What is the point of Labour ?

[invergowrie arab]

3 hours ago, tbsouth said:

Ah Lord Robertson......saw him a few times when i was on Islay....just happened to be talking to an ex policeman from the Dumbarton area who had dealings with Thomas Hamilton when the 'Lord' walked past.....i wont say what he said though.

Volunteering his time in QVS?

[tbsouth]

It was about 'an island' where both men were....

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Clive Lewis to stand as Labour leader.

[GordonS]

On 17/12/2019 at 21:01, Granny Danger said:

Reading reports from the PLP meeting.  Labour MPs have every right to be upset with Corbyn’s incompetence but what’s also emerging is the face of the right wing arseholes who never really had any place in the Labour Party.

Corbyn and the NEC shouldn’t have been so accommodating with these people; they should have been deselected.  It wouldn’t have led to any worse result and would have resulted in a better restart.

 

"The way to win back people who voted for Boris Johnson, the most right-wing Conservative leader ever, is to purge the centrists and become more left wing."

Well, it's a theory.

Yes, the policies poll well. But it doesn't matter when the electorate don't believe you can deliver them or are capable of handling everything else - especially the money.

The only Labour leader elected in the UK in 45 years is Tony Blair. They rejected Callaghan, Foot, Kinnock (twice), Brown, Milliband, Corbyn and now, in record numbers, Corbyn again. Even in Blair's final election, he lost the popular vote in England to Michael Howard.

Since 1950 only Wilson and Blair have won general elections for Labour.

If you can't win in the high mortgage cul-de-sacs, you can't win an election. And the left can't win there.

[Granny Danger]

25 minutes ago, GordonS said:

"The way to win back people who voted for Boris Johnson, the most right-wing Conservative leader ever, is to purge the centrists and become more left wing."

Well, it's a theory.

Yes, the policies poll well. But it doesn't matter when the electorate don't believe you can deliver them or are capable of handling everything else - especially the money.

The only Labour leader elected in the UK in 45 years is Tony Blair. They rejected Callaghan, Foot, Kinnock (twice), Brown, Milliband, Corbyn and now, in record numbers, Corbyn again. Even in Blair's final election, he lost the popular vote in England to Michael Howard.

Since 1950 only Wilson and Blair have won general elections for Labour.

If you can't win in the high mortgage cul-de-sacs, you can't win an election. And the left can't win there.

Why is your first sentence in quotation marks?

[dorlomin]

This is not 1974, it is not 1997. Corbyn wanted to go back to the 70s and the older voters who remember them rejected him very strongly. Some seem to think Blair II is the way forward, that was also a politics of its era. This is not just about the UK and Corbyn, across the world social democratic parties are failing, nationalism is rising, international treaties being broken up. 

The Tory victory fits into a much bigger picture.

Labour will continue to get big majorities in the main cities of the UK, young, prosperous, educated, multicultural. People wired in to the modern global economy. It needs to be empathetic to the people who rejected it and their reasons. Anyone who thinks Dennis Skinner and Laura Pidock lost out to tories because they were too right wing or not loyal enough to the leader needs their head examined.

The modern global economy is creating losers out of the people of the industrial heartlands of the 60s. Places that relied on skilled labour rather than degrees for good paying jobs, but the skilled jobs were shipped off to Guangzhou and the high street died out too Amazon. You do not have to go to north England to see it, look at Motherwell. Hollowed out towns that are losing their young people and feel like they are dying. There are scores of Motherwells across England. 

 

Its a football forum, maybe this will cut through. 

 

 

Perhaps the SNPs version of civic nationalism and social democracy that is openly proud of its country is part of the roadmap forward. Sack off the ideologues and find people who are competent and practical.

I have spent 4 years beating my head against a wall saying Corbyn is incompetent and surrounded by hard left ideologues. Somehow I suspect I will be doing more of that in the coming months\years. 

[Granny Danger]

5 minutes ago, dorlomin said:

This is not 1974, it is not 1997. Corbyn wanted to go back to the 70s and the older voters who remember them rejected him very strongly. Some seem to think Blair II is the way forward, that was also a politics of its era. This is not just about the UK and Corbyn, across the world social democratic parties are failing, nationalism is rising, international treaties being broken up. 

The Tory victory fits into a much bigger picture.

Labour will continue to get big majorities in the main cities of the UK, young, prosperous, educated, multicultural. People wired in to the modern global economy. It needs to be empathetic to the people who rejected it and their reasons. Anyone who thinks Dennis Skinner and Laura Pidock lost out to tories because they were too right wing or not loyal enough to the leader needs their head examined.

The modern global economy is creating losers out of the people of the industrial heartlands of the 60s. Places that relied on skilled labour rather than degrees for good paying jobs, but the skilled jobs were shipped off to Guangzhou and the high street died out too Amazon. You do not have to go to north England to see it, look at Motherwell. Hollowed out towns that are losing their young people and feel like they are dying. There are scores of Motherwells across England. 

 

Its a football forum, maybe this will cut through. 

 

 

Perhaps the SNPs version of civic nationalism and social democracy that is openly proud of its country is part of the roadmap forward. Sack off the ideologues and find people who are competent and practical.

I have spent 4 years beating my head against a wall incompetent and surrounded by hard left ideologues. Somehow I suspect I will be doing more of that in the coming months\years. 

Must try harder...

[ICTChris]

Did Liverpool vote Leave in 2016? I thought it was heavily Remain, against trend for the North of England.

[dorlomin]

12 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Did Liverpool vote Leave in 2016? I thought it was heavily Remain, against trend for the North of England.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Walton_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

 

Quote

The constituency is one of five covering the city of Liverpool and covers the north-centre of the city thereby taking in Walton, Clubmoor, Orrell Park, Anfield, Everton and Fazakerley. The grounds of Liverpool F.C. (Anfield) and Everton F.C. (Goodison Park), the city's two major football clubs, are in the constituency.

Quote

In the 2016 referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, the constituency is estimated to have voted by a 7.6% majority in favour of leaving the EU 

If anyone is really really bored they can get an estimated by constituency break down here. 

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/parliament-and-elections/elections-elections/brexit-votes-by-constituency/

[Granny Danger]

1 hour ago, MixuFixit said:

This article is fascinating. The Tories just went ahead and adopted the Surkov doctrine. If people haven't already it's essential you delete your Facebook account.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/boris-johnson-made-politics-awful-then-asked-people-vote-it-away/

If you told a hundred random voters that the Tories were deliberately undermining democracy how many would believe you and how many would care?

People have stopped caring, if they ever did in the first place, and it’s going to take something approaching a miracle, or maybe a disaster, to change that.

Meanwhile, returning to the topic of this thread, is it just a coincidence that all the people who want Labour to abandon its radical policies are people who didn’t want Labour to win in the first place?

[John Lambies Doos]

Northern English labour heartlands are coming round to the realisation that the Scottish central belt did 5 yrs ago. That is, we've been voting labour for 50yrs and we still live in a shite hole.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

Northern English labour heartlands are coming round to the realisation that the Scottish central belt did 5 yrs ago. That is, we've been voting labour for 50yrs and we still live in a shite hole.

The good people of Northern England have now made two very serious errors of judgement, and for those they will assuredly pay a very heavy price.

As for Labour, they are now impotent in the face of two powerful but very contrasting forms of nationalism, and I'm struggling to see how they can accommodate them both.

Scottish Labour in particular has for years now peddled the line of solidarity with Darlington and Dudley; the events of 12/12 have killed off that argument stone dead and it will be interesting to see if the penny will finally drop.

[HTG]

1 hour ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

The good people of Northern England have now made two very serious errors of judgement, and for those they will assuredly pay a very heavy price.

As for Labour, they are now impotent in the face of two powerful but very contrasting forms of nationalism, and I'm struggling to see how they can accommodate them both.

Scottish Labour in particular has for years now peddled the line of solidarity with Darlington and Dudley; the events of 12/12 have killed off that argument stone dead and it will be interesting to see if the penny will finally drop.
 

Of course the penny won't drop. SNPBAD. 

If it's true thatIain Murray would rather see the death of Labour than the death of the union then the penny is, at best, floating.

[invergowrie arab]

I know we have the argument that Scotland shoyld show solidarity with the English working class.

Im just interested of any examples where that solidarity was extended the other way or a Labour politician down south had a fucking peep to say about Scotlands budget being cut, the effect of Westminster rules on drugs and immigration having a devastating affect on our communities or nuclear weapons within a bawhair of our major population centre.

[Granny Danger]

The Labour Party have set up a panel of party figures to “review its general election failure”.

One of those who will sit on it is (drumroll) Ed Miliband.

You have to give Labour their due, they love a bit of irony.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50888060

[dorlomin]

27 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

The Labour Party have set up a panel of party figures to “review its general election failure”.

One of those who will sit on it is (drumroll) Ed Miliband.

You have to give Labour their due, they love a bit of irony.

 Who else do they have. All the people who actually win elections drive the bed wetters like you into drooling hysteria. 

A very large chunk of the Labour party supporters hate the British people with a visceral passion that is obvious to all outside their fantasist bubbles. They have no interest in winning elections, only wallowing in smug self pity. 

 

[Benjamin_Nevis]

10 hours ago, invergowrie arab said:

I know we have the argument that Scotland shoyld show solidarity with the English working class.

Im just interested of any examples where that solidarity was extended the other way or a Labour politician down south had a fucking peep to say about Scotlands budget being cut, the effect of Westminster rules on drugs and immigration having a devastating affect on our communities or nuclear weapons within a bawhair of our major population centre.

A very good question. I certainly can't recall any 'solidarity' coming the other way. Given the english working class have returned a number of Tory MPs, appear to be in favour of brexit in order to get rid of Johnny Foreigner and may well be largely racist (esp in the north of England), then I'd rather we weren't associated with these c***s in any way whatsoever. Seeing them suffer after a couple of years of BoJo's government will actually be pretty funny tbqh. 

[Fullerene]

1 hour ago, Granny Danger said:

The Labour Party have set up a panel of party figures to “review its general election failure”.

One of those who will sit on it is (drumroll) Ed Miliband.

You have to give Labour their due, they love a bit of irony.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50888060

My prediction:

The review will conclude that it is because not enough people voted Labour and the Tories won more seats.

[Granny Danger]

25 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

My prediction:

The review will conclude that it is because not enough people voted Labour and the Tories won more seats.

^^^^ Ed.

[dorlomin]

There are queues of people having a crack at Johnson for his background, Eton educated and an easy life as a journalist through his fathers connections.

Labours campaign chief went to Winchester not Eton, his father a former head of the BBC got him the connections to his easy life as a well connected journalist. His career was basically writing how horrid the world was for Guardian readers and apologist crap about how misunderstood Stalin was. (Seamus Milne)

The other figure brought in to be some sort of strategic adviser was another public school boy, son of the herald of Scotland

Whos career had been working for trade unions and far left causes. Another well known Stalinist apologist: Andrew Murray. 

These are the clowns who's complete lack of any electoral political experience had them directing Labours campaigning resources to tory seats with 5000 majorities and seats that Labour eventually came third in rather than trying to defend soon to be marginals. Utter wankers without the faintest clue of life outside their privileged cliques of upper class psuedo revolutionaries. Decades of spouting incoherent and irrelevant drivel about Marx, Stalin and the latest crank cause of the week. When people were saying that Labour had been taken over by the far left, the denials were thick and fast. But actual well known posh boy marxists were the ones coming up with the campaigns. 

Often experienced political journalists would express surprise at how unprepared Labours front bench were for interviews, these are the clowns who did not know the basics of PR and how to prep for talking to journalists. Even during the final weeks of the campaign, you could see the utter train wreck that was Corbyn on Andrew Neil. The shambolic amateurism of people whos whole career amounted to getting some NUS staff to organise a demo and the SWP to print of their usual poster and the usual suspects to turn up and give speeches. 

Both still in their jobs. 

The current Labour party chairman, Ian Lavery, a man whos pre parliament career involved getting large sums of money from the dwindling NUM under suspicious circumstances, who over seen the collapse to 15% of the vote in the 2019 European election then the car crash that was the general election, in which his magical touch with the people turned a 10 000 majority into one of 814, still in his job. 

Chancers, impostors and charlatans. Completely out of their depths and none of them seen at risk for their jobs. Even though Labour has been cutting staff like crazy over the past few weeks. 

The denial of the state that Labour has fallen into by the Corbynbots is every bit and blinding as the support for Trump by republicans. It is an undiluted amateur shitshow. 

For that lot the "period of reflection" is gazing lovingly into the mirror at how amazing it is to be collecting £90 000 a year for sitting on your arse.