People trust the Tories over Labour to run the economy.
We only need to look at the Zahawi/Truss debacle really for a killer example...
And people still vote for them...
Why? I guess these people are totally stupid and suffering from some sort of Stockholm syndrome, where by they are far too proud to admit they may have been led down the garden path.
That seems to be a thing I encounter a lot, people will never admit they might be wrong, they'd sooner jump off a cliff than admit they need a re-think, its like some sort of modern mental illness.
Just look at those people who had the pub with the golliwogs... all they had to do was stop openly being arseholes, but they chose to die on that hill, lost thier business etc...
There's nothing rational about that...
We only need to look at the Zahawi/Truss debacle really for a killer example…
And people still vote for them…
I thought the Tories got rid of Liz Truss within days of her becoming Prime Minister precisely because they very quickly realised that voters wouldn't vote Tory if she was leader?
Labour almost always take a defensive position or even abandon any attempt to defend themselves – the Tory/LibDem attack on Labour’s hhandling of the global credit crisis (which imo was the single most impressive achievement by New Labour) and the subsequent deficit is a good example of this.
It’s strange beyond the imagination of Hollywood that the narrative that New Labour, & specifically Gordon Brown, caused a global banking crisis (which I’ve seen trotted out many times), and left the country bankrupt, which consequently directly “forced” Conservative & Lib Dem austerity measures. I just don’t understand why Labour have never seemed to defend their fiscal record & place it in contrast to Conservative’s. I just don’t get it; it’s like they also believe the narrative.
As others have mentioned, if Labour came out fighting & pointing up their own achievements people would maybe start to think of them in terms of winning an election & not the Conservatives losing one. It occurs to me that for whatever reason they want to distance themselves from their history. Labour seem to have a burning desire to reinvent themselves after every failure, whereas the Tories double down.
The irony is that if Gordon Brown has any responsibility with regards to the banking crisis it's that he embraced the Tories light touch deregulation mantra.
The Tories's are very good at blaming everything on Labour even when their own failings should be obvious.
People who don't benefit from Tory government vote tory for many reasons;
- Brainwashed over the years and convinced the the Tory party is still best for them
- No ability and/or desire to look into what the parties actually do (see point 1)
- Easily swayed by anti immigration, culture wars etc,. that in reality make no difference to them (see point 1)
Some of my own family vote Tory. They are not very bright or wealthy and when questioned for 30 seconds anything they believe seems to fall apart quickly and when discussing further they would clearly pick a Labour government based on their beliefs and thoughts around society.
So why don't they vote Labour - "You can't trust them and they will give money away". Question it for 30 seconds etc,. etc,.
Other Tories I speak to are wealthly and quite bright - their reasons for voting tory are because they are wealthy as they put the effort in and if everyone was like them it would all be fine. Pointing out the obvious issues with that approach tends to end the conversation.
The irony is that if Gordon Brown has any responsibility with regards to the banking crisis it’s that he embraced the Tories light touch deregulation mantra.
Indeed the tories attacked him for not being light touch enough.
It’s strange beyond the imagination of Hollywood that the narrative that New Labour, & specifically Gordon Brown, caused a global banking crisis (which I’ve seen trotted out many times), and left the country bankrupt, which consequently directly “forced” Conservative & Lib Dem austerity measures. I just don’t understand why Labour have never seemed to defend their fiscal record & place it in contrast to Conservative’s. I just don’t get it; it’s like they also believe the narrative.
Because they're bound by the same narrative of finite public money swilling around.
Labour might be thought of as broadly redistributive but they too believe that the the private sector feeds the public sector.
It's impossible to get anywhere much with this at the back of your policies.
Labour couldn't kick back because of their own framing. And even if you take their false framing as tax needed for services - no one really seems to want to actually tax anyone at the levels needed to make it all work.
Everything is totally back to front. Labour and Tory are committed to Neoliberalism because they can't see another option. Little will ever improve because of this.
This is why Labour have swung right - to fit the current system rather than actually trying to change it to benefit the public purpose.
The LP mission was always to quell industrial action whilst posing as defenders of the underdog. As strikes and class consciousness have increased the LP has moved further to the right to shut this down. Murdoch and co will be happy to give them a go as obsequious Starmer's made it very clear he won't frighten the horses or even boo to a goose.
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1655603477496619008?s=20
Polls all over the shop. Bit different than the Omnisis one above.
Bit different than the Omnisis one above.
Which is probably why neither should be taken too seriously. One gives the LibDems 16% the other one gives the LibDems 7%.
The poll of polls shows LibDem support remarkably stable and bumping along at 10-12% for the last 12 months.
https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/
Mullin says Corbyn “and his blinkered supporters” bore much of the blame for Labour’s defeat in the 2019 election. But he goes on: “Jeremy has behaved with dignity throughout, despite the extraordinary quantity of shite that has rained down upon him, much of it from people unworthy to tie his shoelaces.”
Fair comment imo.
Got the cowardice bit correct. Across the board.
So Starmer won't rule out a pact with the Libs.
I hope that will come with some demands from them. A smart move as I could almost be persuaded to tactically vote labour if I know that there is a slight chance he could be reined in.
" Boo boo them nasty libs made me be nice to the EU"
Starmer won't rule in or out anything at all depending on which way the flags are blowing. And then won't stick to it.
PMSL at the Guardian.
When radical is on offer , you do everything in your power to make sure it doesn't happen.
I wonder if people are getting this yet?
So it turns out that people who are found out to be sex-pets are allowed to carry on with their jobs in today's Labour Party:
She then complained about his conduct to the Labour party in early 2020. But after a year passed with no outcome, the party said it had no record of responding to her complaint and asked her to confirm if she wanted to continue with it.
This month, she was told her complaint had been upheld again and that the man, who remains an adviser to a Labour frontbencher, will receive a “final warning”.
So TWO claims of sexual harassment against a young woman upheld and he just gets a final warning. Presumably the warning after the first sexual harassment incident wasn't a "final" warning.
And yet 'liking' a Nicola Sturgeon tweet can have such devastating consequences in Starmer's Labour party:
"The accusations against me include having once ‘liked’ a tweet by Nicola Sturgeon saying she had tested negative for Covid under the heading ‘likes of opposition parties’, and an article I wrote advocating for a Green New Deal, a campaign I've been proud to be a part of.”
Needless to say Lauren Townsend is on the left of the Labour Party and had the backing of trade unions Aslef, CWU, FBU, Unison, Unite and the TSSA.
No doubt the sex-pest "front bench" advisor is no leftie.
SKS was visiting my work today
Im stuck at home due to strikes
anywa
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1657035671540838403
According to Omnisis :
and it’s a CHART-TOPPING 27-point lead for Labour
It certainly is!
Although Techne gives a more modest 17% Labour lead.
https://twitter.com/techneUK/status/1656917036163903491
Good to see Reform polling same as Green - what a country
Good to see Reform polling same as Green – what a country
That is a reflection of first-past-the-post rather than level of popular support.
Opinion polls which ask voters how they would vote if there was a general election simply reflects how people would vote in a general election, not which party they most support.
It is clear from last week's local elections that the Green Party is vastly more popular with voters than Reform UK is.
The Green Party won 481 council seats last week, Reform UK won just 6. FPTP does not affect local elections in the same way as it affects parliamentary elections.
The good news is that Reform UK only receives the support of about 5% of the electorate. The bad news is that because of FPTP only 5% of the electorate feels that there is any point in voting Green in a GE.
It is clear from last week’s local elections that the Green Party is vastly more popular with voters than Reform UK is.
Very few voters had a chance to vote for a Reform candidate last week.
[ approx 1/14 of seats had a Reform candidate, where as I suspect it was about 1/2 of seats had a Green candidate ]
And why do you think that is? Because of their extraordinarily low level of support Reform UK "only" stood in about 500 council seats in last week's local elections.
Obviously they will have stood in the seats which they believed they had the best chance of winning. Even the Tories and Labour often don't bother standing candidates where they know they have no hope of winning.
Despite fielding nearly 500 candidates Reform UK won just 6 council seats, such is their lack of electoral appeal.
But big up Reform UK, if it works for your predetermined narrative.
No narrative. Just explaining why levels of support shown are quite different in polling than in votes where Reform was not an option for people to choose in the vast majority of cases. Carry on. Sorry for interrupting.
Just explaining why levels of support shown are quite different in polling than in votes where Reform was not an option for people to choose in the vast majority of cases
No you are not explaining anything, you are deliberately muddying the waters. The reason Reform UK only got 6 seats last week is because of their lack of electoral support, not because people didn't have the option to vote for them.
Reform UK stood in nearly 500 seats where they felt they stood the best chance, they won just six. It is nonsense to claim that they would have won significantly more seats if they had stood where they felt they had no chance at all.
Btw the reason I deleted the reference to your narrative is because I can't quite figure out if you challenged the obvious fact that Reform UK do not enjoy significant support because it runs counter to you narrative, or simply because it is important to you to contradict whatever I say whenever possible. I suspect it is a bit of both.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-stamer-conservative-new-labour-b2337901.html
In a speech on Saturday, the Labour leader will say the Tories “can no longer claim to be conservative”
"And look – if that sounds conservative, then let me tell you: I don’t care. Somebody has got to stand up for the things that make this country great and it isn’t going to be the Tories,”
So there you have it, the problem is that the Tories are no longer conservatives.
Make Britain Great Again
Or as Reform put it "Make Britain Great". They missed out the again so the traitors presumably never thought it was great before.
This is a lovely headline:
Labour are the real conservatives, says Keir Starmer as he promises to protect ‘our way of life’
Who ever expected to see a headline like that?
“Why do Labour talk Britain down…?!”
“Why do Labour hate our way of life…?!”
Etc, etc. Starmer’s team seem to have focussed on why people voted against Labour up here, away from the big smoke, with unerring vigour. It’s all superficial nonsense of course, but if it works… and the signs are that it is working… upsetting some of the chattering metropolitan class is a price worth paying.
Vacuous messaging from a content-free leadership. How inspiring.
From the link at the top of the page…
Meanwhile, the LabourList website has published a leaked internal draft of Labour policies that gives the clearest idea yet of what Sir Keir might commit to doing in power.
The early plans, drawn up by party policy chiefs, include existing eye-catching commitments to raising taxes on private schools and taking the railways into public ownership.
Notable plans spelled out in the National Policy Forum documents also include the repeal of some anti-trade union legislation and the abolition of non-dom tax status.
And it also spells out in detail how Labour will decarbonise Britain's economy – with a state investment fund backing new gigafactories and R&D money for green industry.
The party also plans a wave of “in-sourcing” of public services back to the public sector, though there is a lack of detail on how this would be achieved.
It also has plans for an employment rights bill in the first 100 days of entering office.
The party says a Labour government would invest in nuclear power but not issue new licences for the exploration of oil and gas.
And it wants a rolling programme for electrification of the railways and says it will build HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail in full.
kelvin
Full Member
“Why do Labour talk Britain down…?!”
“Why do Labour hate our way of life…?!”
Etc, etc. Starmer’s team seem to have focussed on why people voted against Labour up here
There is a third way between "British people are literally all racist homophobes" and "this is a great country as it is", though.
If our way of life is so great, why change the government?
… upsetting some of the chattering metropolitan class is a price worth paying.
And then the ****wits will whine when people go and vote for the libdems and greens instead of the metropolitian elite cosplaying as salt of the earth types.
Its not superficial nonsense. Its a careful lie spread by the hard right who want to hide their asset stripping behind a pretence of patriotism and an attempt to declare their preferred way of life as what it means to British. Unsurprisingly since most of them spend as little time in the Uk as possible this has little resemblance to reality.
You know I could tolerate a few ounces of posturing and flags if the economics were on point.
I'd be happy then that the culture war was just a bit superficial.
But the economics are utter shite and full of dumb illogical nebulous thinking.
Go slightly right on social stuff (tread lightly, grit teeth) and left economically would be a winner, knowing you could swing back once in power and still deliver.
Starmer has swung full on right everywhere with no get out.
They're not a left wing party.
Etc, etc. Starmer’s team seem to have focussed on why people voted against Labour up here, away from the big smoke, with unerring vigour. It’s all superficial nonsense of course, but if it works… and the signs are that it is working… upsetting some of the chattering metropolitan class is a price worth paying.
He's not done it correctly otherwise he would be speaking in less that stupid terms about the stuff people care about.
How hard is it to articulate this point? Why would it be a vote loser?
https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/1656789846134759429?t=FJQGrn3TbHt0166AHH7Dtg&s=19
Starmer not half as smart as he has led some people to believe. He's only smart if you think turning Labour towards the right is the definition of successful.
Labour are the real conservatives, says Keir Starmer as he promises to protect ‘our way of life’
Prick.
It's not as if there aren't a million desperate progressive to reasons to argue your corner.
****s sake.
This is what I find particularly galling:
Sir Keir Starmer has said he does not care if people think he is conservative – as he promised the next government will be New Labour “on steroids”.
If he doesn't care why wasn't he open and honest when he stood to be party leader?
Why didn't he tell the party membership that if he was elected the next government would be New Labour on steroids and that he wouldn't care if people thought he was a Conservative?
Instead of deliberately misleading those he asked to vote for him by claiming that "based on the moral case for socialism, here is where I stand"
I think this is very much a case of "The working-class can kiss my arse, I've got the Labour Leader's job at last". Sung to the tune of The Red Flag of course.
I think this is very much a case of “The working-class can kiss my arse, I’ve got the Labour Leader’s job at last”. Sung to the tune of The Red Flag of course.
Why even be part of the Labour party?
It simply doesn't make any sense. Where did any semblance of moral servitude go?
Did he ever any? Is he just an egotist that wants to be in charge no matter what?
Top job sort of guy.
I absolutely don't think he's motivated by making things better.
Starmer’s team seem to have focussed on why people voted against Labour up here,
They haven't, they have completely ignored the reality that 40 years of neoliberalism serving the few and ignoring the many caused disenfranchisement and created the breeding ground for populism. People voted for a false hope, because the alternative was no hope, Starmer is again creating a vacuum of hope that will inevitably be filled with populist lies.
Starmer is the embodiment of the "chattering metropolitan class" he has had a life gifted with opportunity, but believes he is special and works harder than everyone else, just like the tories he thinks that poor people are poor because they don't work hard enough, that they should just get better jobs. He thinks he has a right to power and his policies are purely about convincing enough people to vote for him, they have nothing to do with any ideological desire to improve the nations lives.
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others"
Why even be part of the Labour party?
It simply doesn’t make any sense.
I think joining the Labour Party was a perfectly wise move for Keir Starmer in his quest for personal fulfillment.
I qualified barrister is easily going to progress through a party which still has relatively few public school educated members and a large membership consisting of trade unionists.
I doubt that Starmer's career prospects would have been quite so bright had he plumped for the Tory Party where the competition would have likely been higher.
When Starmer first entered parliament the Tories had almost twice as many MPs from the legal professions as Labour:
"In the Conservative party, 22% of MPs have a legal background, as do 13% of Labour MPs and 16% of Scottish Nationalists."
I think joining the Labour Party was a perfectly wise move for Keir Starmer in his quest for personal fulfillment.
Yeah - shame we have to bear the brunt of him at the helm of a democratic socialist party.
Job description a bit wonky?
I doubt that Starmer’s career prospects would have been quite so bright had he plumped for the Tory Party where the competition would have likely been higher
He'd have been in the right party though.
He’d have been in the right party though.
But luckier to find a winnable seat and rise through the parliamentary party.
Imagine how daunting the selection process must be when your rivals are also barristers but went to the same public schools as members of the selection panel, instead of a private school in Reigate which no one has heard of.
And the compare that with a selection process where your rivals are comprehensive state educated middle-class/working-class punters who swoon at your awesomeness when they realise that you are the former Director of Public Prosecutions.
Which is going to be the easier do you think?
Besides, he is in the right party - he can adjust his moral principles to suit. It's just that when he is desperate to become Labour Party leader he is a firebrand socialist who is a 'friend' of Jeremy Corbyn and makes the moral case for socialism.
And when he is desperate to become prime minister he is Tony Blair on steroids and claims to be a better Conservative than the Tories.
So he is in the right party - today's Labour Party is the ideal vehicle for self-serving fraudsters and charlatans. There is no place for anyone who is motivated by selfless conviction. Except possibly in Wales.
“The working-class can kiss my arse, I’ve got the Labour Leader’s job at last”.
I think Starmer has realised that the body politic has changed and the traditional alliance between the working class and Labour no longer exists (that and the realisation that the further left Labour moved, the worse they did in elections).
That Labour have got back some of the red wall voters does not mean they're back for good. Red Wall traditional Labour voters rejected the Tories at the local elections due to incompetence, not ideology. They've voted Tory once, they could do so again and Starmer recognises this.
If Starmer's ideological credentials don't match your own then vote for someone else. Maybe Starmer thinks there's more votes to be gained by appealing to the red wall working class voters than more idealogically leaning voters like yourselves.
In addition, the Conservatives are no longer conservative, they are Nationalist and have left a vacuum for moderate conservatives, particularly in the South. It would be remiss of Labour to ignore these potential voters, they are the kind of voters that helped bring Blair into office.
It’s not so hard to become a Tory MP… we have hundreds of examples of this in parliament right now. Hopefully they’ll be far fewer of them come the election. If that happens, it’s obvious that those that have done nothing by moan for three ****ing years on this thread about Starmer won’t credit him for that success at all. Because getting Labour into office is so damn easy… isn’t it…
In addition, the Conservatives are no longer conservative, they are Nationalist and have left a vacuum for moderate conservatives, particularly in the South.
Nicely summed up - Starmer's project is to turn the Labour Party into a conservative party that is true to the founding principles of the Tory Party.
Of course if he believes that is the correct and logical way forward for Labour he should have made that very clear when he stood in the leadership contest, instead of making "the moral case for socialism".
He has no mandate. Which is obviously why he is overseeing full-scale purging from the party of anyone who might oppose the 'New Labour on steroids' strategy.
There is no evidence that 'red wall voters' are instinctively attracted to a conservative party, which is of course precisely why they are referred to living in a 'red wall'.
But I can see why affluent middle-class voters with right-wing tendencies would be attracted to New Labour on steroids - it gives them the opportunity to vote for Conservative policies without the stigma of voting Tory, they can pretend to have a social conscience.
IMO conservative policies are always wrong, it's not an issue of which party propagates or applies them.