Friday 5th April 2017

[tinyclanger2]

To be honest I think the results are as much to do with UKIP liberating people back into a primal unpleasantness that had been at least somewhat restricted by earlier decency, as with whether Jezza is shit or not.

[howsillyofme1]

To be honest I think the results are as much to do with UKIP liberating people back into a primal unpleasantness that had been at least somewhat restricted by earlier decency, as with whether Jezza is shit or not.

I would say much more effect than Corbyn actually......we saw it in 2015 election as well when Tories were panicking and moving to the right....explains referendum promise

[TechnicalEphemera]

In other news,
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... n-failures

As AK has pointed out he is competent, and to be fair I thought he handled the capital expenditure claims robustly. Not sure he goes down well on the doorstep.

I have some sympathy with Curtice. In terms of vote share the Tories didn't do spectacularly. They'll do better in the GE, but as ASK said, 45% looks a bit too far.

I don't know. The best argument for Corbyn now is that there is no viable winning alternative, and I fear that is true. Looks like a really bleak future.

Grammar schools ffs. What is this, 1952?

A resignation even now would help, but nobody can fix the mess in time to be competitive in June. Whether the future is bleak depends on who the next leader is.

The Tory coalition is, as others have pointed out, built on a pack of lies and unstable. The risk for May is that she will fundamentally mishandle the economy. People forgive recessions, not full blown debacles. Very soon she is going to start failing to deliver on promises. She doesn't do charm, empathy or charisma, she won't get much slack.

The best hope for a recovering Labour Party is to have a competent professional and effective leader. The challenge is to work out what winning coalition they should try and assemble and how they can create a vision that is appealing, credible and fits core Labour values. The line to take on Brexit is the biggest question, maybe concentrate on the "great repeal bill." and attack each negotiating failure as incompetence and broken promises.

The government and its policies are shambolic, provide a contrast to that. Re-use the Cameron line from 2010 - This can't go on.

The huge challenge is how to get the working class kipper back without turning into UKIP.

[howsillyofme1]

I agree with much of that last post

However we had that leader in 2015 and he lost. We will see on June 8 what the results look like....Labour could realistically get the same or more than in 2015

The Kippers have gone Tory because they believe in Mays Brexit vision....what they do after leaving is anyone's guess

Again, all the focus on the leader but Labour haven't acted as a professional and united party since before 2005

Remember all the Blair Brown stories, David Miliband apparently planning a leadership challenge. Blairites describing Brown as having psychological flaws

This poison has been around for years and affected performance since then

To say this only began with Corbyn is ignoring what really has been happening since 2005

[Willow904]

RoT asked earlier about the date of the GE following an early GE under the FTPA. I was curious, so checked. I don't know the exact mechanism in the Act that dictates how the date is arrived at but on this occasion it will be 5 years, not 4:

http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ ... ry/SN06111" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

After the election on 8 June, the next general election is scheduled to take place on 5 May 2022.

The Act itself does not affect the operation of parliamentary sessions but from the spring of 2012, sessions have run from spring to spring.

[HindleA]

The big question is..


How does refitman know the size of peoples' shoes,or lucky guess?

[TechnicalEphemera]

I agree with much of that last post

However we had that leader in 2015 and he lost. We will see on June 8 what the results look like....Labour could realistically get the same or more than in 2015

The Kippers have gone Tory because they believe in Mays Brexit vision....what they do after leaving is anyone's guess

Again, all the focus on the leader but Labour haven't acted as a professional and united party since before 2005

Remember all the Blair Brown stories, David Miliband apparently planning a leadership challenge. Blairites describing Brown as having psychological flaws

This poison has been around for years and affected performance since then

To say this only began with Corbyn is ignoring what really has been happening since 2005

I agree the Blairite, Brownite wars were a disaster, but triggered post 2005 by a fear of losing. When you have a leader who looks like a winner unity is much easier.

Ed Miliband had the same trouble, because he never really looked the part, even if he was a great thinker. If he had enjoyed bigger polling leads it would have been far easier for him. I don't agree with SH that 2015 was winnable, Scotland and Cameron saw to that. A stronger Labour performance north of the border would have changed the narrative, but was never going to happen. Incidentally Miliband would have beaten May easily, she is a poor candidate who has got lucky.

Leadership is complex, but really when it is clear you don't have what it takes you should quit. There is no shame in trying and failing, but there is in hanging on long after people have lost faith. You can't demand people follow you, they do so because they believe in you. This is especially true of voters.

One summary of this election I have seen is "voters want May not Corbyn to negotiate Brexit, and that is all you need to know." If that really is it they are wrong, but they don't see it.

In politics the only currency that guarantees loyalty is winning, within the constraints of your political party. Even May could be ditched before the 202x election. Thatcher had a secure following until the Poll Tax, Major never recovered from the ERM and IDS got ditched as soon as he started looking hopeless.

[TechnicalEphemera]

One of the worst infrastructure projects in history screws up predictably again.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05 ... e-blunder/

[howsillyofme1]

Again some fair points but I don't agree on some

Why did Miliband not look the part? Was it him or how he was portrayed. Remember most of the public only see the leaders through the lens of what the media portrays them as and neither Brown, Miliband, or for that matter Corbyn were treated well by the press. In fact some really vile things were done with the aim of undermining them

I still believe Leveson is still in the minds of the media, compounded by the fact that a Corbyn Government would almost certainly introduce media ownership rules and the cabal of tax dodging billionaire oligarchs using the UK as a plaything would be over

I too am not convinced by the Corbyn leadership qualities but there is a point that goes further. He won against 3 candidates who showed no courage or clear principles. That was not his fault....and then a year later against Owen Smith - a really poor opponent.

The PLP have probably helped to make Corbyn dig his heels in - their shambolic attempts to remove him have contributed heavily ti the situation and they should not be absolved of blame. It may be that he is only staying on because he has no trust the party hierarchy will not try to stitch up the election of a successor

The way that members have been treated over the last 2 years has been despicable - suspensions and banning of meetings all over the place

I, as a member, fully support Corbyn in this and would like to see the redemocratisation of the party structures and the ending of games. The General Secretary should have been sacked a long time ago.

It is easy to say he should resign because of the PLP but if he goes then the membership should have the right to give their views on the people who are supposed to represent the party that they fund and those who take wages aid by subscription

The party has been mess for years and Corbyn is a good shield for some of the others

John Prescott is a man who is the ultimate party man and he has been making his views known.....he sees things differently from some of the other ex ministers.....and how Mandelson a man who twice brung the party into disrepute has not been suspended is beyond me

[TechnicalEphemera]

Again some fair points but I don't agree on some

Why did Miliband not look the part? Was it him or how he was portrayed. Remember most of the public only see the leaders through the lens of what the media portrays them as and neither Brown, Miliband, or for that matter Corbyn were treated well by the press. In fact some really vile things were done with the aim of undermining them

I still believe Leveson is still in the minds of the media, compounded by the fact that a Corbyn Government would almost certainly introduce media ownership rules and the cabal of tax dodging billionaire oligarchs using the UK as a plaything would be over

I too am not convinced by the Corbyn leadership qualities but there is a point that goes further. He won against 3 candidates who showed no courage or clear principles. That was not his fault....and then a year later against Owen Smith - a really poor opponent.

The PLP have probably helped to make Corbyn dig his heels in - their shambolic attempts to remove him have contributed heavily ti the situation and they should not be absolved of blame. It may be that he is only staying on because he has no trust the party hierarchy will not try to stitch up the election of a successor

The way that members have been treated over the last 2 years has been despicable - suspensions and banning of meetings all over the place

I, as a member, fully support Corbyn in this and would like to see the redemocratisation of the party structures and the ending of games. The General Secretary should have been sacked a long time ago.

It is easy to say he should resign because of the PLP but if he goes then the membership should have the right to give their views on the people who are supposed to represent the party that they fund and those who take wages aid by subscription

The party has been mess for years and Corbyn is a good shield for some of the others

John Prescott is a man who is the ultimate party man and he has been making his views known.....he sees things differently from some of the other ex ministers.....and how Mandelson a man who twice brung the party into disrepute has not been suspended is beyond me

To set the record straight on Mandleson he was to a degree the genuine victim of a media witch hunt. He was acquitted and much later buried the hatchet with Brown to help out.

Ed never convinced the public, much like Kinnock. I got a lot of negative comments from potential Labour supporters about both. I have no idea why, it just was.

The membership has been corrupted by the £3 brigade and the dodgy recruiting via Unite and Momentum. Of course the other side have retaliated which doesn't help either. Far too many leadership voters have no interest in seeing a Labour government, you should never confuse popularity in a tiny self selecting group of activists with electability. We need less membership input not more.

Corbyn should have done the decent thing and quit after the EU debacle, Ed would have done.

[HindleA]

It was tough but it had to be done,completing unfinished New Statesman crosswords starting from 1982,I won it a couple of times,a £5 book token-in my scrap book of my lifetimes achievements along with lifesaving without drowning and second place team in the tug of war (the girls always won).


Too much hate/anger in the World,love each other more.

[HindleA]

TC2 (apologies) harangued.

Love and kisses.

[HindleA]

FWIW never did quite get the "in crowded room",thing,to me that conjures up people fighting for elbow room and shouting "yer what?" at each other.In any case it would be no smoking,fuck that for a lark,so I largely talk or mutter to myself,engage in one to ones or shout bollox when suitably annoyed,rather likeI do in "real" life.

[seeingclearly]

To be honest I think the results are as much to do with UKIP liberating people back into a primal unpleasantness that had been at least somewhat restricted by earlier decency, as with whether Jezza is shit or not.

Thanks for that concession. At least it makes sense. And acknowledges that Britain had a pre-corbyn existence where there is no possibility of his all pervasive heinousness tainting the march to primal unpleasantness you describe. That marches' rightness now being as far as they can take it.....

Do you think in general people haven't quite got the hang of what right means in this context....


Am having increasing difficulty with apostrophes, hope my posts are largely too late to bother anyone.

[HindleA]

It was a month ago anyway

[NonOxCol]

I wake up and see the Fascist's electoral opponent has been hacked.

Insert sarcastic shock GIF here....

[SpinningHugo]

To be honest I think the results are as much to do with UKIP liberating people back into a primal unpleasantness that had been at least somewhat restricted by earlier decency, as with whether Jezza is shit or not.

Thanks for that concession. At least it makes sense. And acknowledges that Britain had a pre-corbyn existence where there is no possibility of his all pervasive heinousness tainting the march to primal unpleasantness you describe. That marches' rightness now being as far as they can take it.....

Do you think in general people haven't quite got the hang of what right means in this context....


Am having increasing difficulty with apostrophes, hope my posts are largely too late to bother anyone.

This will be the Corbyn defence, and the defence of those who voted for him. "Nothing to be done, the Ukip vote went back to the Tories," It isn't plausible.

Rhat Ukip vote came equally from Labour

https://www.ncpolitics.uk/2015/11/new-n ... rong.html/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If Labour want to win it has to appeal to people now voting Tory. True today as it is always true. Claiming, as Corbyn did, that he'd inspire non-voters was a fantasy (as so much of his pitch was).

[howsillyofme1]

If people who vote UKIP are keen on a May Brexit then i.e. extremely plausible vote Tory - Tory is now UKIP

Once they have left Labour, like the SNP voters, there is no guarantee they will come back in the same way

It all depends on what motivated them to vote UKIP and if I look at the Tory Party policies then I can see why they are attractive.....Hard Brexit, clamp down on immigration - take the UK back to a time that never existed. may is the perfect UKIP PM

Labour struggles with this type of voter. Despite your thoughts the Labour Brexit plan will be different from the Tories, the Labour Party leadership still is pro-immigration and also they believe in helping the less fortunate, not demonising them. Skepticism of the monarchy and nuclear weaponry may also be a factor

It is very plausible - it may not be correct but we do not know that and neither do you. Your data is inappropriate to allow you to draw the conclusions you have