Tristram Hunt’s speech, called the Forward March of Labour, is easily the most thoughtful and far-reaching contribution to the debate about Labour’s future to come from a leading Labour politician. That it intended as a sincere compliment, but technically it is not much of a tribute at all, because the bar has been set very low. Generally, the debate within Labour about what the party needs to do next has been trite and shallow. None of the leading leadership contenders has given a proper speech on the topic and, in their public remarks, they and others in the party have not gone much beyond platitudes about aspiration and economic credibility.
(As an aside, I think fragmentation is not going away. Outside the US, it's happened in a lot of countries. In the Netherlands, there are five parties with 15+% vote shares. In Spain, four political parties are hovering around the 20% level. This is much more fragmentation then has been the norm in the last 75 years, and I see no reason why it should dissipate. 36% may turn out to be the maximum any political party gets in the next two decades.)
FPTP is the reason fragmentation may go away. If UKIP fade post-referendum we might see the two-party share up to 75%+ next time.
True that.
Still: the Alliance managed to get 20+% vote shares while getting barely more than teens number of seats. I think you can only retain relevance in an FPTP world if you can build up a local government base.
Which is why the next four years will be so interesting. If UKIP manage to gain and run some councils, and the LibDems recover their local base somewhat, and if the Greens make futher gains at the local level, then I can't see any of them going (completely) away in 2020.
One particularly interesting aspect - though probably not that relevant in seat terms - will be who takes up opposition to the Tories across the South i.e. the ex-LD seats. Labour, the LDs or UKIP?
If a candidate can't even scrape together 35 MPs, how are they going to lead the parliamentary party?
Ed Miliband suffered badly enough from being a fairly close second choice for the MPs
What would be amusing is if Kendall or someone else barely scrapes it in nominations, but then did win a majority of the MP votes on the strength of the campaign. Though I suppose this time we would not know if that happened.
PT The combined 2 main party vote was 67%, in 1992 it was 75%
That's more than two decades and four elections ago. Yes there has been a long term decline in the two party share. This election saw a reversal of the long term trend. We don't know if fragmentation will resume next time or if two party politics will continue to solidify. It can go either way from here.
(As an aside, I think fragmentation is not going away. Outside the US, it's happened in a lot of countries. In the Netherlands, there are five parties with 15+% vote shares. In Spain, four political parties are hovering around the 20% level. This is much more fragmentation then has been the norm in the last 75 years, and I see no reason why it should dissipate. 36% may turn out to be the maximum any political party gets in the next two decades.)
FPTP is the reason fragmentation may go away. If UKIP fade post-referendum we might see the two-party share up to 75%+ next time.
True that.
Still: the Alliance managed to get 20+% vote shares while getting barely more than teens number of seats. I think you can only retain relevance in an FPTP world if you can build up a local government base.
Which is why the next four years will be so interesting. If UKIP manage to gain and run some councils, and the LibDems recover their local base somewhat, and if the Greens make futher gains at the local level, then I can't see any of them going (completely) away in 2020.
One particularly interesting aspect - though probably not that relevant in seat terms - will be who takes up opposition to the Tories across the South i.e. the ex-LD seats. Labour, the LDs or UKIP?
Probably a complete muddle of an opposition tbh.
At present, certainly. It's remarkable to see the LDs in 3rd or 4th in loads of SW seats in particular, areas which have no real tradition of voting Labour as an anti-Tory vote. If the LDs cannot restore their status as natural Tory alternative in such areas, the long fightback will be a glacially long fightback.
One particularly interesting aspect - though probably not that relevant in seat terms - will be who takes up opposition to the Tories across the South i.e. the ex-LD seats. Labour, the LDs or UKIP?
I think in the wealthy metropolitan areas - the Twickenhams, Kingstons, Sutton & Cheam's - that the LDs will remain the principle opponents of the Conservatives. These are broadly pro-European, metropolitan areas, where socially liberalism is strong, and there is little if any history of organised labour. The same is probably true of some of the wealthy market towns of the South East.
Once you leave these towns and enter into more rural (and socially conservative, and anti-EU) areas, I suspect it will be UKIP who is the natural opposition to the Conservatives.
The Labour Party will continue to play a role in those places which are poorer, or more troubled, or just odd.
With regard to labour I go back to Harold Wilson's brilliant remark about the party being a moral crusade or nothing.
Labour's problem is that so much of what is has campaigned for is stitched into the fabric of modern society. Employee rights, universal health and education, suffrage, pensions, equality, housing etc.
There are no more worlds left to conquer. There is no moral crusade right now.
Great post. "Lets make this thing that's ok a bit better" and "lets stop this thing that's ok getting worse" are hardly rousing calls-to-arms, are they.
But they are sensible ways to run a country. We don't need a permanent revolution.
In essence you've just described Conservativism.
True enough. The point was that in this country at this time, the raison d'être of the Labour Party is unclear, and potentially absent altogether.
I don't think that it can be emphasised enough just how damaging both the Scottish 2011 Holyrood election and 2015 GE Labour wipe out has been to the Parliamentary and grass roots operation up here. Scottish Labour lost some of the best of their talent in both these elections, and I cannot see anyone from the current Holyrood group of Labour MSP's who is going to manage to fix that problem in one election term at either Holyrood or at Westminster. Its vital that they do start rebuilding from the grassroots up now, and because while there remains a large number of SNP MP's at Westminster, they ain't heading back to power any time soon.
Without the Labour losses to the SNP Labour would have got 34% and 270 seats, and Cameron won 37% to Major's 41% due to UKIP, so basically this is 1992 with Scottish nationalism and UKIP thrown in
What are your reasons for this? Seems a little odd, especially as the Tories won a landslide the previous election, and the minor parties didn't rise until 93.
This year in Canada, things might be shaping up for a 3-way fight. Hopefully a "progressive alliance" can emerge and Harper will be on his way out. There might even be a bit of a Green surge going on but BQ can only look at the SNP and dream.
(As an aside, I think fragmentation is not going away. Outside the US, it's happened in a lot of countries. In the Netherlands, there are five parties with 15+% vote shares. In Spain, four political parties are hovering around the 20% level. This is much more fragmentation then has been the norm in the last 75 years, and I see no reason why it should dissipate. 36% may turn out to be the maximum any political party gets in the next two decades.)
FPTP is the reason fragmentation may go away. If UKIP fade post-referendum we might see the two-party share up to 75%+ next time.
True that.
Still: the Alliance managed to get 20+% vote shares while getting barely more than teens number of seats. I think you can only retain relevance in an FPTP world if you can build up a local government base.
Which is why the next four years will be so interesting. If UKIP manage to gain and run some councils, and the LibDems recover their local base somewhat, and if the Greens make futher gains at the local level, then I can't see any of them going (completely) away in 2020.
One particularly interesting aspect - though probably not that relevant in seat terms - will be who takes up opposition to the Tories across the South i.e. the ex-LD seats. Labour, the LDs or UKIP?
Probably a complete muddle of an opposition tbh.
At present, certainly. It's remarkable to see the LDs in 3rd or 4th in loads of SW seats in particular, areas which have no real tradition of voting Labour as an anti-Tory vote. If the LDs cannot restore their status as natural Tory alternative in such areas, the long fightback will be a glacially long fightback.
I think you need to watch the local council bases like a hawk.
I still have doubts that Kendall has the 35 MP's needed to be on the ballot despite Hunt's withdrawal and endorsement, it still looks like a 2 way race between Burnham and Cooper.
And i'm still protesting on my Graham Allen island.
If that is true the Lib Dems as well as the Tories will be delighted. While Burnham or Cooper are barely in practice much to the left of Kendall both have unfortunate associations with the previous failed Labour administration. Trying to Justify the actions of that administration is problematic, as we have just seen in GE 2015, while disowning them just looks insincere and opportunistic. Kendall represents the only real chance to relaunch Labour (barring a second leadership election), squeeze the LDs out of the centre ground and damage the Tories on their left flank. With Burnham, a figure unattractive to many LD voters likely to be in charge, the Lib Dems can now reposition themselves as a genuine centre-left alternative to a Tory party dominated by big corporations and the finance sector or to a Labour party still in hoc to the unions and public sector. As long as the UK votes in as I predict will happen I'd expect a steady but still significant recovery in the party's fortunes by 2020.
''The point was that in this country at this time, the raison d'être of the Labour Party is unclear, and potentially absent altogether. ''
At some juncture there will be a strong appeal in England for a left of centre party that argues we are not being caring enough.
But not two of them, perhaps.
Elections since 1979 show for me the English are independent and entrepreneurial, but they also have a strong sense of fair play. They will allow left wing politics insofar as it redresses, but not insofar as it revolutionizes.
I'm bemused that the Blairites are so obsessed with getting Kendall on the ballot. If she's barely scraping together enough support from MPs, she ain't getting anywhere with the more left-leaning membership. If anything, I would've thought the Blairites would prefer her to be kept off the ballot so they could maintain the illusion that the contest was "stolen" from them for a few years and whine.
blackburn63 it doesn't even have to be a return to conviction politics, a return to politics would be a start.
The Labour proposal was at best lazy at the election. It was a case of trying not to rock the boat and hoping to win by default, but don't rock the boat is supposed to be the mantra of governments not oppositions!
Labour stood against certain things. Non-doms, mansions etc - but what did they stand for?
Look at the NHS. The Labour phrase on the NHS was "an NHS with time to care" - what does that even mean? While the Tories went with "a seven day NHS with GPs available seven days from eight to eight" - an actual policy. In five years you can measure GP opening hours, you can't measure "time to care".
Even if they're technocratic policies, you need to be in favour of something. It's no good just trying to be against something and then hoping you'll win by default.
Agree entirely Philip, the tories were no better. Their only message was "if you vote labour/ukip you'll get SNP", they can argue that was a successful approach but it leads to disenchantment bordering on contempt.
Looking at labour just now why would anyone with long term hopes of leading the party want to be involved in the chaos that is unfolding with near civil war breaking out and the prospects of this carrying on until September. There must be a real prospect of labour splitting between the Union sponsored left and the Blairite faction in the so called centre. It must be a possibility that the labour party of GE 2015 will never see power again
RobD Mulroney won 2 terms but by his final term voters moved to the UKIP-like Reform Party his successor Kim Campbell was trounced, if EU Ref leads to Tory divisions resurfacing on Europe and a narrow In vote anything is possible. The strong nationalist BQ presence, like the SNP is also a parallel in that era
There must surely be at least 35 Labour MP's who recognise that it would not be good for the Labour party to be heading into a second term of Opposition without having admitted the mistakes of the last Labour Government?
Strange how much of the doubtless well-intentioned advice from pb Tories is that Labour should start by admitting the Conservatives were right and Labour was wrong.
blackburn63 it doesn't even have to be a return to conviction politics, a return to politics would be a start.
The Labour proposal was at best lazy at the election. It was a case of trying not to rock the boat and hoping to win by default, but don't rock the boat is supposed to be the mantra of governments not oppositions!
Labour stood against certain things. Non-doms, mansions etc - but what did they stand for?
Look at the NHS. The Labour phrase on the NHS was "an NHS with time to care" - what does that even mean? While the Tories went with "a seven day NHS with GPs available seven days from eight to eight" - an actual policy. In five years you can measure GP opening hours, you can't measure "time to care".
Even if they're technocratic policies, you need to be in favour of something. It's no good just trying to be against something and then hoping you'll win by default.
Agree entirely Philip, the tories were no better. Their only message was "if you vote labour/ukip you'll get SNP", they can argue that was a successful approach but it leads to disenchantment bordering on contempt.
Err
Voters who voted Conservative DID NOT get the SNP. So no disenchantment - fulfilment instead..
SandyRentool The Bloc Quebecois already have done the dream, they were the largest party in Quebec at every general election from 1993 to 2011 and have had 2 referendums on independence from Canada, the second lost by less than 2%.
Personally I think Trudeau will be PM in November in a deal with the NDP maybe for PR, the Greens have won the odd seat in the past, they may do so again
Strange how much of the doubtless well-intentioned advice from pb Tories is that Labour should start by admitting the Conservatives were right and Labour was wrong.
No, they should admit the electorate were right. Any losing party which doesn't do this is condemned to receive the same message next time.
@Anorak Nothing like a bit of "I chose the wrong option" remorse to boost a party, mind.
A decent "in" vote buries the Lib Dems in cement even further as the Conservatives completely OWN the european middle ground at that point. An out vote leads to all sorts of electoral shenanigans, and would be bad for the Conservatives I think.
RobD Mulroney won 2 terms but by his final term voters moved to the UKIP-like Reform Party his successor Kim Campbell was trounced, if EU Ref leads to Tory divisions resurfacing on Europe and a narrow In vote anything is possible. The strong nationalist BQ presence, like the SNP is also a parallel in that era
But none of those parties were there in 88, so I fail to see the parallel. If the reform party had taken a chunk of the electorate in 88, maybe.
@Anorak Nothing like a bit of "I chose the wrong option" remorse to boost a party, mind.
A decent "in" vote buries the Lib Dems in cement even further as the Conservatives completely OWN the european middle ground at that point. An out vote leads to all sorts of electoral shenanigans, and would be bad for the Conservatives I think.
An OUT vote would be bad for the Tories? Not great, perhaps, but it could see the return of a lot of kippers, once UKIP becomes a pointless party.
Looking at labour just now why would anyone with long term hopes of leading the party want to be involved in the chaos that is unfolding with near civil war breaking out and the prospects of this carrying on until September. There must be a real prospect of labour splitting between the Union sponsored left and the Blairite faction in the so called centre. It must be a possibility that the labour party of GE 2015 will never see power again
But the "Blairite faction" is almost non-existent within Labour, despite how willing the media are to give voice to the few of them that there are.
fitalass But an SNP MP makes no difference to the Tory-Labour marginals. In Scotland it will be Holyrood where Labour revives, both through PR and because of tactical voting on the first vote as unionist parties voteswap to keep out the SNP (ie for the Tories in the borders, Labour in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow and the Central belt and LD or Tory in other rural areas)
Those talking of Labour civil war really do know nothing about history. What is happening now is nothing like that. I remember the 80s and the Tories in the 90s. That really was carnage. What's happening now is a walk in the park. Maybe too much of one, to be honest.
The big difference between 2001 and 2015 is that everyone - including the Tories - knew that Labour was going to walk it. Some of us suspected that Labour was going to lose emphatically on May 7, but very few - if anyone - thought that the Tories would win outright.
It was an election unlike any other - especially in the way that third and fourth party voting patterns affected the overall outcome.
I'm bemused that the Blairites are so obsessed with getting Kendall on the ballot. If she's barely scraping together enough support from MPs, she ain't getting anywhere with the more left-leaning membership. If anything, I would've thought the Blairites would prefer her to be kept off the ballot so they could maintain the illusion that the contest was "stolen" from them for a few years and whine.
While I'm bemused that there are some who want to keep the old feuds going rather than have an open debate on the future. If the Labour electorate will have no truck with Kendall then let them say so in the ballot.
I suspect that Kendall will go down very well, she is an excellent communicator with a very natural style. Underlying this is a real sense of ambition and purpose. Liz refreshes the parts that other candidates cannot reach!
blackburn63 it doesn't even have to be a return to conviction politics, a return to politics would be a start.
The Labour proposal was at best lazy at the election. It was a case of trying not to rock the boat and hoping to win by default, but don't rock the boat is supposed to be the mantra of governments not oppositions!
Labour stood against certain things. Non-doms, mansions etc - but what did they stand for?
Look at the NHS. The Labour phrase on the NHS was "an NHS with time to care" - what does that even mean? While the Tories went with "a seven day NHS with GPs available seven days from eight to eight" - an actual policy. In five years you can measure GP opening hours, you can't measure "time to care".
Even if they're technocratic policies, you need to be in favour of something. It's no good just trying to be against something and then hoping you'll win by default.
Agree entirely Philip, the tories were no better. Their only message was "if you vote labour/ukip you'll get SNP", they can argue that was a successful approach but it leads to disenchantment bordering on contempt.
Err
Voters who voted Conservative DID NOT get the SNP. So no disenchantment - fulfilment instead..
Yes, smugness from tories, disenchantment from the 75% who didn't vote for the. Power simply for the point of power, the tory campaign was devoid of policy.
I'm bemused that the Blairites are so obsessed with getting Kendall on the ballot. If she's barely scraping together enough support from MPs, she ain't getting anywhere with the more left-leaning membership. If anything, I would've thought the Blairites would prefer her to be kept off the ballot so they could maintain the illusion that the contest was "stolen" from them for a few years and whine.
It may be that their hope is that she may appeal to the membership more than MPs opposed to her apparent Blariteism would imagine. If she does, a lot more MPs would suddenly be on board too, but at present her profile is too low to have had the chance to convince many of the wider membership.
I suspect that Kendall will go down very well, she is an excellent communicator with a very natural style. Underlying this is a real sense of ambition and purpose. Liz refreshes the parts that other candidates cannot reach!
Now this is the bit that I just don't get.
I have seen no evidence that she really is an excellent communicator. I have seen a lot of stilted media performances but no real flair for reaching people through their TV screens.
She clearly wants this (which may or may not be a good thing) but her main strength is the fact that she isn't as tainted by past failures as Burnham and Cooper (who will always have the Balls problem to deal with - along with her health issues)
At almost any other time in political history, Kendall would not even get close to a leadership role. Labour's apparent lack of real talent in depth means that she is rising to the top.
Those talking of Labour civil war really do know nothing about history. What is happening now is nothing like that. I remember the 80s and the Tories in the 90s. That really was carnage. What's happening now is a walk in the park. Maybe too much of one, to be honest.
Agreed.
But when you choose as MPs people who all have degrees from Oxbridge, they can hardly be uncivil to fellow Oxbridgonians (?) , can they?
And they are all past SPADs.. so they believe in nothing..too strongly..
Where are the Portillos, the Benns, the Dereck Hattons and the Kinnocks? Not in Parliament..
Equally though, look at Cameron. He has largely transformed most of his Party single handedly... and he has done it quietly and largely without fuss (apart from gay marriage)
blackburn63 it doesn't even have to be a return to conviction politics, a return to politics would be a start.
The Labour proposal was at best lazy at the election. It was a case of trying not to rock the boat and hoping to win by default, but don't rock the boat is supposed to be the mantra of governments not oppositions!
Labour stood against certain things. Non-doms, mansions etc - but what did they stand for?
Look at the NHS. The Labour phrase on the NHS was "an NHS with time to care" - what does that even mean? While the Tories went with "a seven day NHS with GPs available seven days from eight to eight" - an actual policy. In five years you can measure GP opening hours, you can't measure "time to care".
Even if they're technocratic policies, you need to be in favour of something. It's no good just trying to be against something and then hoping you'll win by default.
Agree entirely Philip, the tories were no better. Their only message was "if you vote labour/ukip you'll get SNP", they can argue that was a successful approach but it leads to disenchantment bordering on contempt.
Wrong - the Tories won because of the 'economy stupid' - it's nearly always that simple and the other view is merely a comfort blanket.
TimT The Tory and Labour voteshares were a bit lower, but the gap between them, 7%, was exactly the same as 1992, as was the egg on the face of the pollsters
I'm bemused that the Blairites are so obsessed with getting Kendall on the ballot. If she's barely scraping together enough support from MPs, she ain't getting anywhere with the more left-leaning membership. If anything, I would've thought the Blairites would prefer her to be kept off the ballot so they could maintain the illusion that the contest was "stolen" from them for a few years and whine.
While I'm bemused that there are some who want to keep the old feuds going rather than have an open debate on the future. If the Labour electorate will have no truck with Kendall then let them say so in the ballot.
I suspect that Kendall will go down very well, she is an excellent communicator with a very natural style. Underlying this is a real sense of ambition and purpose. Liz refreshes the parts that other candidates cannot reach!
I actually agree that she should be let on the ballot. The "dirty tricks" with union barons trying to stitch things up looks awful for the party. plus it would be good for the party if all options are put on the table with the Blairite option (I would hope) being heavily defeated fair and square.
But I really don't agree she would go down well with the Labour membership, at all. She seems like a perfectly nice woman but she's not exactly overburdened with charisma, I'm not sure she would've even got onto the frontbench in any other political era. Plus, I feel the membership would say that a Labour party which just agrees with the Tories on everything by signing up to huge spending cuts and worshipping extreme wealth is not going to get anywhere, not even with "swing voters".
I thought it interesting that at the weekend Burnham mentioned immigration, the first time I'd heard a Labour politician speak about it unprompted. Outside the London centric Labour party immigration is a big issue among its voters, unless they accept and embrace that they're finished. Go to any council estate in England and ask for yourself.
Strange how much of the doubtless well-intentioned advice from pb Tories is that Labour should start by admitting the Conservatives were right and Labour was wrong.
No, they should admit the electorate were right. Any losing party which doesn't do this is condemned to receive the same message next time.
Not a duff leader then, or a bad campaign, or even just "events, dear boy, events"?
RobD The Reform Party were there in 1988, they won 2% and then gained a seat in the next Parliament, the Bloc Quebecois emerged out of the Partis Quebecois which had already formed two governments in Quebec in the late seventies and early eighties, leading to Quebec's first independence referendum in 1980
Hattie needs to 'encourage' colleagues to sign the nominations for the four declared candidates. I want a full choice. This has already been reduced from 6 to 5 to 4.
Afterthought: Cooper is literally wedded to the past.
Those talking of Labour civil war really do know nothing about history. What is happening now is nothing like that. I remember the 80s and the Tories in the 90s. That really was carnage. What's happening now is a walk in the park. Maybe too much of one, to be honest.
With the greatest respect that seems extremely complacent - this is going to go on for months and with the obvious in fighting being magnified by the press and broadcast media, this is not going to work out well for labour
At almost any other time in political history, Kendall would not even get close to a leadership role. Labour's apparent lack of real talent in depth means that she is rising to the top.
I'm not sure I agree. There's nothing in her background to suggest she doesn't have the calibre for it, so it comes down to a question of style.
In the 70s you could easily have dismissed Thatcher as a lightweight (as Heath did when she challenged him) based on her personal style. You certainly couldn't have imagined any previous leader brandishing a feather duster at a party conference. Yet she proved to be made of iron.
Tristram Hunt’s speech, called the Forward March of Labour, is easily the most thoughtful and far-reaching contribution to the debate about Labour’s future to come from a leading Labour politician. That it intended as a sincere compliment, but technically it is not much of a tribute at all, because the bar has been set very low. Generally, the debate within Labour about what the party needs to do next has been trite and shallow. None of the leading leadership contenders has given a proper speech on the topic and, in their public remarks, they and others in the party have not gone much beyond platitudes about aspiration and economic credibility.
There's some interesting things in there. He could be for Liz Kendall what Letwin is to Cameron (interesting ideas but fgs don't put him in charge of anything).
I thought it interesting that at the weekend Burnham mentioned immigration, the first time I'd heard a Labour politician speak about it unprompted. Outside the London centric Labour party immigration is a big issue among its voters, unless they accept and embrace that they're finished. Go to any council estate in England and ask for yourself.
The compromise will be to let the old duffer sit there for the State Opening and then move out the way so relevant politicians can take part.
Labour are making themselves look like idiots over there. The established precedent should give the SNP the front two benches in that section. It just emphasises how out of control and segmented Labour is.
I'm bemused that the Blairites are so obsessed with getting Kendall on the ballot. If she's barely scraping together enough support from MPs, she ain't getting anywhere with the more left-leaning membership. If anything, I would've thought the Blairites would prefer her to be kept off the ballot so they could maintain the illusion that the contest was "stolen" from them for a few years and whine.
While I'm bemused that there are some who want to keep the old feuds going rather than have an open debate on the future. If the Labour electorate will have no truck with Kendall then let them say so in the ballot.
I suspect that Kendall will go down very well, she is an excellent communicator with a very natural style. Underlying this is a real sense of ambition and purpose. Liz refreshes the parts that other candidates cannot reach!
I actually agree that she should be let on the ballot. The "dirty tricks" with union barons trying to stitch things up looks awful for the party. plus it would be good for the party if all options are put on the table with the Blairite option (I would hope) being heavily defeated fair and square.
But I really don't agree she would go down well with the Labour membership, at all. She seems like a perfectly nice woman but she's not exactly overburdened with charisma, I'm not sure she would've even got onto the frontbench in any other political era. Plus, I feel the membership would say that a Labour party which just agrees with the Tories on everything by signing up to huge spending cuts and worshipping extreme wealth is not going to get anywhere, not even with "swing voters".
Don't let her rather frumpish dress sense fool you. She has real sparkle. Neither has she "signed up to huge spending cuts" or "worshipped extreme wealth". She has merely aknowledged that Labour overspent in the Brown years. That is something that even the Labour manifesto agreed, with its explicit need to bring down the deficit.
The compromise will be to let the old duffer sit there for the State Opening and then move out the way so relevant politicians can take part.
Labour are making themselves look like idiots over there. The established precedent should give the SNP the front two benches in that section. It just emphasises how out of control and segmented Labour is.
"Out of control and segmented"? lol is all I can say.
Good thread for a bit of my own bio and leanings, though I am on this forum to discuss and learn, not to plough a line.
Grew up in a poor but white-collar family in a small manufacturing town, the 80s recessions were easing, and for a while my ears were open to right of centre politics.
It was attending a 'posh' university that changed things for me - as one of the 93% state educated I went in with little awareness that privately educated kids held any sway over anything and zero sense of any 'us vs them'. But I couldn't believe that the 7% of kids had even less awareness of 'us' than vice-versa and, drinking in separate bars and moving in separate circles, many conspired to keep things that way. And of them, those active in the Conservative party were by far the most distant and oblivious to anything beyond.
I had many discussions with state-schooled Conservatives, to a man ideologues. It was clear that what Thatcherism had achieved was just the start to them, they were a kind of socially liberal variant of the Tea party. What was more, many of the private school kids took the same line. That mix of mad radicalism and ignorance, and the denial that any good had derived from government in the previous 100 years, seemed toxic - I was a natural centrist and by 1992 I was pretty firmly tacked as a voter to the right of the Labour party.
My view of those student Conservatives hasn't changed one bit, I still have the instinct that Labour is the only main party even capable of occupying the centre ground. If Cameron is socially-liberal, posh - well, it fits the m/o; if the last government did the odd statist thing - Liberal Democrats. My point is that, 25 years on, this is the very first parliament since 1990 where I can be proved wrong, along with many of those who have deep scepticism and antipathy to the Tories. If Cameron really is this woolly centrist the right portray but can still take his party along with him, there is still big opportunity for gains, who knows we may even be at 1997 in reverse!!
For now, with the initial signals from this parliament, my view stays unchanged. But I remember the pictures the Tories incessantly circulated in the mid 1990s of Blair on CND marches, which seemed absurdly irrelevant by then, and I wonder, just wonder, whether I am doing the same.
At almost any other time in political history, Kendall would not even get close to a leadership role. Labour's apparent lack of real talent in depth means that she is rising to the top.
I'm not sure I agree. There's nothing in her background to suggest she doesn't have the calibre for it, so it comes down to a question of style.
In the 70s you could easily have dismissed Thatcher as a lightweight (as Heath did when she challenged him) based on her personal style. You certainly couldn't have imagined any previous leader brandishing a feather duster at a party conference. Yet she proved to be made of iron.
Thatcher had been an MP for 16 years by the time she stood for the leadership, she had served as a Cabinet minister and had to fight her way to the top of the Tory Party. Not an easy journey.
Kendall has yet to be tested in any way by the political process. We have no real sense of her calibre as a potential PM. She may be up to the task, she may not. I, certainly, haven't seen enough of her to have any real sense of who she is or what she believes in or what direction she would take.
She might be the right choice - but at the moment she is the unknown quantity and thus is a blank sheet onto which people can project their hopes for the party.
A robust campaign will test her and the public might get to know her.
She is not Burnham and not Cooper - that is her calling card at the moment. She will need a lot more than that to become a real leader.
The compromise will be to let the old duffer sit there for the State Opening and then move out the way so relevant politicians can take part.
Labour are making themselves look like idiots over there.
I'm not sure it's Labour who are coming across badly here. I vehemently disagree with most of what Skinner believes in, but I have a lot of respect for him and his obvious passion for politics, and for doing what he obviously believes is right. For decade after decade after decade.
The basic lack of respect for politician venerated by all sides paints the SNP in a very poor light. That's my 2 cents, anyway.
The compromise will be to let the old duffer sit there for the State Opening and then move out the way so relevant politicians can take part.
Labour are making themselves look like idiots over there.
I'm not sure it's Labour who are coming across badly here. I vehemently disagree with most of what Skinner believes in, but I have a lot of respect for him and his obvious passion for politics, and for doing what he obviously believes is right. For decade after decade after decade.
The basic lack of respect for politician venerated by all sides paints the SNP in a very poor light. That's my 2 cents, anyway.
Agreed. Robertson's partisan speech at the election of the speaker was quite telling.
The compromise will be to let the old duffer sit there for the State Opening and then move out the way so relevant politicians can take part.
Labour are making themselves look like idiots over there.
I'm not sure it's Labour who are coming across badly here. I vehemently disagree with most of what Skinner believes in, but I have a lot of respect for him and his obvious passion for politics, and for doing what he obviously believes is right. For decade after decade after decade.
The basic lack of respect for politician venerated by all sides paints the SNP in a very poor light. That's my 2 cents, anyway.
Agreed. Robertson's partisan speech at the election of the speaker was quite telling.
In the Year of Our Lord 2015, Scottish Patriots, starving and outnumbered, charged the Lobbies of Westminster. They voted like Warrior-Poets. They voted like Scotsmen. And they won their Freedom!
I don't think that it can be emphasised enough just how damaging both the Scottish 2011 Holyrood election and 2015 GE Labour wipe out has been to the Parliamentary and grass roots operation up here. Scottish Labour lost some of the best of their talent in both these elections, and I cannot see anyone from the current Holyrood group of Labour MSP's who is going to manage to fix that problem in one election term at either Holyrood or at Westminster. Its vital that they do start rebuilding from the grassroots up now, and because while there remains a large number of SNP MP's at Westminster, they ain't heading back to power any time soon.
Without the Labour losses to the SNP Labour would have got 34% and 270 seats, and Cameron won 37% to Major's 41% due to UKIP, so basically this is 1992 with Scottish nationalism and UKIP thrown in
I think given the dearth of SLAB talent, Labour should consider electing a UK leader with a Holyrood MSP leader and do away with the concept of a separate SLAB leader.
In terms of Holyrood 2016, the 2011 SLAB performance was not that bad, at the constituency level SNP got 45% and SLAB got 32%. On current polling the SNP are at 54% and SLAB at 24%, suffice to say unless there is a miracle turn around, SLAB face another brutal defeat, given the scale of the swing to SNP tactical voting is unlikely to help. The SNP would likely be returned with a majority and SLAB down from 37 seats to around 20 list seats, there are 129 seats.
The compromise will be to let the old duffer sit there for the State Opening and then move out the way so relevant politicians can take part.
Labour are making themselves look like idiots over there. The established precedent should give the SNP the front two benches in that section. It just emphasises how out of control and segmented Labour is.
The SNP may not have respect for the institution of Parliament or for a senior MP - but they should quickly learn some.
They are coming over as petty and petulant.
Respect someone who - whether you agree with his politics or not - has made a significant contribution to public life over many, many years.
Respect the institution that is Parliament - the place to which so many SNP MPs have now been elected.
Find a new way of making your voices heard without seeking to tear apart the fabric of the Commons to make a petty, petty point about who sits where.
ProRate Cameron will not be there in 2020, and post EU ref, especially if a narrow In, the Tories will have probably picked a more rightwing successor to stem leakage to UKIP, the LDs under Farron will have moved left and the Greens, UKIP and SNP obviously are ideological in nature, leaving an opportunity for Labour to reoccupy the centre ground, and though no Blair Cooper and Burnham are more linked to New Labour than Brown and certainly Ed Miliband
The SNP Mps are simply pandering to their core vote - the spoilt children of Scotland.
Skinner was down the pit by 1949, how dare these pampered lickspittle SNP student politicians,who haven't done a hand's turn of real work in their idle privileged lives, disrespect this great man and national treasure.
There must surely be at least 35 Labour MP's who recognise that it would not be good for the Labour party to be heading into a second term of Opposition without having admitted the mistakes of the last Labour Government?
Strange how much of the doubtless well-intentioned advice from pb Tories is that Labour should start by admitting the Conservatives were right and Labour was wrong.
Every time I see a PB Tory advising Labour on their new leadership, I recall how so many Tories here and elsewhere thought that the sun shone out of Jim Murphy, whatever bit you care to pick. And look at his almost complete success in destroying SLAB in Westminster, not to mention doing serious damage to the Union in the process.
What has Skinner ever done for Clay Cross..It is still a dump.after all his years of milking the system
Don't be daft. That's the job of the local authority (who have undeniably done a shit job). An MP has only a minor influence on local development - he's elected to represent the people nationally.
The SNP Mps are simply pandering to their core vote - the spoilt children of Scotland.
As ever 98.5% of the Scottish population are not paying any attention to this story. This is a Westminster bubble and MSM story with nobody other than political nerds even aware of it. Your dismissive comment above as ever only drives the SNP surge forward, so many thanks for your help !!
There must surely be at least 35 Labour MP's who recognise that it would not be good for the Labour party to be heading into a second term of Opposition without having admitted the mistakes of the last Labour Government?
Strange how much of the doubtless well-intentioned advice from pb Tories is that Labour should start by admitting the Conservatives were right and Labour was wrong.
Every time I see a PB Tory advising Labour on their new leadership, I recall how so many Tories here and elsewhere thought that the sun shone out of Jim Murphy, whatever bit you care to pick. And look at his almost complete success in destroying SLAB in Westminster, not to mention doing serious damage to the Union in the process.
She really, really does believe that there must be terrifying things in the Tory manifesto - by definition - but you can tell by the feebleness of what she's come up with that she couldn't actually find any. Are we really supposed to believe that that she thinks legislating "to ensure that every public sector worker operating in a customer-facing role must speak fluent English" is terrifying?
The SNP Mps are simply pandering to their core vote - the spoilt children of Scotland.
As ever 98.5% of the Scottish population are not paying any attention to this story. This is a Westminster bubble and MSM story with nobody other than political nerds even aware of it. Your dismissive comment above as ever only drives the SNP surge forward, so many thanks for your help !!
The SNP Mps are simply pandering to their core vote - the spoilt children of Scotland.
As ever 98.5% of the Scottish population are not paying any attention to this story. This is a Westminster bubble and MSM story with nobody other than political nerds even aware of it. Your dismissive comment above as ever only drives the SNP surge forward, so many thanks for your help !!
Surge forward to combat the MSM and project fear ?
Whilst Scottish education goes down the plughole..
Those talking of Labour civil war really do know nothing about history. What is happening now is nothing like that. I remember the 80s and the Tories in the 90s. That really was carnage. What's happening now is a walk in the park. Maybe too much of one, to be honest.
With the greatest respect that seems extremely complacent - this is going to go on for months and with the obvious in fighting being magnified by the press and broadcast media, this is not going to work out well for labour
It'll work out better than not doing it; and it does not make it a civil war.
There must surely be at least 35 Labour MP's who recognise that it would not be good for the Labour party to be heading into a second term of Opposition without having admitted the mistakes of the last Labour Government?
Strange how much of the doubtless well-intentioned advice from pb Tories is that Labour should start by admitting the Conservatives were right and Labour was wrong.
Every time I see a PB Tory advising Labour on their new leadership, I recall how so many Tories here and elsewhere thought that the sun shone out of Jim Murphy, whatever bit you care to pick. And look at his almost complete success in destroying SLAB in Westminster, not to mention doing serious damage to the Union in the process.
Yup. What diehard Tories want to hear from a Labour leader is completely different to what people who would actually consider voting Labour want to hear.
Comments
Ed Miliband suffered badly enough from being a fairly close second choice for the MPs
Tristram Hunt’s speech, called the Forward March of Labour, is easily the most thoughtful and far-reaching contribution to the debate about Labour’s future to come from a leading Labour politician. That it intended as a sincere compliment, but technically it is not much of a tribute at all, because the bar has been set very low. Generally, the debate within Labour about what the party needs to do next has been trite and shallow. None of the leading leadership contenders has given a proper speech on the topic and, in their public remarks, they and others in the party have not gone much beyond platitudes about aspiration and economic credibility.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2015/may/20/nigel-farage-claims-eu-referendum-will-be-held-in-may-next-year-politics-live
Which is here:
http://www.demos.co.uk/press_releases/the-forward-march-of-labour
1988 election Tory 169, Liberal 83, NDP 43
1993 election Liberal 177, Bloc Quebecois 54, Reform 52, NDP 9, Tory 2
(albeit with the NDP seat loss and the BQ rise taking place in 1988 not 1993)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1993
Once you leave these towns and enter into more rural (and socially conservative, and anti-EU) areas, I suspect it will be UKIP who is the natural opposition to the Conservatives.
The Labour Party will continue to play a role in those places which are poorer, or more troubled, or just odd.
2017 will be the really interesting ones...
At some juncture there will be a strong appeal in England for a left of centre party that argues we are not being caring enough.
But not two of them, perhaps.
Elections since 1979 show for me the English are independent and entrepreneurial, but they also have a strong sense of fair play. They will allow left wing politics insofar as it redresses, but not insofar as it revolutionizes.
i.e. nothing like 1992.
Voters who voted Conservative DID NOT get the SNP. So no disenchantment - fulfilment instead..
Personally I think Trudeau will be PM in November in a deal with the NDP maybe for PR, the Greens have won the odd seat in the past, they may do so again
A decent "in" vote buries the Lib Dems in cement even further as the Conservatives completely OWN the european middle ground at that point. An out vote leads to all sorts of electoral shenanigans, and would be bad for the Conservatives I think.
It was an election unlike any other - especially in the way that third and fourth party voting patterns affected the overall outcome.
I suspect that Kendall will go down very well, she is an excellent communicator with a very natural style. Underlying this is a real sense of ambition and purpose. Liz refreshes the parts that other candidates cannot reach!
The SNP will get the right to use the seat whenever he's not in the Chamber
I have seen no evidence that she really is an excellent communicator. I have seen a lot of stilted media performances but no real flair for reaching people through their TV screens.
She clearly wants this (which may or may not be a good thing) but her main strength is the fact that she isn't as tainted by past failures as Burnham and Cooper (who will always have the Balls problem to deal with - along with her health issues)
At almost any other time in political history, Kendall would not even get close to a leadership role. Labour's apparent lack of real talent in depth means that she is rising to the top.
But when you choose as MPs people who all have degrees from Oxbridge, they can hardly be uncivil to fellow Oxbridgonians (?) , can they?
And they are all past SPADs.. so they believe in nothing..too strongly..
Where are the Portillos, the Benns, the Dereck Hattons and the Kinnocks? Not in Parliament..
Equally though, look at Cameron. He has largely transformed most of his Party single handedly... and he has done it quietly and largely without fuss (apart from gay marriage)
But I really don't agree she would go down well with the Labour membership, at all. She seems like a perfectly nice woman but she's not exactly overburdened with charisma, I'm not sure she would've even got onto the frontbench in any other political era. Plus, I feel the membership would say that a Labour party which just agrees with the Tories on everything by signing up to huge spending cuts and worshipping extreme wealth is not going to get anywhere, not even with "swing voters".
Afterthought: Cooper is literally wedded to the past.
With the greatest respect that seems extremely complacent - this is going to go on for months and with the obvious in fighting being magnified by the press and broadcast media, this is not going to work out well for labour
In the 70s you could easily have dismissed Thatcher as a lightweight (as Heath did when she challenged him) based on her personal style. You certainly couldn't have imagined any previous leader brandishing a feather duster at a party conference. Yet she proved to be made of iron.
Labour are making themselves look like idiots over there. The established precedent should give the SNP the front two benches in that section. It just emphasises how out of control and segmented Labour is.
#milifandom
#milibae
#JeSuisEd
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/11/milifan-prime-minister-ed-miliband?CMP=share_btn_tw
#Farronite451
#MorningtonCrescent ???
Grew up in a poor but white-collar family in a small manufacturing town, the 80s recessions were easing, and for a while my ears were open to right of centre politics.
It was attending a 'posh' university that changed things for me - as one of the 93% state educated I went in with little awareness that privately educated kids held any sway over anything and zero sense of any 'us vs them'. But I couldn't believe that the 7% of kids had even less awareness of 'us' than vice-versa and, drinking in separate bars and moving in separate circles, many conspired to keep things that way. And of them, those active in the Conservative party were by far the most distant and oblivious to anything beyond.
I had many discussions with state-schooled Conservatives, to a man ideologues. It was clear that what Thatcherism had achieved was just the start to them, they were a kind of socially liberal variant of the Tea party. What was more, many of the private school kids took the same line. That mix of mad radicalism and ignorance, and the denial that any good had derived from government in the previous 100 years, seemed toxic - I was a natural centrist and by 1992 I was pretty firmly tacked as a voter to the right of the Labour party.
My view of those student Conservatives hasn't changed one bit, I still have the instinct that Labour is the only main party even capable of occupying the centre ground. If Cameron is socially-liberal, posh - well, it fits the m/o; if the last government did the odd statist thing - Liberal Democrats. My point is that, 25 years on, this is the very first parliament since 1990 where I can be proved wrong, along with many of those who have deep scepticism and antipathy to the Tories. If Cameron really is this woolly centrist the right portray but can still take his party along with him, there is still big opportunity for gains, who knows we may even be at 1997 in reverse!!
For now, with the initial signals from this parliament, my view stays unchanged. But I remember the pictures the Tories incessantly circulated in the mid 1990s of Blair on CND marches, which seemed absurdly irrelevant by then, and I wonder, just wonder, whether I am doing the same.
I'm fascinated at the direction Labour takes over the next few years, with the exception of NHS they stand for everything their core vote despises.
Kendall has yet to be tested in any way by the political process. We have no real sense of her calibre as a potential PM. She may be up to the task, she may not. I, certainly, haven't seen enough of her to have any real sense of who she is or what she believes in or what direction she would take.
She might be the right choice - but at the moment she is the unknown quantity and thus is a blank sheet onto which people can project their hopes for the party.
A robust campaign will test her and the public might get to know her.
She is not Burnham and not Cooper - that is her calling card at the moment. She will need a lot more than that to become a real leader.
The basic lack of respect for politician venerated by all sides paints the SNP in a very poor light. That's my 2 cents, anyway.
Con by 0.7%
Lab by 1.4%
In terms of Holyrood 2016, the 2011 SLAB performance was not that bad, at the constituency level SNP got 45% and SLAB got 32%. On current polling the SNP are at 54% and SLAB at 24%, suffice to say unless there is a miracle turn around, SLAB face another brutal defeat, given the scale of the swing to SNP tactical voting is unlikely to help. The SNP would likely be returned with a majority and SLAB down from 37 seats to around 20 list seats, there are 129 seats.
They are coming over as petty and petulant.
Respect someone who - whether you agree with his politics or not - has made a significant contribution to public life over many, many years.
Respect the institution that is Parliament - the place to which so many SNP MPs have now been elected.
Find a new way of making your voices heard without seeking to tear apart the fabric of the Commons to make a petty, petty point about who sits where.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/vince-cable-lib-dems-were-victims-tory-fear
Apparently it was the Tories' fault that Labour lost and the LibDems were slaughtered, but voters will rue the day.
Finbarr lives.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/23-most-terrifying-things-tory-manifesto
She really, really does believe that there must be terrifying things in the Tory manifesto - by definition - but you can tell by the feebleness of what she's come up with that she couldn't actually find any. Are we really supposed to believe that that she thinks legislating "to ensure that every public sector worker operating in a customer-facing role must speak fluent English" is terrifying?
Whilst Scottish education goes down the plughole..