[Politics] Next leader of the Labour party

[London Irish]

No I'm afraid they do.

What about this over-reaching fact: Labour haven't won an election in this country without a centre-leaning front bench since 1974.

I think you mean 2005. Whatever fizz was in New Labour went flat years ago, there is no point trying to stick that back in the bottle and pretending it will be to anyone's taste. Blarism lost all those Scottish seats, Jim Murphy the arch Blairite was in charge of the party up there then. Yes Corbyn didnt win them back because the Scots already have their own Corbyn in Sturgeon.

"New Labour" lost votes in every single election after 1997. By 2005, Blair got less votes than Corbyn did last Thursday. When Blair left he was the most unpopular prime minister on record. Gordon Brown carried the can for that in the 2010 election defeat. Ed Miliband didn't so much better in 2015. In 2017, Labour got its biggest increase in votes since 1945, a jump of 3 million voters.

Rather than the simplistic narrative on Corbyn (he's resigned now anyway, so really time to talk about something else), Labour needs to look at what it did right in between 2015 and 2017 and build on that. The policies were good and popular. Part of that will be looking at what it did wrong between 2017 and 2019 also, of course. Forgetting about its Labour Leave voters I'd say is number one

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Happy to agree that PR isn't without it's failings. But FPTP doesn't solve the issue you highlight, except for the case of a handful of marginals. My MP ranks 640ish out of 650 in attendance, he doesn't campaign for anything meaningful on behalf of his constituents, yet gets in here because of the colour of his rosette. That is the case in at least 500 of the 650 seats I'd guess (although perhaps a lower figure in this unusual, Brexit-dominated election).

There is certainly no perfect form of democracy. I am just uncomfortable with severing the link between electors and representative. I am even more uncomfortable with the consequent transfer of power to London political machines. FWIW I am in a similar position to you in that I live in a constituency with an overwhelming Tory majority.
As to whether FPTP addresses the points I raised; ask the 50 Labour MPs who lost their seats in Leave areas.

 

[Blue3]

Good on you for getting out there. It gives you more standpoint to comment on what people are thinking than the great majority on here.

I agree about the approval ratings. I generally did like Corbyn, but for the life of me I have no idea why, for someone who believed in his cause and hated the idea of the harmful effects of Tory policy on the country, he didn't recognise earlier in the year and step aside.

It's like he hated the idea of a centrist Labour leader as much as the idea of a Tory one. Loads of momentum types seem to feel like this. No idea why. Yes to live in a genuinely socialist country would be wonderful, but we're not going to get that, so surely Blairism is better than the hard right tories

Blairs first term was very good funding the NHS building of new Hospitals was at an all time high and that's speaking as somone who spent 34 years working in the NHS class sizes were reduced shore start was set up and the Bank of England freed from direct political control, the good Friday agreement all good things but the NHS PFI, siding with the USA bombing and ultimately invading the Middle East were disasters for which that Government will be tarnished with

 

[Lenny Rider]

Apologies if fixtures, but nearly a week on, I'm still astounded by the amount of supposed intelligent people still defending Corbyn.

History will view him as a political version of the 'Emperors New Clothes', he fooled a (large?) number of people until the optimum moment when he was exposed for what he was, a fraud.

A real outsider, but someone who I think will appeal right across the spectrum is Chris Evans the South Wales MP who represents Kinnock's old seat.

Going for a female leader, because that's what Uncle Jeremy said, is yet another recipe for disaster.

 

[Simster]

I think you mean 2005. Whatever fizz was in New Labour went flat years ago, there is no point trying to stick that back in the bottle and pretending it will be to anyone's taste. Blarism lost all those Scottish seats, Jim Murphy the arch Blairite was in charge of the party up there then. Yes Corbyn didnt win them back because the Scots already have their own Corbyn in Sturgeon.

No, I mean 1974. People's perception of Blair in 2005 was not one of him being on the extreme left of his party. You're just re-writing history there. And Corbyn hasn't won them back because Sturgeon is a FAR better politician in almost every way. Sturgeon is nothing like Corbyn and it disingenuous of you to claim otherwise. They are both left of centre, but she dresses better, she's a better speaker, she looks more polished, and she hasn't skeletons in the cupboard. If that wasn't the case, Labour would have cleaned up in Scotland seeing as the SNP have made a mess of the Scottish NHS, yet she continues to win more and more seats.

"New Labour" lost votes in every single election after 1997. By 2005, Blair got less votes than Corbyn did last Thursday. When Blair left he was the most unpopular prime minister on record. Gordon Brown carried the can for that in the 2010 election defeat. Ed Miliband didn't so much better in 2015. In 2017, Labour got its biggest increase in votes since 1945, a jump of 3 million voters.

With the odd exception (Thatch), most leaders see vote share decline over successive elections. As for this jump in votes, is a 40.3% from 35.7% really all that impressive?

Rather than the simplistic narrative on Corbyn (he's resigned now anyway, so really time to talk about something else), Labour needs to look at what it did right in between 2015 and 2017 and build on that. The policies were good and popular. Part of that will be looking at what it did wrong between 2017 and 2019 also, of course. Forgetting about its Labour Leave voters I'd say is number one

I very much agree with all of that. In hindsight, they should have campaigned on a "inside a customs union, protecting workers rights" ticket. The swathes of morons who voted cuddly fat lying untrustworthy "Boris" will hopefully realise it is their own fault when their jobs hang by a thread or are reduced to being paid a pittance.

 

[BenGarfield]

No I'm afraid they do.

What about this over-reaching fact: Labour haven't won an election in this country without a centre-leaning front bench since 1974.

Out of interesr I just took a look at the 1974 Labour Manifesto. I think to many on this board it would be described as unrealistic, too detailed, and hard left, just says how far the Overton Window has drifted rightwards.

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

Not to JRG I would suspect.

He thinks Militant Tendency sold out in the 80s

I joined the Militant Tendency (the Irish section of the Committee for a Workers International) in 1982 - I am still a member of the Socialist Party in Ireland (Irish section of the CWI) today.

Ha Ha, if Labour dont boot the hard left out of the party, I dont think they will be back in power during Ben's lifetime.

The LP was founded as a socialist party and has had socialism as its main tenet right up until the Blairites completed the takeover in the 1990s - Corbyn was a minor shift back to the left - yet the constant refrain is that 'Labour' must boot out socialists when the LP membership is predominantly made up of socialists. The people who have taken over an usurped the LP are the Blairites.

 

[Simster]

There is certainly no perfect form of democracy. I am just uncomfortable with severing the link between electors and representative. I am even more uncomfortable with the consequent transfer of power to London political machines. FWIW I am in a similar position to you in that I live in a constituency with an overwhelming Tory majority.
As to whether FPTP addresses the points I raised; ask the 50 Labour MPs who lost their seats in Leave areas.

I've already pointed out that this election was unusual because of Brexit. But regardless, Labour will have lost seats anyway as it turns out. I'm not sure how you think FPTP addresses your points. Surely, those people will still have voted Tory, they just wouldn't have known which Labour MPs were losing their seats?

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

There is certainly no perfect form of democracy. I am just uncomfortable with severing the link between electors and representative. I am even more uncomfortable with the consequent transfer of power to London political machines. FWIW I am in a similar position to you in that I live in a constituency with an overwhelming Tory majority.
As to whether FPTP addresses the points I raised; ask the 50 Labour MPs who lost their seats in Leave areas.

I have always agreed with this point of view - it is good to be represented by an accountable individual, it makes sense that they are chosen by and represent people 'like us', so we have geordie and scouse and brummie and manc MP's as well as southerners, it is good to be able to vote them out if they are a ****. Martin Bell beating Neil Hamilton a case in point. But that doesn't mean we should continue with minority governments claiming huge mandates, with third, fourth and fifth parties never being able to gain traction. The fact that the conservatives have 1 MP for every 30,000 voters, the greens have 1 MP for every 860,000 voters and the Brexit Party have none despite 600,000 voters is just horrendous; or that the SNP have 48 seats for 1.2 million voters whereas the LibDems have 11 seats for 3.7 million voters - with that in mind how can we even claim to be a one-person one-vote democracy?

There are ways round it. Perhaps each MP is allocated a constituency, perhaps by choosing from a list whereby every party has a candidate for every seat. Perhaps half are linked to seats and the other half off a list. Perhaps we elect a lower house by seat and a more empowered upper house by PR. Perhaps we have regional elections with 10 or 20 regions, and choose the list order for each party, rather than having the parties choose it for us. Perhaps we go back to the AV idea, which was actually pretty good. Perhaps we just accept that neither system works perfectly, so lets at least have the version whereby people's votes actually count. That way everybody would be encouraged to vote, and no-one has to think about tactical voting.

I know this has always happened, governments have nearly always been elected on minority votes. Its never felt so stark a difference as it does now, however, perhaps the size of the majority relative to the size of the vote is such a contrast, perhaps because we kind of accept that we split into right and centre-right parties and left- and centre-left parties, and there is obviously a majority of votes for the left and centre-left but the right has the huge majority. It does feel very helpless though that 7 of 10 people you meet didn't vote for this loon and yet he has free rein to do whatever the **** he wants.

 

[London Irish]

No, I mean 1974. People's perception of Blair in 2005 was not one of him being on the extreme left of his party. You're just re-writing history there. And Corbyn hasn't won them back because Sturgeon is a FAR better politician in almost every way. Sturgeon is nothing like Corbyn and it disingenuous of you to claim otherwise. They are both left of centre, but she dresses better, she's a better speaker, she looks more polished, and she hasn't skeletons in the cupboard. If that wasn't the case, Labour would have cleaned up in Scotland seeing as the SNP have made a mess of the Scottish NHS, yet she continues to win more and more seats.

With the odd exception (Thatch), most leaders see vote share decline over successive elections. As for this jump in votes, is a 40.3% from 35.7% really all that impressive?

I very much agree with all of that. In hindsight, they should have campaigned on a "inside a customs union, protecting workers rights" ticket. The swathes of morons who voted cuddly fat lying untrustworthy "Boris" will hopefully realise it is their own fault when their jobs hang by a thread or are reduced to being paid a pittance.

Dresses much better lol. If Sturgeon was actually competing on a UK-wide basis, she would have been annihilated.

Miliband got 31% in 2015 - yes a jump in 9 points in Labour's vote is a pretty special, it had not happened since 1945. Let's not throw the baby out with bathwater, good things were achieved. You don't like Corbyn, fine, he's now history

 

[Ernest]

Apologies if fixtures, but nearly a week on, I'm still astounded by the amount of supposed intelligent people still defending Johnson

History will view him as a political version of the 'Emperors New Clothes', he fooled a (large?) number of people until the optimum moment when he was exposed for what he was, a fraud.

.

That's more like it

 

[Guinness Boy]

Scotland is gone thanks to the Tories, it will be independent now for certain so forget about that, the SNP is Labour in Scotland, they are identical parties

Again I strongly disagree.

The Tories have already said IndyRef 1 was a once in a generation event. They can hardly say that there should be no second referendum on Brexit and then allow the SNP one. What's going to happen if they say no? The Scotch get more and more angry and keep on electing the SNP instead of Labour. It's almost like it's some kind of strategy.

This is where the "fairness" of socialism falls down in this country. The Tories believe in winning at all costs, which reflects neo-liberal capatalism. They willl do anything to win. Labour? Not so much. They employ debate and fairness, something I personally approve of, but it doesn't seem to be buttering many parsnips.

I used a football analogy on Labour earlier in this thread. Good old fashioned 4-4-2 every week with an outdated coach and a loss every week that doesn't seem to worry the fans in the ground, but is to the indifference or derision of the rest of the football world. If the Tories were a football team they'd be the 1986 Argentinians (the Lib Dems would be Reading and the Brexit Party Millwall before you ask).

 

[Simster]

Dresses much better lol. If Sturgeon was actually competing on a UK-wide basis, she would have been annihilated.

Are you so naiive that you believe dress sense in the public eye doesn't matter. Plenty wouldn't vote Corbyn because he looks like a primary school teacher.
And again, you're making stuff up. She doesn't compete UK-wide, so we can only go on what she has managed in Scotland. And what she has managed is to completely annihilate everyone (especially Labour) up there.

Miliband got 31% in 2015 - yes a jump in 9 points in Labour's vote is a pretty special, it had not happened since 1945. Let's not throw the baby out with bathwater, good things were achieved. You don't like Corbyn, fine, he's now history

I do agree, some of the policies have been genuinely progressive and worth while. Making broadband free, for example, was an excellent policy, rubbished by people with no vision and under whom we'd never have seen public libraries and museums. Iain Duncan-Smith - total tw4t that he is - seems happy enough to enforce Universal Credit applications are all done online, but gives no thought to the people who might need UC not having the money for broadband at home.

Funnily enough, I didn't mind Corbyn particularly, but too many people did. And the problem for Labour is that all the while Momentum pull the strings, we'll see the same pattern repeated.

 

[London Irish]

Absolute nonsense. Unless Labour can re-engage in Scotland there won't be a Labour government again. At least not on their own. I don't see 48 seats being turned over without a Labour promise of IndyRef2 or else it's a coalition. Breaking up the Union will be manna to the Tories who will make that their next big scare story after Brexit. Corbyn has lost so much ground in the north Labour can't focus on Scotland anyway.

In 2017, Labour got within 3 points of the Tories while winning barely any seats in Scotland, it did so winning in places it had never won before like Kensington and Canterbury. Nothing stays the same, new generations arise and remake history, Labour cleaned up among young voters, edged it among working age voters but can't get through to older voters who suck up all the Tory lies fed to them on Facebook. The Boomer generation won this election but that generation won't be around forever, all to play for

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

Dresses much better lol. If Sturgeon was actually competing on a UK-wide basis, she would have been annihilated.

Miliband got 31% in 2015 - yes a jump in 9 points in Labour's vote is a pretty special, it had not happened since 1945. Let's not throw the baby out with bathwater, good things were achieved. You don't like Corbyn, fine, he's now history

To win, Labour has to hold a coalition together. With apologies for sweeping generalisations, the coalition is traditional working class /unions, together with liberal centrists who will never vote Tory but like the libdems and greens, together with what Boris would call 'one-nation Tories' but are basically middle-class people who want that happy medium of economic growth with good public services. The latter are the swing voters that decide who wins, the centrists decide if the result is close or a blow-out, and the working class are loyal.

But now a fourth grouping, socialist ideologues, have got hold of the party machinery, everything is different. The coalition came together pretty well in 2017, bringing back a lot of the centrists, but they couldn't win because they can't get many of the one-nation types who would never go near the socialists. In 2019 the liberal centrists have largely stayed but the working class/union bunch, normally so reliable (its their party after all), have left in droves. The centrists will be next to go, they have a soft spot for socialist ideas, but are surely going to stop being taken for a ride unless there is fundamental change in the party.

 

[London Irish]

Are you so naiive that you believe dress sense in the public eye doesn't matter. Plenty wouldn't vote Corbyn because he looks like a primary school teacher.
And again, you're making stuff up. She doesn't compete UK-wide, so we can only go on what she has managed in Scotland. And what she has managed is to completely annihilate everyone (especially Labour) up there.

I do agree, some of the policies have been genuinely progressive and worth while. Making broadband free, for example, was an excellent policy, rubbished by people with no vision and under whom we'd never have seen public libraries and museums. Iain Duncan-Smith - total tw4t that he is - seems happy enough to enforce Universal Credit applications are all done online, but gives no thought to the people who might need UC not having the money for broadband at home.

Funnily enough, I didn't mind Corbyn particularly, but too many people did. And the problem for Labour is that all the while Momentum pull the strings, we'll see the same pattern repeated.

You should actually go to a Momentum event like The World Transformed, it's held in Brighton once every 2 years. They are nothing like what you read in the Press. They concentrate on a positive policy vision like broadband and a national care service, there is no "Blairite trashing" because that doesn't win people over, only lifting people's confidence and hope does

 

[Wrong-Direction]

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Sent from my SM-A600FN using Tapatalk

 

[beorhthelm]

In 2017, Labour got within 3 points of the Tories while winning barely any seats in Scotland, it did so winning in places it had never won before like Kensington and Canterbury. Nothing stays the same, new generations arise and remake history, Labour cleaned up among young voters, edged it among working age voters but can't get through to older voters who suck up all the Tory lies fed to them on Facebook. The Boomer generation won this election but that generation won't be around forever, all to play for

thats a new one, older voters being led by Facebook.

 

[Guinness Boy]

You should actually go to a Momentum event like The World Transformed, it's held in Brighton once every 2 years. They are nothing like what you read in the Press. They concentrate on a positive policy vision like broadband and a national care service, there is no "Blairite trashing" because that doesn't win people over, only lifting people's confidence and hope does

Why is Momentum needed at all? Why not just the Labour Party? Can Labour not devise some positive policy visions and lift people's confidence?

The issue with Momentum is that it is very easy for the right wing press to paint it as a party within a party, just like millitant. The truth might be 100 miles away from that but it is yet another left-wing error that the press has been given that opportunity.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

I've already pointed out that this election was unusual because of Brexit. But regardless, Labour will have lost seats anyway as it turns out. I'm not sure how you think FPTP addresses your points. Surely, those people will still have voted Tory, they just wouldn't have known which Labour MPs were losing their seats?

True, but that last point is crucial. FPTP keeps MPs beholden to voters whereas PR keeps them beholden to the party. The opportunity to vote for and against individuals is important. Would any other Labour Party person apart from Peter Kyle win Hove ? Under PR he probably wouldn’t even be on Corbyn’s party list. Brexit is relevant because it is clearly important to leave voters to be represented by leavers. Mostly that is what happened in those northern seats last week. There are exceptions such as Dennis Skinner.