General Election December, 2019 (U.K.)

briany

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

In 40 years, Labour have won two elections, both under Blair.

And they may never win another one now that Scotland is dominated by the SNP.

Dyr

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Many, many people left the LP when it became 'new' Labour - feeling that they, as socialists, had no place in this shiny new centerist party. Added to that there was a lot of resentment among grassroots members about how Blairite candidates were parachuted into constituencies etc etc.
The decline in the vote began in those years but is masked by what an utter disaster the Tories were at the time.

The British Labour Party was never doctrinaire socialist in the way that the radical beatniks like to claim it was. Blair was just an extension of what Small, Callaghan, Kinnock, Wilson and Atlee eschewed. Foot and Corbyn were the exceptions and they were both disasterous.

Manic Moran

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

It’s worth winning if you can implement the policies you believe will help people and improve the country. If you’re forced to promise a watered down version of your opponents policies - which you don’t believe in and think have been hurting people and contributing to the decline of the country - then you aren’t really winning. You’re just losing in a way that feels good.

Perhaps, but it's better than losing in a way that feels worse. And those are your two options.

Little known military trivia. To defeat your enemy, by definition you don't have to win. I'm not sure that 'feeling less worse' is that much more abhorrent to the more progressive parts of the party than watching the Conservatives happily go about their business with a mandate.

markodaly

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Heard the same stuff in 2015 and we’ll hear versions of the same thing every time Labour lose an election. And it all pushes the conversation in the same direction: ‘don’t campaign and run for what you actually believe in’. Go centrist. Even better, go centre right. And therefore you can ‘win’ even though you’re actually losing, just in a more nuanced way that makes you feel better about the whole thing.
.

Everytime Labour loses an election, which is more or less always at this rate.
7 out of the last 10 elections have been lost by Labour. Those 3 victories came at the hands of Tony Blair.

So, what is your suggestion?
Be ideologically pure, but be always out of power or try and deliver a manifesto where Labour can win power and actually do something worthwhile.

Letwin_Larry

markodaly wrote: »

Everytime Labour loses an election, which is more or less always at this rate.
7 out of the last 10 elections have been lost by Labour. Those 3 victories came at the hands of Tony Blair.

So, what is your suggestion?
Be ideologically pure, but be always out of power or try and deliver a manifesto where Labour can win power and actually do something worthwhile.

i said immediately the exit polls were published, Corbyn if he had an ounce of humility or decency he would have resigned then.
but no he'll hang on like a bad smell refusing to accept responsibility. the book must stop with him.
as Blair said this morning, the longer he stays the more damage he'll do to Labour.

markodaly

Bannasidhe wrote: »

What exactly do you want the LP to do about Momentum?
Purge 40,000 people from the Labour Party for being a bit too socialist?
Then there would be faux outrage about the LP kicking out anyone who doesn't toe the party line - which, ironically, is exactly what the Tories did. You want the LP to become like the CP?

Momentum has been a disaster for the Labour party. A Cancer who has pushed the Labour party to the extreme left of the spectrum, and making them neigh on unelectable.
This is about stopping the Labour party from being a party of zealots and fanatics and pursuing policies that can get them elected.

Would you have them move to the centre to join the Lid-Dems in the middle - where apparently people expect The Tories to move back to now that Johnson has a majority?

I would expect them to offer center-left policies and an alternative to the Tories. Something Tony Blair did with a lot of success. If the Tories are going after the old school working-class constituents in the North of England, then Labour should be targetting more wealthy areas in the Home counties.

The Tories have shifted with success.
Labour still think they are living in 1970 or even 1990.

Then the UK can have their own version of FF/ FG/Irl Labour- hardly a hap'worth of difference between the parties.
Which means, in real terms, no alternative voices. Just a group of people with the same polices but wearing different coloured rosettes all huddled in the middle.
And ignores the fact that the decline of the LP began when it was a centrist party. Brown and Miliband both shed seats.

If you call Tony Blair's reign as the beginning of the end, what was Michael Foot's reign about then? The beginning of a Golden age?

Corbyn does not choose his successor. The membership decides - and the candidates are nominated so whoever is on the ballot has to be approved by ten per cent of MPs and MEPs, and candidates must have nominations from either five per cent of constituency Labour parties (CLPs), or "at least three affiliates (at least two of which shall be trade union affiliates) comprising five per cent of affiliated membership". So do stop acting like it's some dictator choosing his successor.
If it was a case of the preferred candidate of the leader 'automatically' becoming their successor then Corbyn would never have been leader in the first place.

Corbyn was chosen by the same membership and process, the same membership who is so far removed from the wider electorate. Corbyn should have stood down immediately. What he is still doing as leader of the party is typical of the man and his leadership skills.

And what difference does it make if it takes 10 weeks or 10 months? Unless you are expecting an election soon it makes feck all difference how long the LP takes to choose it's new leader.

No issue with me, but its a perfect indication of modern-day Labour. Dithering, blathering and endless talking.

Letwin_Larry

if there's one adjective i would use to describe Corbyn's 'leadership' then is has to be INDECISIVE.
the man cant even quit without dithering.

this is what Blair thinks,

'This election was no ordinary defeat for Labour. It marks a moment in history. The choice for Labour is to renew itself as the serious, progressive, non-Conservative competitor for power in British politics – or retreat from such an ambition, in which case over time it will be replaced.'

markodaly

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I think yes - because it is supposed to be a socialist party, not a centerist one.

This is the type of delusion and denial that still goes on.
Labour are of course free to elect any leader they want and be a socialist party. But then, they also have to accept that their time in power will be slim to none.

People are still thinking in old schools left/right politics.

As we have seen the past 4-5 years, those days are now long gone.

LuckyLloyd

markodaly wrote: »

Everytime Labour loses an election, which is more or less always at this rate.
7 out of the last 10 elections have been lost by Labour. Those 3 victories came at the hands of Tony Blair.

So, what is your suggestion?
Be ideologically pure, but be always out of power or try and deliver a manifesto where Labour can win power and actually do something worthwhile.

I am suggesting there is no point getting into power if you can’t do anything worthwhile while in power. The goal for Labour is to figure out why they were able to get 40% of the vote on a worthwhile manifesto in 2017 and build from there. Becoming Tory lite is not a worthwhile goal, and the noise to pursue that path needs to be ignored.

LuckyLloyd

markodaly wrote: »

This is the type of delusion and denial that still goes on.
Labour are of course free to elect any leader they want and be a socialist party. But then, they also have to accept that their time in power will be slim to none.

People are still thinking in old schools left/right politics.

As we have seen the past 4-5 years, those days are now long gone.

We are also seeing the centre you keep talking about is dead. 11% of the vote dead. So you can keep talking about returning to Blairism and the mythical centre ground but we’ve now gone two elections in a row where people in the U.K. are not voting for that. So where does that leave things?

Letwin_Larry

the reality is Labour has been captured/held hostage by a bunch of extreme-Lefty crackpots. they are so ideologically driven they have not got a clue, nor do they care what the UK electorate thinks or needs. their attitude is

'we read a few pages of Karl Marx, so we know best. we studied politics and/or sociology, you didn't so we know better than you".

the electorate was 100% correct to reject them. can you imagine the damage they would do to the UK economy if they ever got into power? i said many times it would make the 'winter of discontent' look like a picnic in Richmond Park.

whatever Brexit brings, then it will not be as damaging as that lot. i have a sneaking suspicion, many of these leftys would actually enjoy destroying the UK, and deep down that is their goal. the electorate made the right decision for sure. Near miss or what!

markodaly

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

I am suggesting there is no point getting into power if you can’t do anything worthwhile while in power. The goal for Labour is to figure out why they were able to get 40% of the vote on a worthwhile manifesto in 2017 and build from there. Becoming Tory lite is not a worthwhile goal, and the noise to pursue that path needs to be ignored.

You can do alot in power. You do know that Tony Blair's government did a lot of good things for their constituents?

The world is not binary. But some prefer to live in an ideologically pure self rather than compromise an iota.

markodaly

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

We are also seeing the centre you keep talking about is dead. 11% of the vote dead. So you can keep talking about returning to Blairism and the mythical centre ground but we’ve now gone two elections in a row where people in the U.K. are not voting for that. So where does that leave things?

I am not talking about the return of Blairism per say. The 90's are gone, things have moved on. What I am certain of though is that we cant go back to the 1970's either, which is what the latest incarnation of the Labour party is.

Denial is just not only a river in Egypt.

Letwin_Larry

if Lab does not/cannot align itself to a more centrist position, and rid itself of these loony leftys, then it is finished as a political force in the UK. if the Lib Dems can find a proper leader (that's another story for sure) then i believe an unreformed Lab party will be squeezed into near extinction.

the world has moved on, and like anything if you fail to adapt then you are goosed. there is a simple Darwinian inevitability about it, but i dont expect Corbyn & co to grasp such concepts.

Dyr

Lefty Bicek wrote: »

Liberal Party, Old Age Pensions Act, 1908.

Pre-dates the first Labour government by sixteen years.

Worth noting that all the other achievements were under a Labour government but with consensus from the Tories, it was only when Thatcher came along that they began to move against the idead of State funding.

And the Labour party were never an exclusively socialist party, it was an umbrella group.

Kind of weird that people who hark back to the old days dont realise that they're harking back to something that never was.

LuckyLloyd

Bambi wrote: »

Worth noting that all the other achievements were under a Labour government but with consensus from the Tories, it was only when Thatcher came along that they began to move against the idead of State funding.

And the Labour party were never an exclusively socialist party, it was an umbrella group.

Kind of weird that people who hark back to the old days dont realise that they're harking back to something that never was.

I don’t personally think that Corbyn’s two manifestos were a throwback at all, particularly this year’s one. It’s talking about how to transform British society for the future and offers real policies to tackle climate issues. It’s conveniently labelled as a throwback, but it doesn’t start from the U.K. in 1970, it starts from where it is today.

Labelling stuff like this as ‘1970’s Marxism’ is tired. Fundamentally this issue turns on whether you feel the U.K. is a great place offering really equal opportunities across regions and income levels - a place you would want to live yourself (and whether you think this climate malarkey is real or not). If you do think the U.K. is great and climate change is a red herring then the 2019 manifesto is ‘radical’. If you don’t, then it’s probably not radical enough.

In 2017 Brexit was more successfully neutered as an issue. And I think in five year’s time the general election debate will be squarely about the state of the country again, how the economy is doing and how positive people feel about the outlook for U.K. society. You should stand and campaign on how the country is doing and what you think needs to change about it - because then winning gives you the mandate to do something about it.

From my perspective, the Brits can keep voting in Conservative governments and alienate themselves from their biggest trade partners all they like, up to them. But it seems to me the U.K. becomes less and less a place you’d want to live with each passing year.

suicide_circus

Anthony B gives his scathing assessment of the "quasi revolutionary" Corbyn

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50829352

droidus

Labour's policies under Corbyn are widely popular, and by any objective measure equate to moderate left wing social democracy.

Anyone who describes them as 'marxist', clearly has no idea what marxism is.

The only reason this label has stuck is because politics in the UK (and globally) have shifted so far to the right that even modest centre left policies are seen as extreme. The fact is that it is the Tories, and especially Johnson's ilk that are the extremists.

VinLieger

droidus wrote: »

Labour's policies under Corbyn are widely popular, and by any objective measure equate to moderate left wing social democracy.

Anyone who describes them as 'marxist', clearly has no idea what marxism is.

The only reason this label has stuck is because politics in the UK (and globally) have shifted so far to the right that even modest centre left policies are seen as extreme. The fact is that it is the Tories, and especially Johnson's ilk that are the extremists.

People get to describe it as marxist cus of Corbyn's history and who he choses to associate himself with. Also one of his closest allies quoted directly from Mao's little red book during a commons debate, whether it was meant to be a joke or not doesn't matter because the visual of such an action is impossible to ignore. They have brought alot of the problems on themselves.

Bannasidhe

Lefty Bicek wrote: »

Liberal Party, Old Age Pensions Act, 1908.

Pre-dates the first Labour government by sixteen years.

Never said Labour introduced it. I said I believe it should exist.

And yes, it was LLoyd George's Liberal government .

Emily Thornberry has thrown her hat into the ring.

I think the only candidate who has a long-term chance of restoring Labour is Yvette Cooper.

rossie1977

VinLieger wrote: »

People get to describe it as marxist cus of Corbyn's history and who he choses to associate himself with. Also one of his closest allies quoted directly from Mao's little red book during a commons debate, whether it was meant to be a joke or not doesn't matter because the visual of such an action is impossible to ignore. They have brought alot of the problems on themselves.

Trump quoted Mussolini, does that make him a dictatorial fascist? Michael D praised Castro does that mean he wants to turn Ireland into a communist state?

Looking at Labour's manifesto on their official site it seems very centre left, certainly not far left anyway unless once they got into power they had radically different plans.

briany

rossie1977 wrote: »

Trump quoted Mussolini, does that make him a dictatorial fascist? Michael D praised Castro does that mean he wants to turn Ireland into a communist state?

Looking at Labour's manifesto on their official site it seems very centre left, certainly not far left anyway unless once they got into power they had radically different plans.

If the NHS were only being proposed today, it would be laughed out of the building by every red top in the UK as a marxist/socialist/communist pipe dream, but the fact that it's existed in the UK for 70 years or so and people have quite liked it shows that nationalisation of essential services can work.

Certain essential services must be placed beyond the danger of profiteering. This doesn't necessarily mean nationalisation, but it at the very least means the most robust laws preventing private companies placing undue misery upon people just so that the 12th richest man in the country can get 5 percent richer still.

My belief would be that capitalism and socialism aren't that different when taking to their extreme conclusions, i.e. allowing the power to become concentrated in the hands of very few individuals, relative to the wider population, and virtually unanswerable at that.

Water John

Strange to see lots of advice here from posters who wouldn't vote Lb in a million years.
I think Starmer can command wide respect and may be the best option, but for some he doesn't wear a skirt.

Letwin_Larry

Deleted User wrote: »

Emily Thornberry has thrown her hat into the ring.

I think the only candidate who has a long-term chance of restoring Labour is Yvette Cooper.

in the short term i dont think it's gonna make much difference who they choose. there's a very long rocky road ahead of them, and in truth they are only a sideshow atm.

Lab unlike the Tories have demonstrated a total inability to adapt. Blair touched on this and i agree with him. Boris on the other hand is almost chameleon like. he is no hostage to ideology and will change to suit circumstances. expediency is what matters to him.

this is why the Tories are so successful, they are business people and appreciate the need to change and adapt.
Lab being ideologues cannot. like them Karl Marx couldn't run a sweet shop.

Letwin_Larry

Letwin_Larry wrote: »

in the short term i dont think it's gonna make much difference who they choose. there's a very long rocky road ahead of them, and in truth they are only a sideshow atm.

I'm thoroughly delighted.

Assuming no major, fatal scandal befalls Prime Minister Johnson, he can expect to be leader -- and comfortably so -- for the next decade.

Bannasidhe

Water John wrote: »

Strange to see lots of advice here from posters who wouldn't vote Lb in a million years.
I think Starmer can command wide respect and may be the best option, but for some he doesn't wear a skirt.

Starmer in an interview with C4 is very much in favour of what Corbyn was trying to do and is concerned there will be what he calls an 'oversteer' away from Corbyn's radical agenda back to where the LP was in 2015 under Miliband.

https://www.facebook.com/Channel4News/videos/747915329018310/?sk=h_chr

So there you have it - Starmer thinks a move back to the centre would be a mistake.

As for the 'skirt' comment - Starmer can wear a skirt if he wants to, nor has anyone said the new leader has to be a woman, people have said it would be good if there was a woman.

Water John

Starmer would move a bit more mainstream, but wouldn't go shouting from the rooftops about it and lose those already members of Lb.
He would bring clear thought and policy and thus have a much wider appeal.

Water John

Water John wrote: »

Starmer would move a bit more mainstream, but wouldn't go shouting from the rooftops about it and lose those already members of Lb.
He would bring clear thought and policy and thus have a much wider appeal.

Can you seriously see miserable Starmer motivating, enthusing, and mobilizing millions of Labour voters?

I don't think I've ever seen the guy smile, let alone deliver a convincing oration.

And whether you like it or not, charisma and communication delivery matters in politics. Starmer doesn't cut it.

Water John

Would Starmer be ok if he was given elocution lessons to speak differently like Thatcher?