Aka surrendering to the racism and xenophobia.

Aka listening to your electorate. You and I might not like it but that’s supposed to be how democracy works.

Corbyn was personally unpopular but Starmer was the traitor remoaner in chief as far as lots of people were concerned. ‘Getting Brexit done’ was a key part of Johnson’s appeal and Starmer was arguing for the opposite. I don’t see why people are trying to pretend otherwise.

@dazh

Parting shot.

You dress your ‘solutions’ up in terms like ’empathising’, ‘understanding’, ‘education’, ‘investment’.

But, when push comes to shove your only real solution is to give in to tendencies that should never be given in to. Racism, xenophobia, pettiness. The only way to mollify extremism is to give in to it. Otherwise known as appeasement. Legitimising all the things you profess to be against.

No. No. No.

If

listening to your electorate.

Means ‘giving in to prejudice’, which is where this is heading, then we really are having a crack at reprising Germany c.1932…

Funny what you end up legitimising when you want to find excuses for people at all costs…

The Tories are all over Teeside like a rash, free port, new investment on the steel site, windturbine blade site, Teeside Airport, Ben Houchen,

So Hartlepool just up the road want that type of “investment” they looked at Richmond North Yorks (not faraway) get town funding.

When you have a Tory MP/Mayor you get “stuff” when you have a Labour MP you get **** all.

We have gone full circle and are back to rotten boroughs.

Dr Paul Williams OBE?

Labour lost the Red Wall because the Tories appealed to their racism/xenophobia as that is their prime motivation. Not working class solidarity. Not a belief in a fairer system. Prejudice pandered to = Red Wall turns Blue.

Nope, labour lost because of many reasons most to do with labour party rather than the conservative party

On your premise the conservatives should be trying to ditch the odds on favourite to be the next PM.

Should also be ditching all those other front bench non pale, male, and stale ministers as well

Nope, labour lost because of many reasons most to do with labour party rather than the conservative party

partly, was more like 50/50, the Tories morphed into blukip, winning them their red wall seats

You dress your ‘solutions’ up in terms like ’empathising’, ‘understanding’, ‘education’, ‘investment’.

None of them wrong, achieving a change in attitudes by understanding the causes, and then changing them by changing the paradigm improving education and pushing well paid jobs into the area connecting it to the wider UK economy

The only way to mollify extremism is to give in to it.

No it’s not, it’s taking away the root causes and challenging the zealots and getting the community to see them for what they are

Or you can just shout calling them racist or fascist and see if that works

Labour unveils its campaign slogan for the forthcoming Hartlepool by-election pic.twitter.com/gAwnwAGtpb

— JamesHeartfield (@JamesHeartfield) March 18, 2021

😁

^^^

Truth hurts!

At the start of this post Binners remarked let them eat cake. Problem is they have been for decades, through successive Labour and Tory governments. Not a jot has changed for these people, they have in their belief nothing to lose by voting for Brexit because it just can’t get any worse. The pits are long gone and the genetic Labour voting gene is starting to be bred out so they need to do something to bring these voters back or Labour will face the same problem as it has in Scotland in the North. Labour has taken these seats for granted for decades.

they have in their belief nothing to lose by voting for Brexit because it just can’t get any worse.

Yep, encountered that. Also there’s a real dislike of the thought of EU bureaucrats, and of arrivals via Wizz Air. I know a few folks from that part of the world through surfing (Smoggies, Sand dancers, Monkey hangers). It’s an occasionally challenging milieu for a guardian reader.

Problem is they have been for decades,

Been saying this for a long time. Glad others agree. On their current liberal centrist course labour will be no more likely of forming a government than the liberal democrats. Their only hope is to forget convention and orthodoxy, take some risks and play Boris at his own populist game. But instead of dog-whistle divide and rule politics, propose a properly radical set of policies which redresses the decades of decay and corruption. UBI, jobs guarantees, unprecedented education, health, infrastructure and housing investment, real workers protections and the ability for people to properly hold politicians to account. Do that and working people might start to believe again that labour are on their side, anything less is just repeating the same mistakes with the same patronising elitism.

^^^absolutely. New Labour 🙂

No it’s not, it’s taking away the root causes and challenging the zealots and getting the community to see them for what they are

Or you can just shout calling them racist or fascist and see if that works

I tend to agree with that view. Because

Not a jot has changed for these people, they have in their belief nothing to lose by voting for Brexit because it just can’t get any worse.

Not a jot has changed for these people, they have in their belief nothing to lose by voting for Brexit because it just can’t get any worse.

News flash – it can get worse and probably will. Still, they voted for it so…

🤷‍♂️

play Boris at his own populist game. Propose a properly radical set of policies

And you’ve totally missed the point as usual, polices and populism are different ends of the spectrum, populism is all about scapegoating another part of society and not having any challenging polices, as for radical policies, Corbyn tried that and the rest was history. Many people will be extremely wary of UBI even if they benefit from it directly. They would rather other people who they deem not worthy not get it, some will be dubious about the affordability, others will be concerned with the impact on society as a whole if UBI is set at a reasonable level and loads don’t need to work.

Also people will never be happy, even people in affluent areas of the country aren’t happy, chasing that pipe dream really doesn’t work.

populism is all about scapegoating another part of society and not having any challenging polices, as for radical policies

Correct on the first bit, wrong on the second. Yes populism scapegoats minority groups, but it also comes with policies which will keep the majority on side. Where do you think all this levelling up stuff has come from? The one opportunity labour have is that Boris isn’t a very good populist, because we all know he’ll renege on his promises and the people he claims to support will eventually realise they’ve been conned.

The more important point however is that labour need to be more ambitious and take some risks. This cowardly, self-policing, frilling round the edges boring stuff appeals only to a tiny few middle class people who prize stability and boredom over a bit of chaos and excitement. There’s not a lot of appetite for that right now, because the culture war that brexit has created divides and amplifies opinion, or causes outright apathy. Boring everyone to death with talk of  responsibility and competence isn’t going to change anyone’s minds or win any votes.

He said “challenging policies”… populism normally comes promising simple “common sense” policy, with claims that it will negatively effect only others, not you, the targeted voter.

This cowardly, self-policing,

Disciplined would be another way of putting it, not spraying policies all over the place which are contradictory and never going to happen.

frilling round the edges boring stuff

Agree. And my “new labour” comment above wasn’t flippant. This was big bold and a break with the past which did get people all over the country to vote. (Had it been less successful, we might have had PR…)

play Boris at his own populist game. Propose a properly radical set of policies

That’s been tried. But if they are proposed by someone who isn’t ‘likeable’ then people just say ‘yeah you’re talking rubbish, that’ll never work, that’s pie in the sky’. If they are proposed by someone they do like, they’ll get behind them.

That’s what people mean when they call it a popularity contest.

If they are proposed by someone they do like, they’ll get behind them.

Yes they need someone with a bit of personality to be the salesperson. Lets be honest that’s not Starmer, and it wasn’t Corbyn (at least the 2019 version). That’s also the reason I didn’t vote for RLB, because it clearly wasn’t her either. Rayner showed some promise but seems to have had a lobotomy much like Burnham did back in 2015. So I don’t know who can, but whoever it is they need to have something to sell, and they need to sound like they mean it. Starmer fails on all counts.

I agree with all of that. Except perhaps the Rayner bit.

Their only hope is to forget convention and orthodoxy

Nope. That won’t work. People don’t believe it. Because the press will tell them it’s fantasy. Lots of folk believe the Orthodoxy that “there is no magic money tree” because it feels right, it’s their lived experience and was the previous generations lived experience. You can do that from a position of power, but it’s very hard to do it from opposition.

Bear in mind that this is also a local election with local issues mixed in.

“there is no magic money tree”

There isn’t, sure we can print money but that won’t work long term as we are in a global community and our currency will be devalued. If it was that easy every tin pot dictator out there would be doing it.

but it also comes with policies which will keep the majority on side

Unfortunately the majority at the moment will back anything they think will make some one else miserable. We’ve seen this play out in the States. It’s amazing how many people who directly benefit from Obama Care oppose it. Combination of not trusting the government to spend their money (although the insurance system in the States costs people loads and often lets them down) and not wanting people on lower incomes from having the same health care provision, it’s mental, but it’s real and the UK population isn’t much different.

populism normally comes promising simple “common sense” policy, with claims that it will negatively effect only others, not you, the targeted voter

This in spades, simple to grasp headlines for the hard of thinking when problems are complex and an unpleasant.

but that won’t work long term as we are in a global community and our currency will be devalued

No, you control the money supply by taxing it out of circulation. Which is also why it doesn’t work for “every tin pot dictator”. It’s more or less what we do now anyway, but without being honest with people about it. I don’t think the Hartlepool by-election is where Labour should start having that conversation though.

If it was that easy every tin pot dictator out there would be doing it.

You do realise that the US and UK, and the EU are already ‘doing it’? Where do you think all the money for covid has come from? Has it devalued the pound and the dollar? Has it raised inflation? No, it hasn’t done any of these because your assumptions and information are wrong.

I don’t think the Hartlepool by-election is where Labour should start having that conversation though.

Maybe not, but they need to start somewhere. If they go into the next election pushing out of date 1990s economics they’re dead.

It’s more or less what we do now anyway, but without being honest with people about it. I don’t think the Hartlepool by-election is where Labour should start having that conversation though.

^^^^^^

So have we decided exactly how racist/xenophobic/nationalist Labour need to pretend to be yet?

Or not?

So have we decided exactly how racist/xenophobic/nationalist Labour need to pretend to be yet?

Or not?

Well the candidate would probably like the old Friday Kylie page
https://order-order.com/2021/03/19/labour-women-upset-by-hartlepool-candidates-laddish-banter/

^^^

Pah, merely sexist, the amateur.

And Ivanovic is a bit too tanned, so unlikely to meet with approval on the streets of Heidelberg in 1932 Hartlepool in 2021…

69.57% Leave area.

Electorate very brexity.

Tory win.

It was “brexity” when Labour won in the 2017 and 2019 elections.

Anyway, it’s nice that Labour HQ is parachuting in Paul Williams, after Starmer said that they mustn’t interfere with local democracy. I wonder if he’ll have a Damascene conversion about his enthusiasm for a second referendum?

Corbyn was personally unpopular but Starmer was the traitor remoaner in chief as far as lots of people were concerned. ‘Getting Brexit done’ was a key part of Johnson’s appeal and Starmer was arguing for the opposite. I don’t see why people are trying to pretend otherwise.

Speaking as someone who actually did canvassing for the 2019 election, the key message I got on the doorstep was that even normally floating voters were being driven to the Tories with Corbyn and the clique around him being the big flashing neon reason why.

“He hates Britain”
“He doesn’t support our troops”
“He’s a terrorist sympathiser”
“I’m not a Conservative but I can’t let that man into No.10″

All this I heard first hand on the doorstep. Only ever heard Starmer’s name approvingly from “remainy types” the people who were planning to vote Tory never mentioned him once and I’m fairly sure most wouldn’t have even known who he was. Corbyn came up again and again and again.

Corbyn wasn’t just toxic to Labour he was toxic to the entire opposition, people who’d have otherwise voted Lib Dem etc voted Tory to actively keep him out. Again, I heard this first hand from these very voters.

Until certain people realise this then Labour is screwed and sadly so is the country.

^ We’ve debated Corbyn at great length, but the fact is Hartlepool is currently a Labour seat, having been held under Corbyn’s leadership in the 2017 and 2019 elections. Whatever his failings as leader may be, they didn’t bother the people of Hartlepool sufficiently to elect somebody else.

It was “brexity” when Labour won in the 2017 and 2019 elections.

Amateurish effort.

The Labour Vote was 52.5% in 2017 with Tories on 34.2% and UKIP 11.5%.

In 2019 the Labour vote fell by 14.8% to 37.7%. The Tories fell by 5.3% but the Brexshit Party got 25.8% in 2019. If you say UKIP = BXP then the area is not only muchos Brexity (69.57% in favour of Brexshit), but is getting more Brexity according to the slower to react GE results. I predict a victory for the brownshirts.

Your attempt to pull up figures without showing the current direction of travel is infantile.

Until certain people realise this then Labour is screwed and sadly so is the country.

It’s ok no one is proposing we bring Corbyn back. We’ve moved on to thinking about the future, and how the current leadership appears to not be doing much better than him, and as ransos says, possibly worse in Hartlepool.

Speaking as someone who actually did canvassing for the 2019 election

respect

Thanks!

Stake boarding was my main thing but canvassing was interesting as well.

Don’t like how things are going? Find a party that most aligns with your world view and crack on. Does a lot more good than sitting at home whining, made a few new friends out of it to boot.

December elections suck though, froze my knackers off.