Quote Originally Posted by Vindec View Post
The Hartlepool bi election springs to mind where the Labour vote fell off a cliff.

Just because you vote tactically doesn't mean everyone does or will. There are many more points I could make but I can't be bothered either. The fact you have not replied to my response to your contention that I brushed the Tory defeat under the carpet is noted.

Your analysis of what is happening in Southern England is way off the mark in my opinion. In Cornwall and Devon for example the Liberals always have a strong presence in the farming communities and marginally less so the Tories but every single constituency in the South West voted Tory. It might be different next time around as the fishing communities feel short changed by the Brexit deal. What I can say is that Labour are nowhere in these areas. Tactical voting could work but I can't imagine the Labour Party standing aside as they will receive such few votes it wouldn't make any difference. All seats in the South West will be a straight fight between the Liberals and Tories. Possibly your alliance might work in Southern England but I doubt it.
I said you brushed it under the carpet because your posts read like "yes it was a bad result for the Conservatives, but let's get on to the real issue here, the size of the Labour vote".

The size of the Labour vote in Hartlepool and many other constituencies in the North of England and the Midlands should be a real cause of concern for the party and it really needs to stop giving the impression that fighting a continuing civil war and coming across as talking down to people who have traditionally supported Labour is their preferred way to go. I'm not a great fan of someone like Lisa Nandy, but I can't help thinking that she is right about how attitudes have changed post Referendum in so called red wall seats and that, whatever many on the left may feel about her, Labour need to listen to what she has to say.

However, Labour is never going to win a seat like Chesham and Amersham and so the reaction to their embarrassing vote on Thursday is less important than what they do and where they go as a result of what happened in Hartlepool.

If Labour are never going to win Chesham and Amersham, I'd say it's equally true that the Conservatives should never lose it, but, perhaps, such thinking is out of touch now because this article (which I know is from the Guardian, but it is written by someone who knows his stuff and has consistently recognised and virtually predicted Labours' problems in the north and midlands) shows that there are demographic changes taking place in traditionally Conservative parts of England which are beginning to affect the way people vote there;-

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...mersham-tories

You talk of me being "way off the mark" in my opinion about what's happening in Southern England, but I didn't say that, I said, what's happening in some parts of southern England. For example, you don't need to tell me that, apart from places like Plymouth and Exeter, Labour has virtually no chance of winning seats in the south west once you go south of Bristol, but the Lib Dems do and it wasn't too long ago that this part of the country was considered something of a Lib Dem stronghold - that's why I said in my opening post that I think Labour needs to give serious thought as to whether it's worth them fielding candidates in places like Cornwall any more.

With electoral changes coming which are generally expected to help the Conservatives and the party that had established itself as one of "the big two" in this country having not won an election in four attempts, the majority of eligible voters who do not favour the Conservatives are looking at a situation whereby their anti tory views are never going to be reflected under the present voting system while we have so many non right wing parties all competing for what are virtually the same section of the electorate. That's why I'm increasingly coming around to thinking that some of these parties (especially Labour) are going to have to swallow their pride and stand with the "enemy" against a bigger foe.

Here's another Guardian article which, probably correctly, argues that a so called progressive alliance will never happen, but what happened on Thursday shows that the Tories are not as impregnable as they may appear and so it is incumbent on those non Conservative parties to provide the most effective opposition possible as a service to the majority who decided in December 2019 that they did not want to be governed by the Conservative party.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...d-middle-class