Reply With QuoteAnother article that I feel talks lot of sense about Labour.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...vists-plymouth
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I was going to make this what would no doubt have been a very long and rambling personal view about the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn, but this piece;-
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a...5b97f4c021e227
says so much of what I was going to say more succinctly and cogently than I could have done.
I see Jeremy Corbyn is peddling the crackpot view of "I am proud that on austerity, on corporate power, on inequality and on the climate emergency we have won the arguments" in this Guardian piece today;-
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ibility-defeat
being generous, Labour might not have lost the argument on those subjects, but won them, really? To have won the argument, we would have to be waking up with a Labour Government this morning.
Writing for the same paper, Jess Phillips is, surely, much closer to the truth when she says;-
"In the 1990s, Labour needed to bring middle-class voters into a coalition with a working-class base. Today we have the opposite problem. The more working-class a constituency was, the worse the result was for Labour. The problem isn’t just that working-class people will be hurt by the Tories – it’s that too many don’t believe we’re better than the Tories. Belief matters, and we failed the test. That is an existential problem for the party that is named for working people."
in this piece;-
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-jess-phillips
The more I think about it, the more I believe that the 2019 election result represents a microcosm of this country's political history over much of the last century with the Torys finding a way to get things done, while the rest of the party's, with the recent exception of the SNP, find ways to cock things up.
No party is more guilty of this than Labour and generations who have spent their lives believing strongly in the historic core values of the party, frankly, deserve an apology from its leaders this weekend - I've spent my life thinking that the Conservatives were the natural home for snobs, but, criminally, they have now been joined by the "People's party".
Another article that I feel talks lot of sense about Labour.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...vists-plymouth
Corbyn and McDonnell cant become Tories they are old school Socialists, what is the point of Labour being a Tory lite party ?
That should be part of the discussion inside Labour about where they go now (leadership, policies, roots and connections, role other than an election machine).Originally Posted by the other bob wilson
But maybe not just through the pages of the Guardian where a clutch of their main columnists have spent 2 days denouncing Corbyn for failing to win the election, after spending 4 years abusing and demonising him, and telling people not to vote for him!
I hate the guardian that John renton? Is a raving Tory
As for labour we need a centrist electable leader without the past corbyn had which although mostly principled had too much in it and he was an easy target for the Tory press and media
We can become a centrist electable party without losing our strong policies on social justice
If we don't , we will just become a protest party forever in opposition to the Tories
If we elect a new leader with close links to corbyn we could be out of power for twenty years
He had good intentions but he was toxic to many voters , labour activists on the ground knocking on doors of constituents said time and time again they would not get labours vote because of corbyn
Corbyn was toxic on the doorstep because of the media, its a problem the power the media has when it comes to elections.
Its not Guardian articles that has resulted in four election defeats , Corbyn was only involved in small part of that period , basically the electorate don't want Labour's current policies.
They need to decamp outside of its elite wealthy
London maxist bubble, and engage with people in towns , not rely on multi ethnic inner cities voters.
Corbyn is just the face of an organisation that is slowly destroying the Labour party in the name of ideology or as Alan Johnson calls them a student protest cult .
Watch this if you dare ::
'I want Momentum gone': Alan Johnson slams Labour left –*video
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...y_to_clipboard
Where in any of what I wrote wrote and those articles I quoted did anyone advocate that Labour become a Conservatiys party mark 2? I didn't vote Labour in 2001 and 2005 because of tuition fees and the Iraq War respectively, but it was a protest vote done in the knowledge that Labour would win anyway - as soon as I thought there was a threat of a Conservative victory in 2010, I returned to the fold and have voted for Labour ever since (even though it was almost a toss of a coin job on Thursday).
What I'm saying is that there were elements of the last Labour Government I didn't like and, in some cases, I agree the Tory lite description was justified, but I would take it over what we've had for the last nine years, and what I truly fear we're going to get in the next five any time.
However, I think there are those in influential positions in Labour who don't think like that. When you see how anybody in the party who takes a position that does not match their "pure" version of socialism is dismissed as being a Tory by some (and I believe a significant proportion of the membership think like that now) you get clues as to the "we are definitely right, but the voters are too stupid to realise it" mentality which I feel is one of the real reasons for Labour's dreadful.defeat. This election was much more about a rejection of them in their heartlands than it was an endorsement of the Conservatives and their policies.
People don't like being patronised and talked down to and I suspect that is what many in the North East, North West, Yorkshire and Midlands regions of England and significant parts of Wales who historically have been Labour voters have come to think about The party - the warning sign that was Scotland has not been heeded.
I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if Labour is perceived as Londoncentric by many in this country because that's something I feel myself. Indeed, it may be that they are seen as elitist by those who voted for the party that I've always seen as the true home of any elite on Thursday - as I said earlier, I don't think the Tory party is the only one you'll find the snobs in these days.
I never said any different Bob Wilson, I was just making my own statement and personally I don't see the point in Labour becoming another Tory party.
Interesting pamphlet from Paul Mason on the election outcome and lessons:
https://www.paulmason.org/wp-content...ynism-v1.2.pdf
Labour lost twice as many votes to LibDem/Green/SNP as it did to the Tories - but those votes had gone long before the election was called as Labour was caught on the Brexit fence. But I'm not convinced it would have been any better for Labour if it had chosen a side and had gone 'soft Brexit' or '2nd Referendum & Remain'.
I am certain it would have gone better if we had a decent leader
Phillips is distrusted by the membership. She has no chance of becoming leader.
I’m not a fan. She seems to be on the verge of tears every time she speaks.
Trouble is the membership has a lot of momentum supporters and that idiot from unite has his block vote
God knows who labour are going to elect but please let it be a moderate
I agree.
She is very good with the one liners and the pithy interventions in parliament (that sound spontaneous but probably aren't). She has a high approval rating from the centrist media (which will play well with Paul and Sludge who want middle ground). But she has a lot of baggage herself from previous speeches and select committee interventions (the Tory press will rip her apart), she has threatened to walk away from Labour a few times (won't play well with the membership), has been calculatedly disloyal and has acted appallingly to some of her colleagues (Diane Abbott may be an easy target but Jess Phillips was out of order). She does also seem flakey - and a bit like Boris Johnson she seems to want the job but not to want to do the work that goes with it.
http://gal-dem.com/as-we-rally-to-su...-diane-abbott/
I would prefer Lisa Nandy if candidates close to the current leadership are rejected - which I hope they aren't.
Jess Phillips is not liked as she is not very political , was one of first Labour MP to call out the misogyny and anti semitism that exists, and way back reognised the electoral liabilty of Corbyn, which seems to have come to frusion.
I bet there are some reading what I said in this thread thinking "he's a Tory", let me assure them that nothing could be further from the truth. My biggest motivation on Thursday, by a long distance, was to use my vote to try to prevent a majority Conservative Government - I eventually decided that, in my constituency, Labour represented the best chance of doing so, but would have voted for any party that I thought presented the best opportunity of keeping a Conservative out if I had lived elsewhere.
I see the Conservative party as the main enemy and have always done so, but, for much of my life, I've often wondered if that was the case for some who favour the party I've always cast my vote for in General Elections when I felt they really needed it. Yes, the Tory's are an enemy to them, but I'm not convinced they are the main one - that would be the "enemy within".
To illustrate what I mean, there's a video of Nicola Sturgeon celebrating Jo Swinson's defeat doing the rounds which has caused her some minor embarrassment. For myself, I think it was a natural reaction and have no problem with it, but I would certainly do if you replaced Ms Sturgeon with a Labour activist/representative and Ms Swinson with, say, Jess Phillips. Sadly, I do not think that such a scenario is beyond the bounds of possibility - in fact, I feel it would happen thousands of times over.
Labour has no chance while there's a possibility that such a thing will happen - history, and common sense, proves it.
Firstly, one thing I had never considered for a moment in my life previously was fearing being hit over the head with a "pamphlet". Having spent not far short of an hour reading the one you linked, that is no longer the case!
I think Paul Mason talks a lot of sense and agree with him about the effect of having, to all intents and purposes, an alliance between the main party of the right and the main party of the far right - I was never optimistic of there being anything else but a majority Conservative Government, but the single moment when I became about 95% sure it was going to happen was when Farage climbed down to announce that the Brexit Party would not contest Tory held seats.
For me, the logic which suggests the other, what he calls progressive, parties should have come to some sort of similar arrangement is overpowering in the current political climate. Much as I would have baulked at any arrangement with the Lib Dems after what they did in 2010 (especially given their leader's voting record when in coalition), I would have accepted the need to have one and it seems to me that the reason there wasn't a deal was down to arrogance and misplaced optimism (putting it diplomatically!) on the part of Labour and the Lib Dems.
While the figures Mason presents regarding numbers who switched from Labour to other parties look like accurate ones to me, I do feel that more analysis tells you that the slightly less than a million who defected to the Conservatives hurt Labour far more than the 1.7 million who opted for one of Lib Dems, SNP, Greens or Plaid.
I stand to be corrected by others who'll know better than me here, but I can only think of Kensington as a seat where it could be said that defectors to the Lib Dems cost Labour a seat and, even then, it would have only needed less than a hundred to make the switch from Labour to Conservative to have brought about the eventual Conservative majority of 150. In other seats switchers to the Lib Dems may have helped that party win very occasionally, but, mostly, they had very little impact and I'm pretty sure I'm right in saying that it happened mostly in seats Labour were never going to win.
Similarly, the small number switching from Labour to the Greens had no significant impact when you consider the size of Caroline Lucas' usual majority in Brighton Pavilion and I'm not aware of any switchers to Plaid Cymru making a decisive difference. As for the SNP, I cannot say for sure, but have not heard or read anything about Labour switchers being responsible for any of the seats that party won.
By contrast, there was much talk pre election about the number of seats in old industrial towns in stretching from the West Midlands, through North East Wales, and then the whole of the North of England that were held by both Conservative and Labour with small majorities. i'm pretty sure that it was in these areas where the far greater part of the switching from Labour to Conservative took part and the impact of that was far more seismic for Labour than the one felt from switchers to other progressive parties even if the numbers doing so were lower.
I agree that the fewer Labour to Tory switchers had a much bigger impact on the result than the Labour to ‘other’.
I also agree that there are some people in the Labour Party (and not only or even mainly on the Corbyn side) for whom the internal battle outweighs the fight with other parties and the job of winning wider support amongst the public.
I am happy that Corbyn has moved the political debate to the left (to the extent that the Tories were in some instances placing themselves to the left of Ed Milliband because they thought the public mood had shifted so much - even if it was not through any conviction) and I don’t want to see that abandoned because of a misplaced analysis of why Labour lost.
A better communicator with less baggage and a less controlling apparatus (that applied to pre-Corbyn too), listening to and connecting with the different tribes of voters and becoming a political force that campaigns outside elections would make a big difference. Andy Burham was saying yesterday that Labour didn’t use its local government and campaign experience or the people like him who could have played a big role in the election. That was a mistake too.
Labour need to shift public opinion as well as meet it. Corbyn to my mind was a mixed bag but on balance positive - but it is time for a change of personality, of organisation, and a slight change of direction. I was thinking it is a bit like stale Warnock handing over to Harris, but that may not be a good analogy - other than it is sensible to review, learn and evolve but not rip it up and start again.
These are interesting statistics I just came across (courtesy of Yougov):
Capture.JPG
A deserved savaging of Phillips in this article: Hot Mic Moment Exposes Insane Sleaziness Of British Political/Media Class - https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/h...s-909bd4980ba2
The ammo for it is the interview (below) she gave Channel 4 last Friday when she came across as a political crisis actor and wholly insincere.
Lisa nandy and a lib lab pact in swing seats so the tories don't rely on the anti tory vote splitting
Hopefully this will bring a coalition government sometime in the future
I cant see there ever being a majority labour government again in this country
The vast majority of tory voters are educational under achievers ?
It's not a surprise but it's a worry for the labour party
Labour went from 209 seats at the 1983 General Election to exactly double that number 14 years later and a thumping majority, even though they attracted less of the popular vote than the Tories managed last week for their 365 seats.
For all fans of the red and blue teams: you keep voting for one or other side of a duopoly. If they were football teams then aside from the different coloured strips the sponsors names on them would be identical. Most prominent across the chest would read City of London Usurers 'cause those charlatans run the show. The same mobsters have submerged not just Blighty but the entire world in inextinguishable debts.
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