politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Labour is paying a price for its elongated leadership conte

Casino_Royale said:

Assumes all Labour MPs would vote and vote no. In reality, due to pairing, the Tories could probably ensure it passed with a majority of about 20, even if they all turned up.

The left-wing block vote of LD (they are left wing now) + Lab + Green + PC + SDLP + SNP + Sylvia is 304 in this parliament.

Unless there's very poor whipping discipline, all controversial Tory measures should pass by a similar amount. Of course, that does mean keeping Tory rebel numbers to ten or less.

Tissue_Price said:

Glad to see you're better Mike: leading with an intellectually dishonest Lib Dem tweet. ;-)

MikeSmithson said:

Thank you but not quite better. I'm currently under instructions not to drive, use heavy machinery or sign legal documents.

MikeSmithson said:

Tissue_Price said:

Glad to see you're better Mike: leading with an intellectually dishonest Lib Dem tweet. ;-)

Thank you but not quite better. I'm currently under instructions not to drive, use heavy machinery or sign legal documents. Nothing was said about posting on PB.

Richard_Nabavi said:

they cannot decide whether they actually want to continuing blowing absurd amounts of taxpayers' money on welfare or not.

TheScreamingEagles said:

George Osborne is a truly great strategist, up there with Caesar and Eisenhower.

Labour currently have all the nous and strategic abilities as Hannibal at Zama or Crassus at Carrhae.

Now that we are free of the lead weights that are the Lib Dems, we're seeing a true, One Nation Conservative government such as helping the poor with the living wage.

Honestly, this government is giving me the horn.

logical_song said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

George Osborne is a truly great strategist, up there with Caesar and Eisenhower.

Labour currently have all the nous and strategic abilities as Hannibal at Zama or Crassus at Carrhae.

Now that we are free of the lead weights that are the Lib Dems, we're seeing a true, One Nation Conservative government such as helping the poor with the living wage.

Honestly, this government is giving me the horn.

Calm down, dear.

TheScreamingEagles said:

George Osborne is a truly great strategist, up there with Caesar and Eisenhower.

Labour currently have all the nous and strategic abilities as Hannibal at Zama or Crassus at Carrhae.

Now that we are free of the lead weights that are the Lib Dems, we're seeing a true, One Nation Conservative government such as helping the poor with the living wage.

Honestly, this government is giving me the horn.

SouthamObserver said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

George Osborne is a truly great strategist, up there with Caesar and Eisenhower.

Labour currently have all the nous and strategic abilities as Hannibal at Zama or Crassus at Carrhae.

Now that we are free of the lead weights that are the Lib Dems, we're seeing a true, One Nation Conservative government such as helping the poor with the living wage.

Honestly, this government is giving me the horn.

Peak hubris?

TheScreamingEagles said:

George Osborne is a truly great strategist, up there with Caesar and Eisenhower.

Labour currently have all the nous and strategic abilities as Hannibal at Zama or Crassus at Carrhae.

Now that we are free of the lead weights that are the Lib Dems, we're seeing a true, One Nation Conservative government such as helping the poor with the living wage.

Honestly, this government is giving me the horn.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Plus, we're due a recession soon, 'cause believe it or not, Gordon Brown didn't abolish boom and bust.

Then the Tory mantra of the long term economic plan won't look so attractive to the voters.

JEO said:

The end of pay progression based on seniority for the Civil Service is brilliant. It's a much needed reform that's popular with the public, but one which the public sector unions will tear the Labour Party apart over.

SouthamObserver said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

George Osborne is a truly great strategist, up there with Caesar and Eisenhower.

Labour currently have all the nous and strategic abilities as Hannibal at Zama or Crassus at Carrhae.

Now that we are free of the lead weights that are the Lib Dems, we're seeing a true, One Nation Conservative government such as helping the poor with the living wage.

Honestly, this government is giving me the horn.

Peak hubris?

HurstLlama said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

George Osborne is a truly great strategist, up there with Caesar and Eisenhower.

Labour currently have all the nous and strategic abilities as Hannibal at Zama or Crassus at Carrhae.

Now that we are free of the lead weights that are the Lib Dems, we're seeing a true, One Nation Conservative government such as helping the poor with the living wage.

Honestly, this government is giving me the horn.

Eisenhower a great strategist? Are you back on the sauce, Mr. Eagles? Eisenhower had a great many good qualities that enabled him to to perform extremely well as Supreme Allied Commander, probably better than any other septic could have, but a strategist he wasn't never mind a great strategist.

Richard_Nabavi said:

Here's a free tip to Labour, offered gratis, without strings: You need to start by working on a coherent position, instead you are making the mistake of working backwards from your focus-groups and concluding you have to avoid saying anything which might be unpopular with anyone. That simply leads you into the position of having nothing to say except for vacuuous platitudes which Osborne can easily expose as hollow and contradictory.

Blue_rog said:

O/T

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11753227/French-ferry-workers-block-access-to-Eurotunnel-with-pile-of-burning-tyres.html

Looks like Calais is a no go area AGAIN. Perhaps we need to consider routing all traffic through Belgium

Danny565 said:

The problem with this theory is Labour couldn't have been more united in the last parliament, while the Tories were constantly rowing in public - but who won the election?

JEO said:

SouthamObserver said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Whilst the agonisingly long leadership vacuum doesn't help Labour, I'm not sure that having a leader in place would have solved the problem. The basic issue is the same as that which dogged Gordon Brown at the end: they cannot decide whether they actually want to continuing blowing absurd amounts of taxpayers' money on welfare or not. Osborne hasn't really set any mine-fields, he has just proceeded on some sensible reforms which (as it happens) expose the absurdity of Labour's 'must cut down on cake but not this cake, and we're not saying which cake' position.

Osborne has made a series of choices which will have a negative consequence on a number of low income working families, but which will benefit other groups. Labour should have opposed those choices, while welcoming his conversion to the idea that all those in work should be paid a living wage and noting that the elasticity of deficit reduction targets indicates there is no pressing need to balance the books within a defined period of years - especially if it causes additional hardship to many millions of people who are already finding things tough. As you say, this is not a minefield set with a series of craftily arranged traps. What we have is a Tory chancellor pursuing Tory policies.

The "pressing need" is to get the debt down to pre-recession levels before the next recession.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Labour currently have all the nous and strategic abilities as Hannibal at Zama or Crassus at Carrhae.

Scott_P said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Here's a free tip to Labour, offered gratis, without strings: You need to start by working on a coherent position, instead you are making the mistake of working backwards from your focus-groups and concluding you have to avoid saying anything which might be unpopular with anyone. That simply leads you into the position of having nothing to say except for vacuuous platitudes which Osborne can easily expose as hollow and contradictory.

Actually, as noted elsewhere, Labour's HUGE problem on the welfare bill is that focus groups are telling them that cutting welfare is spectacularly popular, but Labour activists are telling them how much they hate it.

So they know what they need to do to get elected (by the country) but not by the party...

Awesome!

felix said:

PClipp said:

Speedy said:

At least the LD will never get a single vote out of it, because only 2.5 months ago they were in government with the Tories and the notion that they are the real opposition is laughable.

Carry on laughing, Mr Speedy! The public is gradually becoming aware of the fact that we had five years of stable government, which was slowly getting the public finances under control - and also of the very many policies that the Lib Dems were preventing the Tories from implementing.

Now that the Tories are at liberty to impose their will on the country, the Lib Dems have, rightly, resumed their position as open and public opponents of the more damaging Tory policies. Impossible to leave this to the Labour leaders, who don´t know whether they are coming or going.

I'm ever more convinced Mr Clipp is a computer generated LD.

logical_song said:

felix said:

Scott_P said:

@CarolineLucas: Unbelievable - @uklabour announces they'll abstain *again* - this time on Govt's terrible Finance Bill. Official Opposition? - clue in name

Lucas is really pretty thick. I suspect the main beneficiaries of Labour's mess will be the SNP - despite the tweet above the left vote will not be rushing back to Farron's Christian/Liberal Democrats.

Surely the SNP will only benefit in part of the United Kingdom. Might not others Greens, LibDems even UKIP benefit in England & Wales?
In what way is what Lucas said "thick"?

She doesn't understand the notion of the role of HM Opposition rather more nuanced than her silly opportunist tweet. I'm sure that Greens will benefit - I doubt that LDs will despite their efforts to airbrush History. Attacking the govt on benefit cuts is not the right territory for UKIP.

SouthamObserver said:

Danny565 said:

Luke Akehurst has estimated that, when you account for the size of each individual CLP, Corbyn is doing better and Burnham worse than the headline figures suggest:

These are the figures by total 2010 membership of English and Welsh CLPs nominating the candidate:

Corbyn 19,574 (36.3%)
Burnham 15,656 (29.0%)
Cooper 13,518 (25.1%)
Kendall 5,212 (9.7%)

http://labourlist.org/2015/07/are-there-any-patterns-in-the-clp-nominations-so-far/

felix said:

SouthamObserver said:

Casino_Royale said:

SouthamObserver said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

George Osborne is a truly great strategist, up there with Caesar and Eisenhower.

Labour currently have all the nous and strategic abilities as Hannibal at Zama or Crassus at Carrhae.

Now that we are free of the lead weights that are the Lib Dems, we're seeing a true, One Nation Conservative government such as helping the poor with the living wage.

Honestly, this government is giving me the horn.

Peak hubris?

No, that was our resident candidate Nick Palmer pre-election. I know he doesn't like us mentioning it now but day after day he'd post 'tick tock' and his impending 7% victory margin as the election approached.

I warned him it smacked of hubris at the time. It did, and it was.

So we should all know what hubris looks like. Some, it seems, have already forgotten. For all Osborne's fine words - and the exultation with which they were received - a series of choices was made last week that could well see many millions of working families become materially worse off, including a large number of those who rely on a self-employed breadwinner. We have yet to see how that will play out.

We also know what bitterness looks like - it pervades your repetitive commenting of the same meme like the none too ripe lemons from the garden opposite my house.

GIN1138 said:

Plato said:

Exactly.

IIRC 61% of Labour voters like the tax credit changes. No wonder the candidates are having a mare.

Scott_P said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Here's a free tip to Labour, offered gratis, without strings: You need to start by working on a coherent position, instead you are making the mistake of working backwards from your focus-groups and concluding you have to avoid saying anything which might be unpopular with anyone. That simply leads you into the position of having nothing to say except for vacuuous platitudes which Osborne can easily expose as hollow and contradictory.

Actually, as noted elsewhere, Labour's HUGE problem on the welfare bill is that focus groups are telling them that cutting welfare is spectacularly popular, but Labour activists are telling them how much they hate it.

So they know what they need to do to get elected (by the country) but not by the party...

Awesome!

Eventually, when Labour has had long enough in the wilderness, a leader will come along and take on the membership over issue's like welfare... And the membership will suck it up because they will be so desperate to get back into the power they will again support a leader who will do or say anything to win.

Clearly Chukka and Jarvis correctly calculated that now is not the time... It will probably happen after Lab's next election defeat in 2010.

GIN1138 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Plus, we're due a recession soon, 'cause believe it or not, Gordon Brown didn't abolish boom and bust.

Then the Tory mantra of the long term economic plan won't look so attractive to the voters.

We're "due" a recession? Really? We've only just come out of the last one...

I'd say we're due a "boom" much more than a recession!

SouthamObserver said:

Sandpit said:

SouthamObserver said:

Danny565 said:

Luke Akehurst has estimated that, when you account for the size of each individual CLP, Corbyn is doing better and Burnham worse than the headline figures suggest:

These are the figures by total 2010 membership of English and Welsh CLPs nominating the candidate:

Corbyn 19,574 (36.3%)
Burnham 15,656 (29.0%)
Cooper 13,518 (25.1%)
Kendall 5,212 (9.7%)

http://labourlist.org/2015/07/are-there-any-patterns-in-the-clp-nominations-so-far/

But as we know, just 66 people were actually involved in the Broxtowe CLP nomination. If that is representative of levels in other CLPs, we are looking at very low numbers overall.

But all these CLP 'nominations' mean literally nothing. They're no more than an informal straw poll of those who turn up for a meeting. The nominations have already come from the MPs and the voting will be by individual ballot next month. Why the publicity given to them, or have I missed something?

Mortimer said:

SouthamObserver said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Whilst the agonisingly long leadership vacuum doesn't help Labour, I'm not sure that having a leader in place would have solved the problem. The basic issue is the same as that which dogged Gordon Brown at the end: they cannot decide whether they actually want to continuing blowing absurd amounts of taxpayers' money on welfare or not. Osborne hasn't really set any mine-fields, he has just proceeded on some sensible reforms which (as it happens) expose the absurdity of Labour's 'must cut down on cake but not this cake, and we're not saying which cake' position.

Osborne has made a series of choices which will have a negative consequence on a number of low income working families, but which will benefit other groups. Labour should have opposed those choices, while welcoming his conversion to the idea that all those in work should be paid a living wage and noting that the elasticity of deficit reduction targets indicates there is no pressing need to balance the books within a defined period of years - especially if it causes additional hardship to many millions of people who are already finding things tough. As you say, this is not a minefield set with a series of craftily arranged traps. What we have is a Tory chancellor pursuing Tory policies.

If people on low incomes are finding things tough on the still enormous largesse of the state, they ought to work more hours or spend less money. It sounds callous, and will never be said in public by a politician, but is echoed in the pubs, social clubs and front-rooms of working net tax-payers across the country.

My mother was born on a council estate in North Wales in the 50s; she knew poverty, hunger, want of clothing. She cannot believe the claims made over poverty in modern Britain today; in short she finds them laughable.

calum said:

I know both parties still blame the SNP as opposed to the Tories for their misfortune

calum said:

In a similar vein I think the political commentators also need to stop focusing on the SNP - eg. Iain Martin did a piece earlier peddling the line that the SNP are misleading folks around the mechanics of Westminster voting and wittering on about the "pairing" system, which for what its worth is completely irrelevant to last nights vote

SouthamObserver said:

felix said:

SouthamObserver said:

Casino_Royale said:

SouthamObserver said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

George Osborne is a truly great strategist, up there with Caesar and Eisenhower.

Labour currently have all the nous and strategic abilities as Hannibal at Zama or Crassus at Carrhae.

Now that we are free of the lead weights that are the Lib Dems, we're seeing a true, One Nation Conservative government such as helping the poor with the living wage.

Honestly, this government is giving me the horn.

Peak hubris?

No, that was our resident candidate Nick Palmer pre-election. I know he doesn't like us mentioning it now but day after day he'd post 'tick tock' and his impending 7% victory margin as the election approached.

I warned him it smacked of hubris at the time. It did, and it was.

So we should all know what hubris looks like. Some, it seems, have already forgotten. For all Osborne's fine words - and the exultation with which they were received - a series of choices was made last week that could well see many millions of working families become materially worse off, including a large number of those who rely on a self-employed breadwinner. We have yet to see how that will play out.

We also know what bitterness looks like - it pervades your repetitive commenting of the same meme like the none too ripe lemons from the garden opposite my house.

I fear we cannot all offer the marvellously varied range of contributions - touching on so many different subjects - that you do. But, yes, I am bitter. I dislike Tory policy because I don't think it is good for the long-term well-being of the country and there is no-one on my side of the argument currently capable of presenting a measured, credible critique of the poor decisions that I believe are being made.

felix said:

SouthamObserver said:

Casino_Royale said:

SouthamObserver said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

George Osborne is a truly great strategist, up there with Caesar and Eisenhower.

Labour currently have all the nous and strategic abilities as Hannibal at Zama or Crassus at Carrhae.

Now that we are free of the lead weights that are the Lib Dems, we're seeing a true, One Nation Conservative government such as helping the poor with the living wage.

Honestly, this government is giving me the horn.

Peak hubris?

No, that was our resident candidate Nick Palmer pre-election. I know he doesn't like us mentioning it now but day after day he'd post 'tick tock' and his impending 7% victory margin as the election approached.

I warned him it smacked of hubris at the time. It did, and it was.

So we should all know what hubris looks like. Some, it seems, have already forgotten. For all Osborne's fine words - and the exultation with which they were received - a series of choices was made last week that could well see many millions of working families become materially worse off, including a large number of those who rely on a self-employed breadwinner. We have yet to see how that will play out.

We also know what bitterness looks like - it pervades your repetitive commenting of the same meme like the none too ripe lemons from the garden opposite my house.

The_Apocalypse said:

Mortimer said:

SouthamObserver said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Whilst the agonisingly long leadership vacuum doesn't help Labour, I'm not sure that having a leader in place would have solved the problem. The basic issue is the same as that which dogged Gordon Brown at the end: they cannot decide whether they actually want to continuing blowing absurd amounts of taxpayers' money on welfare or not. Osborne hasn't really set any mine-fields, he has just proceeded on some sensible reforms which (as it happens) expose the absurdity of Labour's 'must cut down on cake but not this cake, and we're not saying which cake' position.

Osborne has made a series of choices which will have a negative consequence on a number of low income working families, but which will benefit other groups. Labour should have opposed those choices, while welcoming his conversion to the idea that all those in work should be paid a living wage and noting that the elasticity of deficit reduction targets indicates there is no pressing need to balance the books within a defined period of years - especially if it causes additional hardship to many millions of people who are already finding things tough. As you say, this is not a minefield set with a series of craftily arranged traps. What we have is a Tory chancellor pursuing Tory policies.

If people on low incomes are finding things tough on the still enormous largesse of the state, they ought to work more hours or spend less money. It sounds callous, and will never be said in public by a politician, but is echoed in the pubs, social clubs and front-rooms of working net tax-payers across the country.

My mother was born on a council estate in North Wales in the 50s; she knew poverty, hunger, want of clothing. She cannot believe the claims made over poverty in modern Britain today; in short she finds them laughable.

BIB: Is it really? Some recent polling was done, and it suggests that the public do not think those on low pay get too much benefits. I think the Tories could well be misjudging the public mood on this. While a large disgruntlement regarding welfare comes from 'scroungers' - those who do not work, I've not seen anything to suggest such disgruntlement comes from those who are low paid receiving benefits.

antifrank said:

GIN1138 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Plus, we're due a recession soon, 'cause believe it or not, Gordon Brown didn't abolish boom and bust.

Then the Tory mantra of the long term economic plan won't look so attractive to the voters.

We're "due" a recession? Really? We've only just come out of the last one...

I'd say we're due a "boom" much more than a recession!

Saying we're due a recession soon is a bit like saying that the Yellowstone supervolcano is due to erupt soon. It's true but tells us nothing useful about when it's actually going to happen.