chance of replicating it.1 -
The last couple of PMQs were Starmer wins. The Labour leader was on top of his game, witty and forensic.
If PMQs herald a new dawn then all is not lost. To conference! But even with new, improved Keir, what is to be Labour's retail offer. Like Drakeford and Sturgeon and Macron and Merkel, Labour would have had vaccines and lockdowns but better than Boris's. Support for the economy too. But no-one will be converted to Labour on this sort of managerialist nit-picking. What is Labour for?3 -
Something like 2/3s of seats voted Leave. I think that’s why, in 2019, Labour got the same kind of vote share, slightly better even, as 10 & 15, yet got fewer seats.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Structurally Brexit has perhaps made it difficult for Remain parties to win seats. Corbyn did no worse than Brown or Miliband in terms of voteshare, but far worse in seats - maybe that is a guide for the next election too.1 -
My "regional pride" piece will be tested in Stockton-on-Tees in 2023. They have a very well run council (for decades frankly regardless of party). Currently Labour minority, they are addressing the town centres conundrum with a ground-breaking plan.
They've already completely remodelled the wide high street. Landscaping, a fountain, bus gate, redundant buildings removed. Now they've bought the hideous 1970s shopping centre and will bulldoze it and replace it with a park. This will open the high street up to the river (with a riverside dual carriageway put into a tunnel) - shops congregate into the other 90s shopping development now also owned by the council.
It should win them plaudits. But as they are Labour, and that brand is pretty toxic on Teesside, I suspect they may be swept away by a Tory group who have opposed every penny spent.5 -
The people you accuse of saying “mustn’t grumble”, “it could be worse” etc voted for the most seismic change in political history, so I don’t think that attempt at a meme works.SouthamObserver said:
I could not agree more. The Tories have the "mustn't grumble", "it could be worse", "best foot forward" vote sown up - and that is a very large section of the electorate. For the rest, Labour has to find a way of articulating that settling for second best - and that delivered incompetently by mendacious grifters - really doesn't have to be the way forward. There are other, better, ways to run a country.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?0 -
You could equally ask what the Conservative party is for. Both major parties seem to be mainly about keeping the other one out of power. The Tories have done much better in corralling the anti-Labour vote than Labour has done in corralling the anti-Tory vote. Or, put another way, more people prioritise not wanting a Labour government than prioritise not wanting a Tory one. It's been the same story for most of the last 70 years.DecrepiterJohnL said:The last couple of PMQs were Starmer wins. The Labour leader was on top of his game, witty and forensic.
If PMQs herald a new dawn then all is not lost. To conference! But even with new, improved Keir, what is to be Labour's retail offer. Like Drakeford and Sturgeon and Macron and Merkel, Labour would have had vaccines and lockdowns but better than Boris's. Support for the economy too. But no-one will be converted to Labour on this sort of managerialist nit-picking. What is Labour for?
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Not sure about that. Presumably they believe things could be a lot worse now - for example, if we were still in the EU.isam said:
The people you accuse of saying “mustn’t grumble”, “it could be worse” etc voted for the most seismic change in political history, so I don’t think that attempt at a meme works.SouthamObserver said:
I could not agree more. The Tories have the "mustn't grumble", "it could be worse", "best foot forward" vote sown up - and that is a very large section of the electorate. For the rest, Labour has to find a way of articulating that settling for second best - and that delivered incompetently by mendacious grifters - really doesn't have to be the way forward. There are other, better, ways to run a country.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?
0 -
SKS has of late gone from low profile and boring to outright invisible. Where is he? The only story bearing his picture on the BBC is a story from a few days ago saying that the government needed an urgent plan to help those left behind in Afghanistan. It's opposition Jim, but not as we know it.2
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The really alarming thought for Labour about Corbynism is that even in 2017 when he got 39.99% of the nationwide vote he won just four more seats than Brown on 29% of the vote in 2010.isam said:
Something like 2/3s of seats voted Leave. I think that’s why, in 2019, Labour got the same kind of vote share, slightly better even, as 10 & 15, yet got fewer seats.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Structurally Brexit has perhaps made it difficult for Remain parties to win seats. Corbyn did no worse than Brown or Miliband in terms of voteshare, but far worse in seats - maybe that is a guide for the next election too.
Labour’s vote is becoming horribly inefficient. Ok, that’s partly because they lost Scotland and have fallen back in Wales. But they are still winning plenty of votes - just in their safe seats where they are no use.
Here’s a couple of shocking stats. The 17 safest seats in the country and 19 of the top 20 are all held by Labour. They hold 58 seats with over 60% of the vote (by contrast the Tories have 36 despite having far more seats).
Corbyn really did preach not so much to the choir as to the clergy. Starmer needs to find a way to reach out, even at the cost of losing a biggish chunk of his existing vote. An intelligent campaign where Labour stood still in terms of voteshare could still see them pick up many seats if those votes were in the right places.3 -
If they were the kind of people to say ‘mustn’t grumble’, ‘it could be worse’ they wouldn’t have voted to fundamentally change the way the country was run.SouthamObserver said:
Not sure about that. Presumably they believe things could be a lot worse now - for example, if we were still in the EU.isam said:
The people you accuse of saying “mustn’t grumble”, “it could be worse” etc voted for the most seismic change in political history, so I don’t think that attempt at a meme works.SouthamObserver said:
I could not agree more. The Tories have the "mustn't grumble", "it could be worse", "best foot forward" vote sown up - and that is a very large section of the electorate. For the rest, Labour has to find a way of articulating that settling for second best - and that delivered incompetently by mendacious grifters - really doesn't have to be the way forward. There are other, better, ways to run a country.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?0 -
That is the remarkable thing about the Conservative Party. Boris ran against Cameron's and May's governments, just as Mrs Thatcher ran against Heath's.SouthamObserver said:
You could equally ask what the Conservative party is for. Both major parties seem to be mainly about keeping the other one out of power. The Tories have done much better in corralling the anti-Labour vote than Labour has done in corralling the anti-Tory vote. Or, put another way, more people prioritise not wanting a Labour government than prioritise not wanting a Tory one. It's been the same story for most of the last 70 years.DecrepiterJohnL said:The last couple of PMQs were Starmer wins. The Labour leader was on top of his game, witty and forensic.
If PMQs herald a new dawn then all is not lost. To conference! But even with new, improved Keir, what is to be Labour's retail offer. Like Drakeford and Sturgeon and Macron and Merkel, Labour would have had vaccines and lockdowns but better than Boris's. Support for the economy too. But no-one will be converted to Labour on this sort of managerialist nit-picking. What is Labour for?2 -
It's worse than that, he's dead Jim....politically.DavidL said:SKS has of late gone from low profile and boring to outright invisible. Where is he? The only story bearing his picture on the BBC is a story from a few days ago saying that the government needed an urgent plan to help those left behind in Afghanistan. It's opposition Jim, but not as we know it.
The voters have made up their minds: "Next...."2 -
What Starmer does do is make a LibDem vote less of a risk for soft Tories in the south. A vote for the LibDems is no longer a vote that helps Jeremy Corbyn. And a LibDem revival is absolutely essential to any election result that is to deprive the Tories of their overall majority.ydoethur said:
The really alarming thought for Labour about Corbynism is that even in 2017 when he got 39.99% of the nationwide vote he won just four more seats than Brown on 29% of the vote in 2010.isam said:
Something like 2/3s of seats voted Leave. I think that’s why, in 2019, Labour got the same kind of vote share, slightly better even, as 10 & 15, yet got fewer seats.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Structurally Brexit has perhaps made it difficult for Remain parties to win seats. Corbyn did no worse than Brown or Miliband in terms of voteshare, but far worse in seats - maybe that is a guide for the next election too.
Labour’s vote is becoming horribly inefficient. Ok, that’s partly because they lost Scotland and have fallen back in Wales. But they are still winning plenty of votes - just in their safe seats where they are no use.
Here’s a couple of shocking stats. The 17 safest seats in the country and 19 of the top 20 are all held by Labour. They hold 58 seats with over 60% of the vote (by contrast the Tories have 36 despite having far more seats).
Corbyn really did preach not so much to the choir as to the clergy. Starmer needs to find a way to reach out, even at the cost of losing a biggish chunk of his existing vote. An intelligent campaign where Labour stood still in terms of voteshare could still see them pick up many seats if those votes were in the right places.
4 -
The way the country is run has not fundamentally changed.isam said:
If they were the kind of people to say ‘mustn’t grumble’, ‘it could be worse’ they wouldn’t have voted to fundamentally change the way the country was run.SouthamObserver said:
Not sure about that. Presumably they believe things could be a lot worse now - for example, if we were still in the EU.isam said:
The people you accuse of saying “mustn’t grumble”, “it could be worse” etc voted for the most seismic change in political history, so I don’t think that attempt at a meme works.SouthamObserver said:
I could not agree more. The Tories have the "mustn't grumble", "it could be worse", "best foot forward" vote sown up - and that is a very large section of the electorate. For the rest, Labour has to find a way of articulating that settling for second best - and that delivered incompetently by mendacious grifters - really doesn't have to be the way forward. There are other, better, ways to run a country.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?
1 -
…
People you accuse of being to lazy to do anything about the way it is run voted for it to be fundamentally changed though.SouthamObserver said:
The way the country is run has not fundamentally changed.isam said:
If they were the kind of people to say ‘mustn’t grumble’, ‘it could be worse’ they wouldn’t have voted to fundamentally change the way the country was run.SouthamObserver said:
Not sure about that. Presumably they believe things could be a lot worse now - for example, if we were still in the EU.isam said:
The people you accuse of saying “mustn’t grumble”, “it could be worse” etc voted for the most seismic change in political history, so I don’t think that attempt at a meme works.SouthamObserver said:
I could not agree more. The Tories have the "mustn't grumble", "it could be worse", "best foot forward" vote sown up - and that is a very large section of the electorate. For the rest, Labour has to find a way of articulating that settling for second best - and that delivered incompetently by mendacious grifters - really doesn't have to be the way forward. There are other, better, ways to run a country.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?0 -
An interesting thing about the 2019 GE was that both leaders promised something different: in Labour's case, Corbyn's vision for the country was very different from the consensus of the last forty years. In Johnson's, it promised an ideas vacuum with little pretence of keeping any promises aside from Brexit (he is Johnson, after all).SouthamObserver said:
You could equally ask what the Conservative party is for. Both major parties seem to be mainly about keeping the other one out of power. The Tories have done much better in corralling the anti-Labour vote than Labour has done in corralling the anti-Tory vote. Or, put another way, more people prioritise not wanting a Labour government than prioritise not wanting a Tory one. It's been the same story for most of the last 70 years.DecrepiterJohnL said:The last couple of PMQs were Starmer wins. The Labour leader was on top of his game, witty and forensic.
If PMQs herald a new dawn then all is not lost. To conference! But even with new, improved Keir, what is to be Labour's retail offer. Like Drakeford and Sturgeon and Macron and Merkel, Labour would have had vaccines and lockdowns but better than Boris's. Support for the economy too. But no-one will be converted to Labour on this sort of managerialist nit-picking. What is Labour for?
Covid has utterly derailed everything. Both Starmer and Johnson have a great opportunity to unveil a positive vision for the future of the country post-Covid and post-Brexit. The next few months are key (assuming the Covid crisis is declining, that is).
I don't think either will do it. Johnson because he will bluster; he will unveil big-project ideas that are inconsequential to the problems facing the country. Starmer because I don't think he has the imagination.
For me, a key thing is literacy and numeracy. Far too many people are functionally illiterate and/or innumerate, and this is an individual and national tragedy. I'd give a lot of time for any leader who makes this a key point in their plans. This sort of thing, rather than bridges, is key to future prosperity.4 -
The converse is of course true for the Tories whose vote is massively more efficient than it was in the days of the Blair hegemony. Boris has been quite content to hollow out some of the true blue south east in exchange for the red wall seats in the Midlands and the north. So far it has proven a very successful swop but nothing lasts forever and those red wall seats which Labour took for granted have blue mirror images in the south.ydoethur said:
The really alarming thought for Labour about Corbynism is that even in 2017 when he got 39.99% of the nationwide vote he won just four more seats than Brown on 29% of the vote in 2010.isam said:
Something like 2/3s of seats voted Leave. I think that’s why, in 2019, Labour got the same kind of vote share, slightly better even, as 10 & 15, yet got fewer seats.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Structurally Brexit has perhaps made it difficult for Remain parties to win seats. Corbyn did no worse than Brown or Miliband in terms of voteshare, but far worse in seats - maybe that is a guide for the next election too.
Labour’s vote is becoming horribly inefficient. Ok, that’s partly because they lost Scotland and have fallen back in Wales. But they are still winning plenty of votes - just in their safe seats where they are no use.
Here’s a couple of shocking stats. The 17 safest seats in the country and 19 of the top 20 are all held by Labour. They hold 58 seats with over 60% of the vote (by contrast the Tories have 36 despite having far more seats).
Corbyn really did preach not so much to the choir as to the clergy. Starmer needs to find a way to reach out, even at the cost of losing a biggish chunk of his existing vote. An intelligent campaign where Labour stood still in terms of voteshare could still see them pick up many seats if those votes were in the right places.2 -
I think that voters' relationships with the Tory party are generally a lot more transactional than they are with Labour - and that by and large that also applies internally, or did until BJ took over. That gives the Tories a level of flexibility Labour just does not have. Labour is burdened with an ideology. It is one hell of a millstone.DecrepiterJohnL said:
That is the remarkable thing about the Conservative Party. Boris ran against Cameron's and May's governments, just as Mrs Thatcher ran against Heath's.SouthamObserver said:
You could equally ask what the Conservative party is for. Both major parties seem to be mainly about keeping the other one out of power. The Tories have done much better in corralling the anti-Labour vote than Labour has done in corralling the anti-Tory vote. Or, put another way, more people prioritise not wanting a Labour government than prioritise not wanting a Tory one. It's been the same story for most of the last 70 years.DecrepiterJohnL said:The last couple of PMQs were Starmer wins. The Labour leader was on top of his game, witty and forensic.
If PMQs herald a new dawn then all is not lost. To conference! But even with new, improved Keir, what is to be Labour's retail offer. Like Drakeford and Sturgeon and Macron and Merkel, Labour would have had vaccines and lockdowns but better than Boris's. Support for the economy too. But no-one will be converted to Labour on this sort of managerialist nit-picking. What is Labour for?
2 -
The boundary changes should make the task even more difficult. It is an exciting time to be Boris Johnson and for supporters of his brand of Conservativism.ydoethur said:
The really alarming thought for Labour about Corbynism is that even in 2017 when he got 39.99% of the nationwide vote he won just four more seats than Brown on 29% of the vote in 2010.isam said:
Something like 2/3s of seats voted Leave. I think that’s why, in 2019, Labour got the same kind of vote share, slightly better even, as 10 & 15, yet got fewer seats.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Structurally Brexit has perhaps made it difficult for Remain parties to win seats. Corbyn did no worse than Brown or Miliband in terms of voteshare, but far worse in seats - maybe that is a guide for the next election too.
Labour’s vote is becoming horribly inefficient. Ok, that’s partly because they lost Scotland and have fallen back in Wales. But they are still winning plenty of votes - just in their safe seats where they are no use.
Here’s a couple of shocking stats. The 17 safest seats in the country and 19 of the top 20 are all held by Labour. They hold 58 seats with over 60% of the vote (by contrast the Tories have 36 despite having far more seats).
Corbyn really did preach not so much to the choir as to the clergy. Starmer needs to find a way to reach out, even at the cost of losing a biggish chunk of his existing vote. An intelligent campaign where Labour stood still in terms of voteshare could still see them pick up many seats if those votes were in the right places.1 -
For the rest of us it sucks harder than a whore Bill Clinton is paying by the orgasm.Mexicanpete said:
The boundary changes should make the task even more difficult. It is an exciting time to be Boris Johnson and his brand of Conservatism.ydoethur said:
The really alarming thought for Labour about Corbynism is that even in 2017 when he got 39.99% of the nationwide vote he won just four more seats than Brown on 29% of the vote in 2010.isam said:
Something like 2/3s of seats voted Leave. I think that’s why, in 2019, Labour got the same kind of vote share, slightly better even, as 10 & 15, yet got fewer seats.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Structurally Brexit has perhaps made it difficult for Remain parties to win seats. Corbyn did no worse than Brown or Miliband in terms of voteshare, but far worse in seats - maybe that is a guide for the next election too.
Labour’s vote is becoming horribly inefficient. Ok, that’s partly because they lost Scotland and have fallen back in Wales. But they are still winning plenty of votes - just in their safe seats where they are no use.
Here’s a couple of shocking stats. The 17 safest seats in the country and 19 of the top 20 are all held by Labour. They hold 58 seats with over 60% of the vote (by contrast the Tories have 36 despite having far more seats).
Corbyn really did preach not so much to the choir as to the clergy. Starmer needs to find a way to reach out, even at the cost of losing a biggish chunk of his existing vote. An intelligent campaign where Labour stood still in terms of voteshare could still see them pick up many seats if those votes were in the right places.1 -
Is there anyone Greta does regard as a world leader on climate change?CarlottaVance said:Greta's off Nippy's Christmas card list:
Campaigner Greta Thunberg says she doesn't regard Scotland as a world leader on climate change......
On the Scottish Greens' deal to enter government, she said some politicians were "less worse" than others.
But she said tackling climate change was not as easy as voting for a green party....
The Scottish government has previously described its climate change legislation as "world leading."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-583870171 -
No, they voted to leave the EU. In terms of day to governance of the country it changed very little.isam said:…
People you accuse of being to lazy to do anything about the way it is run voted for it to be fundamentally changed though.SouthamObserver said:
The way the country is run has not fundamentally changed.isam said:
If they were the kind of people to say ‘mustn’t grumble’, ‘it could be worse’ they wouldn’t have voted to fundamentally change the way the country was run.SouthamObserver said:
Not sure about that. Presumably they believe things could be a lot worse now - for example, if we were still in the EU.isam said:
The people you accuse of saying “mustn’t grumble”, “it could be worse” etc voted for the most seismic change in political history, so I don’t think that attempt at a meme works.SouthamObserver said:
I could not agree more. The Tories have the "mustn't grumble", "it could be worse", "best foot forward" vote sown up - and that is a very large section of the electorate. For the rest, Labour has to find a way of articulating that settling for second best - and that delivered incompetently by mendacious grifters - really doesn't have to be the way forward. There are other, better, ways to run a country.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?
1 -
The open door for Labour is "we've left, lets make Brexit work". The battle is delivery, not whining. You can make all the same points - the border doesn't work for us" without it being "because you were stupid and voted to leave". Needs to be "and the government need to fix it so we can independently trade with everyone."isam said:
Something like 2/3s of seats voted Leave. I think that’s why, in 2019, Labour got the same kind of vote share, slightly better even, as 10 & 15, yet got fewer seats.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Structurally Brexit has perhaps made it difficult for Remain parties to win seats. Corbyn did no worse than Brown or Miliband in terms of voteshare, but far worse in seats - maybe that is a guide for the next election too.7 -
A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.
2 -
Herself?Fairliered said:
Is there anyone Greta does regard as a world leader on climate change?CarlottaVance said:Greta's off Nippy's Christmas card list:
Campaigner Greta Thunberg says she doesn't regard Scotland as a world leader on climate change......
On the Scottish Greens' deal to enter government, she said some politicians were "less worse" than others.
But she said tackling climate change was not as easy as voting for a green party....
The Scottish government has previously described its climate change legislation as "world leading."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-583870174 -
Mr. Liered, I forget who the quote is from but she does remind me of it:
"It is easier to be critical than correct."0 -
And this is what his challenge to the hard left had to be: we don't want you, we don't need you. All the twats going to The World Transformed - if they all trotted off to vote for scab groups like Socialist Unity nobody would notice electorally.ydoethur said:
The really alarming thought for Labour about Corbynism is that even in 2017 when he got 39.99% of the nationwide vote he won just four more seats than Brown on 29% of the vote in 2010.isam said:
Something like 2/3s of seats voted Leave. I think that’s why, in 2019, Labour got the same kind of vote share, slightly better even, as 10 & 15, yet got fewer seats.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Structurally Brexit has perhaps made it difficult for Remain parties to win seats. Corbyn did no worse than Brown or Miliband in terms of voteshare, but far worse in seats - maybe that is a guide for the next election too.
Labour’s vote is becoming horribly inefficient. Ok, that’s partly because they lost Scotland and have fallen back in Wales. But they are still winning plenty of votes - just in their safe seats where they are no use.
Here’s a couple of shocking stats. The 17 safest seats in the country and 19 of the top 20 are all held by Labour. They hold 58 seats with over 60% of the vote (by contrast the Tories have 36 despite having far more seats).
Corbyn really did preach not so much to the choir as to the clergy. Starmer needs to find a way to reach out, even at the cost of losing a biggish chunk of his existing vote. An intelligent campaign where Labour stood still in terms of voteshare could still see them pick up many seats if those votes were in the right places.
Sadly Starmer is frit. "Labour doesn't need a civil war" I have been told. Its got one - here and now. And the hard left are planning to go all out at conference. They'll not stop until they are purged, and normals won't vote Labour until they are gone.5 -
Mr. Pioneers, aye. If the far left aren't thrown out there are only two possibilities:
1) Labour is electorally destroyed and replace*
2) Labour wins an election and properly ruins the country [yes, Boris Johnson is alarmingly incompetent and doesn't deserve to be PM but he's neither a fascist nor a communist]
Edited extra bit: *+d0 -
Foot a giant compared to Starmer? Longest suicide note in history.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
And could labour make a worse choice? Yes and they did; Corbyn.0 -
They voted for seismic change, yet you accuse them of being the type to say ‘mustn’t grumble’, ‘it could be worse’… it doesn’t workSouthamObserver said:
No, they voted to leave the EU. In terms of day to governance of the country it changed very little.isam said:…
People you accuse of being to lazy to do anything about the way it is run voted for it to be fundamentally changed though.SouthamObserver said:
The way the country is run has not fundamentally changed.isam said:
If they were the kind of people to say ‘mustn’t grumble’, ‘it could be worse’ they wouldn’t have voted to fundamentally change the way the country was run.SouthamObserver said:
Not sure about that. Presumably they believe things could be a lot worse now - for example, if we were still in the EU.isam said:
The people you accuse of saying “mustn’t grumble”, “it could be worse” etc voted for the most seismic change in political history, so I don’t think that attempt at a meme works.SouthamObserver said:
I could not agree more. The Tories have the "mustn't grumble", "it could be worse", "best foot forward" vote sown up - and that is a very large section of the electorate. For the rest, Labour has to find a way of articulating that settling for second best - and that delivered incompetently by mendacious grifters - really doesn't have to be the way forward. There are other, better, ways to run a country.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?
0 -
Sadly England has had things like numeracy and literacy weaponised just like the GOP have done in America. Witness Tories endlessly voting to cut funding for poor white kids in crap suburbs and inner cities and then bleat about poor attainment of poor white kids.JosiasJessop said:
An interesting thing about the 2019 GE was that both leaders promised something different: in Labour's case, Corbyn's vision for the country was very different from the consensus of the last forty years. In Johnson's, it promised an ideas vacuum with little pretence of keeping any promises aside from Brexit (he is Johnson, after all).SouthamObserver said:
You could equally ask what the Conservative party is for. Both major parties seem to be mainly about keeping the other one out of power. The Tories have done much better in corralling the anti-Labour vote than Labour has done in corralling the anti-Tory vote. Or, put another way, more people prioritise not wanting a Labour government than prioritise not wanting a Tory one. It's been the same story for most of the last 70 years.DecrepiterJohnL said:The last couple of PMQs were Starmer wins. The Labour leader was on top of his game, witty and forensic.
If PMQs herald a new dawn then all is not lost. To conference! But even with new, improved Keir, what is to be Labour's retail offer. Like Drakeford and Sturgeon and Macron and Merkel, Labour would have had vaccines and lockdowns but better than Boris's. Support for the economy too. But no-one will be converted to Labour on this sort of managerialist nit-picking. What is Labour for?
Covid has utterly derailed everything. Both Starmer and Johnson have a great opportunity to unveil a positive vision for the future of the country post-Covid and post-Brexit. The next few months are key (assuming the Covid crisis is declining, that is).
I don't think either will do it. Johnson because he will bluster; he will unveil big-project ideas that are inconsequential to the problems facing the country. Starmer because I don't think he has the imagination.
For me, a key thing is literacy and numeracy. Far too many people are functionally illiterate and/or innumerate, and this is an individual and national tragedy. I'd give a lot of time for any leader who makes this a key point in their plans. This sort of thing, rather than bridges, is key to future prosperity.
They don't care. They have "educated" a generation not to care about their own education - teachers are woke lefties, exams are too easy, schools are crap - and now people won't vote for the huge investment in ideas, facilities and capabilities to lift us out of this pit.
All we ever hear about any project is "how much will it cost", not "what will it generate". Which for a supposedly capitalist economy is stupid.4 -
I mean this is a nice way. I am really hoping you are as hopelessly wrong as Pagel and co.DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.0 -
If even the Greens aren't sufficient then what are you left with? Extreme anarcho eco protesters like XR. At least Greens recognize that you need to work within democratic politics.Fairliered said:
Is there anyone Greta does regard as a world leader on climate change?CarlottaVance said:Greta's off Nippy's Christmas card list:
Campaigner Greta Thunberg says she doesn't regard Scotland as a world leader on climate change......
On the Scottish Greens' deal to enter government, she said some politicians were "less worse" than others.
But she said tackling climate change was not as easy as voting for a green party....
The Scottish government has previously described its climate change legislation as "world leading."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-583870170 -
Foot was an intellectual, almost academic, famously traduced for his (not) duffel coat at the Cenotaph, whereas these days the Tory BBC would just substitute a different video. Were it not for the Falklands (and arguably the SDP split) the Conservatives would have lost in 1983 (or more likely 84) and Foot would have been Prime Minister, but those things did happen and we are where we are.kjh said:
Foot a giant compared to Starmer? Longest suicide note in history.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
0 -
It does look grim in Scotland. But what if Scotland has to impose lockdown measures again - but ends up being the only part of the UK that does? If Scottish patients get sent to English hospitals for care. People will ask Nicola "Why are we so peculiarly bad?"DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.
The idea of having an independent Covid approach for each constituent country of the UK always looked a bad move. It only made any political sense if your outcome was better than that of England. It doesn't look that way in Scotland.0 -
Yes, me too. I have been determined that this was it. That the combination of vaccines, herd immunity and a certain tolerance of the current death rate meant we were back to normal, come what may. But my confidence is being shaken. Vaccines are not proving to be quite the solution we hoped. Few who are vaccinated die of the virus but a significant number still get long Covid and that is going to be an increasing strain on an already stretched medical system.rottenborough said:
I mean this is a nice way. I am really hoping you are as hopelessly wrong as Pagel and co.DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.
And, even in the summer when we are mainly outside, this bloody virus is just not going away.0 -
Starmer's way to reach out even at the cost of losing a biggish chunk of existing vote ?ydoethur said:
The really alarming thought for Labour about Corbynism is that even in 2017 when he got 39.99% of the nationwide vote he won just four more seats than Brown on 29% of the vote in 2010.isam said:
Something like 2/3s of seats voted Leave. I think that’s why, in 2019, Labour got the same kind of vote share, slightly better even, as 10 & 15, yet got fewer seats.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Structurally Brexit has perhaps made it difficult for Remain parties to win seats. Corbyn did no worse than Brown or Miliband in terms of voteshare, but far worse in seats - maybe that is a guide for the next election too.
Labour’s vote is becoming horribly inefficient. Ok, that’s partly because they lost Scotland and have fallen back in Wales. But they are still winning plenty of votes - just in their safe seats where they are no use.
Here’s a couple of shocking stats. The 17 safest seats in the country and 19 of the top 20 are all held by Labour. They hold 58 seats with over 60% of the vote (by contrast the Tories have 36 despite having far more seats).
Corbyn really did preach not so much to the choir as to the clergy. Starmer needs to find a way to reach out, even at the cost of losing a biggish chunk of his existing vote. An intelligent campaign where Labour stood still in terms of voteshare could still see them pick up many seats if those votes were in the right places.
Easy.
He says the good thing about Brexit is that it is leading to wage rises for the low paid.
It will enrage much of the urban middle class but gets working class support elsewhere.1 -
Thatcher, with boundary changes, was defending a majority of around 100.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Foot was an intellectual, almost academic, famously traduced for his (not) duffel coat at the Cenotaph, whereas these days the Tory BBC would just substitute a different video. Were it not for the Falklands (and arguably the SDP split) the Conservatives would have lost in 1983 (or more likely 84) and Foot would have been Prime Minister.kjh said:
Foot a giant compared to Starmer? Longest suicide note in history.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
She had been leading in the opinion polls taken just before the Falklands War, with Labour third behind the Alliance.
Labour were still hopelessly split and fighting all their policy battles very publicly.
There was very little hope of Labour winning in 1983 - Falklands or no Falklands.
The SDP split probably did make a difference, but it wasn’t enough of a difference to cost Labour a win. It might well have been the difference between another majority of 40-50 and a majority of 144 though.0 -
Leave voters were promised a pain free path to a better future. It was an entirely free hit, precisely because nothing would change for the worse. There was nothing seismic about it at all. And most of them seem to be very happy with the results. They believe things could be a lot worse than they are - hence the continued Tory poll lead.isam said:
They voted for seismic change, yet you accuse them of being the type to say ‘mustn’t grumble’, ‘it could be worse’… it doesn’t workSouthamObserver said:
No, they voted to leave the EU. In terms of day to governance of the country it changed very little.isam said:…
People you accuse of being to lazy to do anything about the way it is run voted for it to be fundamentally changed though.SouthamObserver said:
The way the country is run has not fundamentally changed.isam said:
If they were the kind of people to say ‘mustn’t grumble’, ‘it could be worse’ they wouldn’t have voted to fundamentally change the way the country was run.SouthamObserver said:
Not sure about that. Presumably they believe things could be a lot worse now - for example, if we were still in the EU.isam said:
The people you accuse of saying “mustn’t grumble”, “it could be worse” etc voted for the most seismic change in political history, so I don’t think that attempt at a meme works.SouthamObserver said:
I could not agree more. The Tories have the "mustn't grumble", "it could be worse", "best foot forward" vote sown up - and that is a very large section of the electorate. For the rest, Labour has to find a way of articulating that settling for second best - and that delivered incompetently by mendacious grifters - really doesn't have to be the way forward. There are other, better, ways to run a country.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?1 -
Mr. Borough, you can't spell fundamentalist without 'mental'.
Whether political or religious, drink too deep of an ideology and people get drunk on it.0 -
I think that's a fairly one-dimensional and party-political take on the issue. No party has looked at this issue since Blair in 1998 - and he soon abandoned it on the 'too difficult' pile - e.g. when Estelle Morris resigned.RochdalePioneers said:
Sadly England has had things like numeracy and literacy weaponised just like the GOP have done in America. Witness Tories endlessly voting to cut funding for poor white kids in crap suburbs and inner cities and then bleat about poor attainment of poor white kids.JosiasJessop said:
An interesting thing about the 2019 GE was that both leaders promised something different: in Labour's case, Corbyn's vision for the country was very different from the consensus of the last forty years. In Johnson's, it promised an ideas vacuum with little pretence of keeping any promises aside from Brexit (he is Johnson, after all).SouthamObserver said:
You could equally ask what the Conservative party is for. Both major parties seem to be mainly about keeping the other one out of power. The Tories have done much better in corralling the anti-Labour vote than Labour has done in corralling the anti-Tory vote. Or, put another way, more people prioritise not wanting a Labour government than prioritise not wanting a Tory one. It's been the same story for most of the last 70 years.DecrepiterJohnL said:The last couple of PMQs were Starmer wins. The Labour leader was on top of his game, witty and forensic.
If PMQs herald a new dawn then all is not lost. To conference! But even with new, improved Keir, what is to be Labour's retail offer. Like Drakeford and Sturgeon and Macron and Merkel, Labour would have had vaccines and lockdowns but better than Boris's. Support for the economy too. But no-one will be converted to Labour on this sort of managerialist nit-picking. What is Labour for?
Covid has utterly derailed everything. Both Starmer and Johnson have a great opportunity to unveil a positive vision for the future of the country post-Covid and post-Brexit. The next few months are key (assuming the Covid crisis is declining, that is).
I don't think either will do it. Johnson because he will bluster; he will unveil big-project ideas that are inconsequential to the problems facing the country. Starmer because I don't think he has the imagination.
For me, a key thing is literacy and numeracy. Far too many people are functionally illiterate and/or innumerate, and this is an individual and national tragedy. I'd give a lot of time for any leader who makes this a key point in their plans. This sort of thing, rather than bridges, is key to future prosperity.
They don't care. They have "educated" a generation not to care about their own education - teachers are woke lefties, exams are too easy, schools are crap - and now people won't vote for the huge investment in ideas, facilities and capabilities to lift us out of this pit.
All we ever hear about any project is "how much will it cost", not "what will it generate". Which for a supposedly capitalist economy is stupid.
It's simply not talked about - especially by those of you on the left. And it needs to be talked about - however intractable it may be to solve.0 -
Are you suggesting "education, education, education" might be a good slogan?JosiasJessop said:
An interesting thing about the 2019 GE was that both leaders promised something different: in Labour's case, Corbyn's vision for the country was very different from the consensus of the last forty years. In Johnson's, it promised an ideas vacuum with little pretence of keeping any promises aside from Brexit (he is Johnson, after all).SouthamObserver said:
You could equally ask what the Conservative party is for. Both major parties seem to be mainly about keeping the other one out of power. The Tories have done much better in corralling the anti-Labour vote than Labour has done in corralling the anti-Tory vote. Or, put another way, more people prioritise not wanting a Labour government than prioritise not wanting a Tory one. It's been the same story for most of the last 70 years.DecrepiterJohnL said:The last couple of PMQs were Starmer wins. The Labour leader was on top of his game, witty and forensic.
If PMQs herald a new dawn then all is not lost. To conference! But even with new, improved Keir, what is to be Labour's retail offer. Like Drakeford and Sturgeon and Macron and Merkel, Labour would have had vaccines and lockdowns but better than Boris's. Support for the economy too. But no-one will be converted to Labour on this sort of managerialist nit-picking. What is Labour for?
Covid has utterly derailed everything. Both Starmer and Johnson have a great opportunity to unveil a positive vision for the future of the country post-Covid and post-Brexit. The next few months are key (assuming the Covid crisis is declining, that is).
I don't think either will do it. Johnson because he will bluster; he will unveil big-project ideas that are inconsequential to the problems facing the country. Starmer because I don't think he has the imagination.
For me, a key thing is literacy and numeracy. Far too many people are functionally illiterate and/or innumerate, and this is an individual and national tragedy. I'd give a lot of time for any leader who makes this a key point in their plans. This sort of thing, rather than bridges, is key to future prosperity.0 -
Interestingly, in most areas of Scotland, the rate of increase is slowing rapidlyDavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.
https://i.imgur.com/HeF09B3.png - shows local R
0 -
It doesn't look good for the Scottish government but the only reason I can see for the different growth up here at the moment is schools. If that is it this is coming your way soon. Again.MarqueeMark said:
It does look grim in Scotland. But what if Scotland has to impose lockdown measures again - but ends up being the only part of the UK that does? If Scottish patients get sent to English hospitals for care. People will ask Nicola "Why are we so peculiarly bad?"DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.
The idea of having an independent Covid approach for each constituent country of the UK always looked a bad move. It only made any political sense if your outcome was better than that of England. It doesn't look that way in Scotland.0 -
Careful - Bill will be on! "I did not have financial relations with that woman...."ydoethur said:
For the rest of us it sucks harder than a whore Bill Clinton is paying by the orgasm.Mexicanpete said:
The boundary changes should make the task even more difficult. It is an exciting time to be Boris Johnson and his brand of Conservatism.ydoethur said:
The really alarming thought for Labour about Corbynism is that even in 2017 when he got 39.99% of the nationwide vote he won just four more seats than Brown on 29% of the vote in 2010.isam said:
Something like 2/3s of seats voted Leave. I think that’s why, in 2019, Labour got the same kind of vote share, slightly better even, as 10 & 15, yet got fewer seats.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Structurally Brexit has perhaps made it difficult for Remain parties to win seats. Corbyn did no worse than Brown or Miliband in terms of voteshare, but far worse in seats - maybe that is a guide for the next election too.
Labour’s vote is becoming horribly inefficient. Ok, that’s partly because they lost Scotland and have fallen back in Wales. But they are still winning plenty of votes - just in their safe seats where they are no use.
Here’s a couple of shocking stats. The 17 safest seats in the country and 19 of the top 20 are all held by Labour. They hold 58 seats with over 60% of the vote (by contrast the Tories have 36 despite having far more seats).
Corbyn really did preach not so much to the choir as to the clergy. Starmer needs to find a way to reach out, even at the cost of losing a biggish chunk of his existing vote. An intelligent campaign where Labour stood still in terms of voteshare could still see them pick up many seats if those votes were in the right places.0 -
That’s not quite true. He had literacy and numeracy hours for a long time.JosiasJessop said:
I think that's a fairly one-dimensional and party-political take on the issue. No party has looked at this issue since Blair in 1998 - and he soon abandoned it on the 'too difficult' pile - e.g. when Estelle Morris resigned.RochdalePioneers said:
Sadly England has had things like numeracy and literacy weaponised just like the GOP have done in America. Witness Tories endlessly voting to cut funding for poor white kids in crap suburbs and inner cities and then bleat about poor attainment of poor white kids.JosiasJessop said:
An interesting thing about the 2019 GE was that both leaders promised something different: in Labour's case, Corbyn's vision for the country was very different from the consensus of the last forty years. In Johnson's, it promised an ideas vacuum with little pretence of keeping any promises aside from Brexit (he is Johnson, after all).SouthamObserver said:
You could equally ask what the Conservative party is for. Both major parties seem to be mainly about keeping the other one out of power. The Tories have done much better in corralling the anti-Labour vote than Labour has done in corralling the anti-Tory vote. Or, put another way, more people prioritise not wanting a Labour government than prioritise not wanting a Tory one. It's been the same story for most of the last 70 years.DecrepiterJohnL said:The last couple of PMQs were Starmer wins. The Labour leader was on top of his game, witty and forensic.
If PMQs herald a new dawn then all is not lost. To conference! But even with new, improved Keir, what is to be Labour's retail offer. Like Drakeford and Sturgeon and Macron and Merkel, Labour would have had vaccines and lockdowns but better than Boris's. Support for the economy too. But no-one will be converted to Labour on this sort of managerialist nit-picking. What is Labour for?
Covid has utterly derailed everything. Both Starmer and Johnson have a great opportunity to unveil a positive vision for the future of the country post-Covid and post-Brexit. The next few months are key (assuming the Covid crisis is declining, that is).
I don't think either will do it. Johnson because he will bluster; he will unveil big-project ideas that are inconsequential to the problems facing the country. Starmer because I don't think he has the imagination.
For me, a key thing is literacy and numeracy. Far too many people are functionally illiterate and/or innumerate, and this is an individual and national tragedy. I'd give a lot of time for any leader who makes this a key point in their plans. This sort of thing, rather than bridges, is key to future prosperity.
They don't care. They have "educated" a generation not to care about their own education - teachers are woke lefties, exams are too easy, schools are crap - and now people won't vote for the huge investment in ideas, facilities and capabilities to lift us out of this pit.
All we ever hear about any project is "how much will it cost", not "what will it generate". Which for a supposedly capitalist economy is stupid.
It's simply not talked about - especially by those of you on the left. And it needs to be talked about - however intractable it may be to solve.
The problem was that they didn’t work.1 -
The odd thing is the growth started before the schools could have any effect.DavidL said:
It doesn't look good for the Scottish government but the only reason I can see for the different growth up here at the moment is schools. If that is it this is coming your way soon. Again.MarqueeMark said:
It does look grim in Scotland. But what if Scotland has to impose lockdown measures again - but ends up being the only part of the UK that does? If Scottish patients get sent to English hospitals for care. People will ask Nicola "Why are we so peculiarly bad?"DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.
The idea of having an independent Covid approach for each constituent country of the UK always looked a bad move. It only made any political sense if your outcome was better than that of England. It doesn't look that way in Scotland.0 -
Without the Falklands, Thatcher would have won, with a slightly smaller majority.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Foot was an intellectual, almost academic, famously traduced for his (not) duffel coat at the Cenotaph, whereas these days the Tory BBC would just substitute a different video. Were it not for the Falklands (and arguably the SDP split) the Conservatives would have lost in 1983 (or more likely 84) and Foot would have been Prime Minister, but those things did happen and we are where we are.kjh said:
Foot a giant compared to Starmer? Longest suicide note in history.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
The "Falklands won in for Fatcher" meme is persistent, but wrong.0 -
…
Sorry, I know you’re pushing the ‘mustn’t grumble’ thing, but it doesn’t work when used about millions of people voting for change.SouthamObserver said:
Leave voters were promised a pain free path to a better future. It was an entirely free hit, precisely because nothing would change for the worse. There was nothing seismic about it at all. And most of them seem to be very happy with the results. They believe things could be a lot worse than they are - hence the continued Tory poll lead.isam said:
They voted for seismic change, yet you accuse them of being the type to say ‘mustn’t grumble’, ‘it could be worse’… it doesn’t workSouthamObserver said:
No, they voted to leave the EU. In terms of day to governance of the country it changed very little.isam said:…
People you accuse of being to lazy to do anything about the way it is run voted for it to be fundamentally changed though.SouthamObserver said:
The way the country is run has not fundamentally changed.isam said:
If they were the kind of people to say ‘mustn’t grumble’, ‘it could be worse’ they wouldn’t have voted to fundamentally change the way the country was run.SouthamObserver said:
Not sure about that. Presumably they believe things could be a lot worse now - for example, if we were still in the EU.isam said:
The people you accuse of saying “mustn’t grumble”, “it could be worse” etc voted for the most seismic change in political history, so I don’t think that attempt at a meme works.SouthamObserver said:
I could not agree more. The Tories have the "mustn't grumble", "it could be worse", "best foot forward" vote sown up - and that is a very large section of the electorate. For the rest, Labour has to find a way of articulating that settling for second best - and that delivered incompetently by mendacious grifters - really doesn't have to be the way forward. There are other, better, ways to run a country.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?1 -
Cold on Tyneside this morn0
-
Getting and holding power. They'd rather be wrong in government than right in opposition - Labour often appear to prioritise the latter - one thing you can't accuse the (successful) Tories of is lack of flexibility. When they try to bend the nation to them, rather than the other way round, they end up in opposition. Eventually they (re)learn from that.SouthamObserver said:
You could equally ask what the Conservative party is for.DecrepiterJohnL said:The last couple of PMQs were Starmer wins. The Labour leader was on top of his game, witty and forensic.
If PMQs herald a new dawn then all is not lost. To conference! But even with new, improved Keir, what is to be Labour's retail offer. Like Drakeford and Sturgeon and Macron and Merkel, Labour would have had vaccines and lockdowns but better than Boris's. Support for the economy too. But no-one will be converted to Labour on this sort of managerialist nit-picking. What is Labour for?
2 -
I live in hope that like in the Emperor's New Clothes someone will proclaim the truth, the scales will fall from the eyes and everyone will laugh at our exposed emperorSouthamObserver said:
Leave voters were promised a pain free path to a better future. It was an entirely free hit, precisely because nothing would change for the worse. There was nothing seismic about it at all. And most of them seem to be very happy with the results. They believe things could be a lot worse than they are - hence the continued Tory poll lead.isam said:
They voted for seismic change, yet you accuse them of being the type to say ‘mustn’t grumble’, ‘it could be worse’… it doesn’t workSouthamObserver said:
No, they voted to leave the EU. In terms of day to governance of the country it changed very little.isam said:…
People you accuse of being to lazy to do anything about the way it is run voted for it to be fundamentally changed though.SouthamObserver said:
The way the country is run has not fundamentally changed.isam said:
If they were the kind of people to say ‘mustn’t grumble’, ‘it could be worse’ they wouldn’t have voted to fundamentally change the way the country was run.SouthamObserver said:
Not sure about that. Presumably they believe things could be a lot worse now - for example, if we were still in the EU.isam said:
The people you accuse of saying “mustn’t grumble”, “it could be worse” etc voted for the most seismic change in political history, so I don’t think that attempt at a meme works.SouthamObserver said:
I could not agree more. The Tories have the "mustn't grumble", "it could be worse", "best foot forward" vote sown up - and that is a very large section of the electorate. For the rest, Labour has to find a way of articulating that settling for second best - and that delivered incompetently by mendacious grifters - really doesn't have to be the way forward. There are other, better, ways to run a country.RochdalePioneers said:Corbyn and everything related to Corbyn was catastrophic for Labour so its right that he went and that the party is (s l o w l y) cleaning house of the trot entryists.
The problem isn't Starmer, its the party. Yes serkeir pledged various things he appears not to believe (perhaps all his pledges...). But its wider than him. Part of the party years for the exciting days of ditching dogma for pragmatism. The bulk seems pretty wedded to ideals that the target voters they are supposed to be appealing to long ago ditched. A minority are batshit crazy.
The gap in British politics is that nobody is talking about the future. Even PM Worzel only talks the future based on its relation to the brexit he promised - enough at least to have people prepared to wait for the benefits of the Brexit to arrive.
What is Labour's vision for this decade? Unless they get one, they are fucked. Note the pockets of popularity they have - the King in the North is busy building the Manchester of the future (as the city council have since the IRA helpfully kicked the regeneration off). Similar in Liverpool - pride in the city/region, faith in the future, lets go. Its the same card Ben Houchen and his airport are playing.
The basic problem is that so much of Labour whines about the past and about the unfairness of the present. Which is not going to appeal vs a "the future is now" Tory party even if what they are selling is an illusion. Blair got it - sell hope. Where is Labour's hope?0 -
Scotland has notoriously bad health outcomes on drink and drugs. Perhaps - maybe for linked reasons - Covid is going to join that list?DavidL said:
It doesn't look good for the Scottish government but the only reason I can see for the different growth up here at the moment is schools. If that is it this is coming your way soon. Again.MarqueeMark said:
It does look grim in Scotland. But what if Scotland has to impose lockdown measures again - but ends up being the only part of the UK that does? If Scottish patients get sent to English hospitals for care. People will ask Nicola "Why are we so peculiarly bad?"DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.
The idea of having an independent Covid approach for each constituent country of the UK always looked a bad move. It only made any political sense if your outcome was better than that of England. It doesn't look that way in Scotland.0 -
I think it’s partly because it’s an easy alibi for Labour’s failure in 1983. It wasn’t policy, or the splits, or the rampant corruption among local politicians, it was a drunken murderous Argentine fascist trying to nick a few rocks that he fancied.Malmesbury said:
Without the Falklands, Thatcher would have won, with a slightly smaller majority.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Foot was an intellectual, almost academic, famously traduced for his (not) duffel coat at the Cenotaph, whereas these days the Tory BBC would just substitute a different video. Were it not for the Falklands (and arguably the SDP split) the Conservatives would have lost in 1983 (or more likely 84) and Foot would have been Prime Minister, but those things did happen and we are where we are.kjh said:
Foot a giant compared to Starmer? Longest suicide note in history.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
The "Falklands won in for Fatcher" meme is persistent, but wrong.
But if that were the case Labour would have run the Tories close in 1987 and won in 1992. Labour’s problems were deep seated and needed radical surgery that with the passage of time looks less and less attractive.0 -
Foot was undoubtedly intellectual but Starmer is also no slouch. But Foot was not a winner, by any stretch of the imagination. Kaufman's description of the longest suicide note in history was very apt. Obviously other factors apply.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Foot was an intellectual, almost academic, famously traduced for his (not) duffel coat at the Cenotaph, whereas these days the Tory BBC would just substitute a different video. Were it not for the Falklands (and arguably the SDP split) the Conservatives would have lost in 1983 (or more likely 84) and Foot would have been Prime Minister, but those things did happen and we are where we are.kjh said:
Foot a giant compared to Starmer? Longest suicide note in history.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
The non-duffel coat attack was typical of the attacks he left himself open to. It didn't matter that it wasn't a duffel coat, the similarity allowed the attacks because of the perception of Foot that he allowed by not looking like a prime minister in waiting which was exploited ruthlessly by his opponents.0 -
I know. I am certainly a lot less optimistic than I was.DavidL said:
Yes, me too. I have been determined that this was it. That the combination of vaccines, herd immunity and a certain tolerance of the current death rate meant we were back to normal, come what may. But my confidence is being shaken. Vaccines are not proving to be quite the solution we hoped. Few who are vaccinated die of the virus but a significant number still get long Covid and that is going to be an increasing strain on an already stretched medical system.rottenborough said:
I mean this is a nice way. I am really hoping you are as hopelessly wrong as Pagel and co.DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.
And, even in the summer when we are mainly outside, this bloody virus is just not going away.0 -
My guess is pre-return-to-school-testing. All the parents of my acquaintance are testing away, following up with PCR tests etc.NerysHughes said:
The odd thing is the growth started before the schools could have any effect.DavidL said:
It doesn't look good for the Scottish government but the only reason I can see for the different growth up here at the moment is schools. If that is it this is coming your way soon. Again.MarqueeMark said:
It does look grim in Scotland. But what if Scotland has to impose lockdown measures again - but ends up being the only part of the UK that does? If Scottish patients get sent to English hospitals for care. People will ask Nicola "Why are we so peculiarly bad?"DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.
The idea of having an independent Covid approach for each constituent country of the UK always looked a bad move. It only made any political sense if your outcome was better than that of England. It doesn't look that way in Scotland.0 -
Yes, and thats with masks still required in high schools up here for the 1st 6 weeks. I don't think they are mandated in England, so I would think transmission rates will be worse.DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.0 -
The longest suicide note proposed Brexit from the EEC and raising overseas aid to .7 per cent of GDP. That was the problem – it was full of Tory policies!kjh said:
Foot a giant compared to Starmer? Longest suicide note in history.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
And could labour make a worse choice? Yes and they did; Corbyn.
3 -
A great parody post. Keep it up!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
0 -
Autumn has arrived *checks notes* one day early.Gallowgate said:Cold on Tyneside this morn
0 -
Labour policy in 83 was - hard hard leftism. With an added side dish of "surrender" as the answer to the Cold War.ydoethur said:
I think it’s partly because it’s an easy alibi for Labour’s failure in 1983. It wasn’t policy, or the splits, or the rampant corruption among local politicians, it was a drunken murderous Argentine fascist trying to nick a few rocks that he fancied.Malmesbury said:
Without the Falklands, Thatcher would have won, with a slightly smaller majority.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Foot was an intellectual, almost academic, famously traduced for his (not) duffel coat at the Cenotaph, whereas these days the Tory BBC would just substitute a different video. Were it not for the Falklands (and arguably the SDP split) the Conservatives would have lost in 1983 (or more likely 84) and Foot would have been Prime Minister, but those things did happen and we are where we are.kjh said:
Foot a giant compared to Starmer? Longest suicide note in history.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
The "Falklands won in for Fatcher" meme is persistent, but wrong.
But if that were the case Labour would have run the Tories close in 1987 and won in 1992. Labour’s problems were deep seated and needed radical surgery that with the passage of time looks less and less attractive.
I remember as a child watching in the mid 80s as a speaker at the Labour Party conference was applauded for her suggestion that not only should the UK leave NATO and the EEC, but the UK should apply to join COMECON... I was very young but I recall asking my father why anyone would want that....
EDIT.. "Drunk"? Murderous fascists, yes. But were they drunks as well?0 -
From what I saw / heard people were happy with our government's more cautious approach vs your government's "let the bodies pile high" approach.MarqueeMark said:
It does look grim in Scotland. But what if Scotland has to impose lockdown measures again - but ends up being the only part of the UK that does? If Scottish patients get sent to English hospitals for care. People will ask Nicola "Why are we so peculiarly bad?"DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.
The idea of having an independent Covid approach for each constituent country of the UK always looked a bad move. It only made any political sense if your outcome was better than that of England. It doesn't look that way in Scotland.0 -
No they’re not, but since the evidence they make a meaningful difference in educational settings seems to be very limited I don’t think you should worry about that either way.RochdalePioneers said:
Yes, and thats with masks still required in high schools up here for the 1st 6 weeks. I don't think they are mandated in England, so I would think transmission rates will be worse.DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.0 -
Not jabbing kids over the summer holidays is a massive own goal, as will be if we don't start boosters for oldies extremely sharpish.2
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I don't think you're right; Starmer isn't frit. The very far left hate him. He's done enough already to piss off a lot of the Trots, who have left. He has secured all the key levers of power within the party. Of course the hard left will kick off at conference - has there ever been a conference where they haven't (except maybe under Corbyn)? He doesn't need to purge/expel the hard left, just defeat them.RochdalePioneers said:
And this is what his challenge to the hard left had to be: we don't want you, we don't need you. All the twats going to The World Transformed - if they all trotted off to vote for scab groups like Socialist Unity nobody would notice electorally.ydoethur said:
The really alarming thought for Labour about Corbynism is that even in 2017 when he got 39.99% of the nationwide vote he won just four more seats than Brown on 29% of the vote in 2010.isam said:
Something like 2/3s of seats voted Leave. I think that’s why, in 2019, Labour got the same kind of vote share, slightly better even, as 10 & 15, yet got fewer seats.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Structurally Brexit has perhaps made it difficult for Remain parties to win seats. Corbyn did no worse than Brown or Miliband in terms of voteshare, but far worse in seats - maybe that is a guide for the next election too.
Labour’s vote is becoming horribly inefficient. Ok, that’s partly because they lost Scotland and have fallen back in Wales. But they are still winning plenty of votes - just in their safe seats where they are no use.
Here’s a couple of shocking stats. The 17 safest seats in the country and 19 of the top 20 are all held by Labour. They hold 58 seats with over 60% of the vote (by contrast the Tories have 36 despite having far more seats).
Corbyn really did preach not so much to the choir as to the clergy. Starmer needs to find a way to reach out, even at the cost of losing a biggish chunk of his existing vote. An intelligent campaign where Labour stood still in terms of voteshare could still see them pick up many seats if those votes were in the right places.
Sadly Starmer is frit. "Labour doesn't need a civil war" I have been told. Its got one - here and now. And the hard left are planning to go all out at conference. They'll not stop until they are purged, and normals won't vote Labour until they are gone.
Remember, Blair was quite happy to have Corbyn, McDonnell and many others on the backbenches, as long as they didn't have any real power. Same for Starmer.0 -
But, but...that is King Ben's fiefdom. Surely all that is good is signed of with King Ben's Biro.RochdalePioneers said:My "regional pride" piece will be tested in Stockton-on-Tees in 2023. They have a very well run council (for decades frankly regardless of party). Currently Labour minority, they are addressing the town centres conundrum with a ground-breaking plan.
They've already completely remodelled the wide high street. Landscaping, a fountain, bus gate, redundant buildings removed. Now they've bought the hideous 1970s shopping centre and will bulldoze it and replace it with a park. This will open the high street up to the river (with a riverside dual carriageway put into a tunnel) - shops congregate into the other 90s shopping development now also owned by the council.
It should win them plaudits. But as they are Labour, and that brand is pretty toxic on Teesside, I suspect they may be swept away by a Tory group who have opposed every penny spent.0 -
Plus ca change....ydoethur said:
I think it’s partly because it’s an easy alibi for Labour’s failure in 1983. It wasn’t policy, or the splits, or the rampant corruption among local politicians, it was a drunken murderous Argentine fascist trying to nick a few rocks that he fancied.Malmesbury said:
Without the Falklands, Thatcher would have won, with a slightly smaller majority.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Foot was an intellectual, almost academic, famously traduced for his (not) duffel coat at the Cenotaph, whereas these days the Tory BBC would just substitute a different video. Were it not for the Falklands (and arguably the SDP split) the Conservatives would have lost in 1983 (or more likely 84) and Foot would have been Prime Minister, but those things did happen and we are where we are.kjh said:
Foot a giant compared to Starmer? Longest suicide note in history.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
The "Falklands won in for Fatcher" meme is persistent, but wrong.
But if that were the case Labour would have run the Tories close in 1987 and won in 1992. Labour’s problems were deep seated and needed radical surgery that with the passage of time looks less and less attractive.0 -
How is Scotland's COVID testing going? Apart from high case numbers the last positivity rate I saw was through the roof too.DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.0 -
"there is almost no sign – at all – that the Prime Minister understands the need to get our public finances under control."
"as the season turns and the shadows lengthen, I have precious little faith in the quality of the UK’s post-lockdown leadership."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/30/beware-boris-britain-hurtling-towards-winter-discontent/0 -
Yes, the thread header refers to the Conservatives being in power for 11 years, but this administration is actively reversing some of the policies of the 2010-2015 administration. The prime examples being overseas aid and the FTPA, and potentially the triple lock.CarlottaVance said:
Getting and holding power. They'd rather be wrong in government than right in opposition - Labour often appear to prioritise the latter - one thing you can't accuse the (successful) Tories of is lack of flexibility. When they try to bend the nation to them, rather than the other way round, they end up in opposition. Eventually they (re)learn from that.SouthamObserver said:
You could equally ask what the Conservative party is for.DecrepiterJohnL said:The last couple of PMQs were Starmer wins. The Labour leader was on top of his game, witty and forensic.
If PMQs herald a new dawn then all is not lost. To conference! But even with new, improved Keir, what is to be Labour's retail offer. Like Drakeford and Sturgeon and Macron and Merkel, Labour would have had vaccines and lockdowns but better than Boris's. Support for the economy too. But no-one will be converted to Labour on this sort of managerialist nit-picking. What is Labour for?0 -
Scottish positivity has always been higher - seems to be related to testing policy.CarlottaVance said:
How is Scotland's COVID testing going? Apart from high case numbers the last positivity rate I saw was through the roof too.DavidL said:A story that could cause the government problems is brewing in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58383606
We have now had 3 weeks of exponential growth in Covid cases since the restrictions came off and the schools went back. Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health Board now have the highest number of cases in Europe. The hospitals are coming under increasing strain. I am not sure how much longer we can continue up here on the basis that everything is going to be fine.
There is a real risk that England is going to be 3 weeks behind Scotland in this respect because of the different dates for the schools. If they start to take the same path, and there is little evidence of it so far, then there will come a point when restrictions have to come back to protect the NHS. My guess is that that would severely knock government approval ratings.
0 -
Thread on Scotland's cases:
I guess everyone will read the figures in their own way, but to me, there's nothing really screaming that schools are solely to blame for where we're at right now.
If anything I'd be more likely to blame colleges / universities, but they're still shut for the summer...
https://twitter.com/TravellingTabby/status/1432420675495632898?s=200 -
I think there's a difference with Blair. Swing voters were pretty sure he wouldn't entertain the Left one iota and he went out of his way to reassure them with, e.g., the Clause IV moment.Northern_Al said:
I don't think you're right; Starmer isn't frit. The very far left hate him. He's done enough already to piss off a lot of the Trots, who have left. He has secured all the key levers of power within the party. Of course the hard left will kick off at conference - has there ever been a conference where they haven't (except maybe under Corbyn)? He doesn't need to purge/expel the hard left, just defeat them.RochdalePioneers said:
And this is what his challenge to the hard left had to be: we don't want you, we don't need you. All the twats going to The World Transformed - if they all trotted off to vote for scab groups like Socialist Unity nobody would notice electorally.ydoethur said:
The really alarming thought for Labour about Corbynism is that even in 2017 when he got 39.99% of the nationwide vote he won just four more seats than Brown on 29% of the vote in 2010.isam said:
Something like 2/3s of seats voted Leave. I think that’s why, in 2019, Labour got the same kind of vote share, slightly better even, as 10 & 15, yet got fewer seats.DecrepiterJohnL said:
The problem for Labour is ditching Corbyn for Starmer for no particular reason other than the latter was not the former. It did so without really understanding why Labour had done comparatively well in 2017 compared with 2015 and so badly in 2019. The Conservatives did, which is why they pinched all the popular bits, but Labour did not. It simply leapt out of the frying pan and into the fire.OldKingCole said:
Could have stayed with Corbyn!MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
Structurally Brexit has perhaps made it difficult for Remain parties to win seats. Corbyn did no worse than Brown or Miliband in terms of voteshare, but far worse in seats - maybe that is a guide for the next election too.
Labour’s vote is becoming horribly inefficient. Ok, that’s partly because they lost Scotland and have fallen back in Wales. But they are still winning plenty of votes - just in their safe seats where they are no use.
Here’s a couple of shocking stats. The 17 safest seats in the country and 19 of the top 20 are all held by Labour. They hold 58 seats with over 60% of the vote (by contrast the Tories have 36 despite having far more seats).
Corbyn really did preach not so much to the choir as to the clergy. Starmer needs to find a way to reach out, even at the cost of losing a biggish chunk of his existing vote. An intelligent campaign where Labour stood still in terms of voteshare could still see them pick up many seats if those votes were in the right places.
Sadly Starmer is frit. "Labour doesn't need a civil war" I have been told. Its got one - here and now. And the hard left are planning to go all out at conference. They'll not stop until they are purged, and normals won't vote Labour until they are gone.
Remember, Blair was quite happy to have Corbyn, McDonnell and many others on the backbenches, as long as they didn't have any real power. Same for Starmer.
I'm not sure swing voters today have that same view of Starmer.1 -
Those two words from the last sentence 'exploited ruthlessly' say it all. We have a popular press in UK which, when the chips are down, will ALWAYS support the Tories. The Mail, Sun and Express might be critical on occasion, and many people may no longer read newspapers but the headlines are there on every newsstand beside the place when lottery tickets or whatever are bought. And, particularly at election time, any half slip by a Labour leader will be exploited ruthlessly by the headline writers, which is what will be seen.kjh said:
Foot was undoubtedly intellectual but Starmer is also no slouch. But Foot was not a winner, by any stretch of the imagination. Kaufman's description of the longest suicide note in history was very apt. Obviously other factors apply.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Foot was an intellectual, almost academic, famously traduced for his (not) duffel coat at the Cenotaph, whereas these days the Tory BBC would just substitute a different video. Were it not for the Falklands (and arguably the SDP split) the Conservatives would have lost in 1983 (or more likely 84) and Foot would have been Prime Minister, but those things did happen and we are where we are.kjh said:
Foot a giant compared to Starmer? Longest suicide note in history.MalcolmDunn said:Margaret Thatcher would have killed for numbers like these. The difference was that she faced Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock. These men were giants in comparison to Starmer. Could Labour have made a worse choice?
The non-duffel coat attack was typical of the attacks he left himself open to. It didn't matter that it wasn't a duffel coat, the similarity allowed the attacks because of the perception of Foot that he allowed by not looking like a prime minister in waiting which was exploited ruthlessly by his opponents.1 -
The precieved wisdom is unpopular financial decisions are just around the corner, however the US have declared inflation in the west is solved, covid was WW3 and so are going to continue to borrow massively and worry about the bill in 15 years. Could Boris just follow the same path?rottenborough said:"there is almost no sign – at all – that the Prime Minister understands the need to get our public finances under control."
"as the season turns and the shadows lengthen, I have precious little faith in the quality of the UK’s post-lockdown leadership."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/30/beware-boris-britain-hurtling-towards-winter-discontent/1
