Did anyone else just see

[MrsRuffdiamond]

The Party Political Broadcast for Labour on BBC1?

It was stunning, and kind of appalling, but I can't make my mind up whether it was in a good or a bad way!

It was certainly very funny, with Nick Clegg as the Incredible Shrinking Man in a spoof Cabinet meeting dominated by Tories:

"He's shrunk!"
"What shall we do with him?"
"Shall we hunt him?"

[MrsRTea]

I googled for it and found it here:

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100270502/the-un-credible-shrinking-man-broadcast-proof-that-labour-has-gone-insane/

Dan Hodges comments, then a reader adds:

"This may be true but Dan Hodges is unhealthily obsessed with the Labour Party and should get a life."

Which I think is funnier than the broadcast.

[MrsRTea]

And this comment is quite funny:

"I have just watched it too. I thought someone had poisoned my dinner with LSD."

[claig]

No, it's very bad. It's disastrous

Dan Hodges is actually very clever and very astute. I don't agree with him on many things. he gets stuff wrong because he is left wing and therefore can't see the truth sometimes, but he is still one of the best political observers around. He has said that Labour does not stand a chance of winning the next election and that goes against nearly all of the other political pundits.

What is so bad about that party political broadcast is that it is a joke. It patronises the public. But what do you expect from Oxbridge Labour strategists who have gone to what seems to be an ad agency called Lucky Generals. The PPE chumps in Labour who call themselves strategists probably thought they were clever generals and thought they would get lucky with this crap. What is wrong with it is that it is spin . But that is all that these people know, that is all they have up their sleeves and once again they have revealed it to the public. They think the public will applaud their brilliance and laugh, but they can't foresee that the public will only laugh at them.

It sums Labour up - jokers who can only spin, no substance, just an empty shell, no gold, just glitzy glitter drifting in the breeze.

The public does not want jokers, it wants substance. That is why it backs Farage.

[nilbyname]

I laughed, I thought it was funny. Didn't really learn much about the Labour Party and thought the pot shots at clegg were distracting. But it was funny.

Still voting green.

[MrsRTea]

It's a rip-off of Spitting Image's portrayal of David Steel, which was presumably the starting point.

What is Dan Hodge's political position, then? He's the ds of Glenda Jackson, right?

[claig]

You're right. It is similar to some of Spitting Image.

Dan Hodges is left wing and supports Labour, but he is a harsh critic of Labour and thinks that Miliband is not a good leader and that labour stand no chance of winning. When I have heard him speak on TV, he comes across as being on the right of the Labour Party rather than on the left, but I may have got that wrong.

[claig]

Yes, he is Glenda Jackson's son.

[MrsRTea]

No, specifically Spitting Image ruined David Steel's career by portraying him as a teeny-tiny puppet of the vast David Owen. He never recovered from that.

[TheHammaconda]

They're really gunning for Clegg aren't they? As PPBs goes it's different to any I can recall seeing before, I think the tone and content will appeal to younger voters.

[claig]

'They're really gunning for Clegg aren't they?'

Yes, but what is the point of gunning for Clegg? Cleggy is already finished. He did that himself. They should be concentrating on Cameron, not Cleggy.

[TheHammaconda]

He didn't come out of it too brilliantly.

[claig]

Yes, but jokes are not serious. Labour are supposed to be a serious party. They used to have a spin slogan "Britain can do better than that". Labour have to do better than that. They have to get serious.

[claig]

The trouble is that they have nothing serious, no serious policies. All they have is "the cost of living" and that is not enough to convince the public to vote for them.

[claig]

The title of their broadcast was "The Un-credible shrinking man". It was about Cleggy. But why waste precious time on that. Even LibDem voters know that Cleggy is a joke. No one will be voting LibDem because they have faith in Cleggy, if they vote LibDem it will be despite Cleggy, and anyway I expect he will be gone shortly after the Euro election results come out. The broadcast was a wasted opportunity and shows that Labour cannot identify the real issues.

[longfingernails]

Class war is a Labour core vote strategy. This shows that Labour aren't serious about converting floating voters, which is great news.

And I agree with claig - everybody hates Nick Clegg anyway; what's the point of wasting energy attacking him?

[MrsRuffdiamond]

Oh, dear. Am now feeling v. shallow, having read other posters' political analyses of the broadcast!

It did make me , though!

[TheHammaconda]

Expectations of the LibDems' performance are so low that only the loss of all seats would count as a defeat at the moment. If they can annihilate the LibDems in the EP elections pressure on Clegg to go mounts. If Clegg goes the government is destabilised, people lose faith in the concept of coalition governments and the vote is polarised between Labour and Conservative. With (I'm sure Labour strategists hope) all the LibDem votes going to Labour.

Also, what else could they campaign on? They've not announced any clear, costed policies (nor do they need to until next year) so can't campaign on that. They could use their record in the EP, including their grouping, but I can't imagine a bigger turn off for some voters.

[claig]

'Also, what else could they campaign on? They've not announced any clear, costed policies'

This is their problem. There is only one year to go. Just being against what the Tories do with no concrete policies apart from trying to offer "feel good" policies about the cost of living, does not look serious.

Hence, a pointless pastiche of a fifties sci-fi B-movie about the "uncredible shrinking man", Cleggy. It is not credible. Labour are a pastiche of a political party and that is why they will lose. They do not deserve to win as they cannot articulate a solution to people's problems and the country's problems.

They are out of touch, out of mind and out of luck. And for the first time since Thatcher, they have a party, UKIP, that is taking their working class vote. Their metropolitan elite leadership has no answers apart from pastiche and ironic references to the past. Their present broadcast points to their uncredible shrinking future.

[claig]

Labour kept banging on about where was Osborne's Plan B, but now that Osborne has come out trumps, where is Labour's Plan B. They never had one because they were too arrogant, and that pastiche political broadcast displays that arrogance, "uncredibility" and irrelevance.

[LittleBearPad]

Yes but Clegg's already announced he wants to be deputy pm for another five years in a coalition government. He's banking on neither labour or the Tories winning an overall majority. Both need to undermine him to boost their own chances of winning outright.

And he's a little shit who deserves the piss being ripped out of him

[TheHammaconda]

"Just being against what the Tories do with no concrete policies apart from trying to offer "feel good" policies about the cost of living, does not look serious."

Well, opposing is what the opposition is supposed to do! Those were the exact same accusations thrown at Cameron in 2009 - no policies, David Chameleon etc.

They don't need a manifesto for this election - no other party has released one. If they released it now it would be old hat by the time of the GE, all the discussion points would have already been done to death.

For me the big problem in UK politics is a dearth of leadership. Since Blair we've gone for charisma over conviction and all the parties are looking for another Blair-type charismatic figure to change the face of their party. I think the electorate are past that. We want honest politicians who won't belittle us by reducing us to stereotypes. Politicians who are prepared to act in the interests of the electorate.

[claig]

Labour should have listened to Lord Glasman. I think he has understood what is going on.


"Labour’s working class support has “died” as the party becomes “very middle class”, an advisor to Ed Miliband has said.

Lord Glasman, the policy guru ennobled by Mr Miliband, said Labour voters who defected to Ukip may never return because the party is failing to address concerns on welfare and immigration."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10792422/Labours-working-class-support-died.html

The problem is that their entire leadership is "middle class", a metropolitan elite that has lost touch with Labour's roots. That is why they are just play actors, playing at politics, like public school debaters in the Oxford Union.

Dan Hodges has it spot on and that is why he has predicted that Labour do not stand a chance of winning the election. It is because they are not serious and do not treat the voters seriously.

"Instead the people who run it [the Labour Party] – or pretend to run it – are playing a game. They are living out a self-indulgent student fantasy in which they get to strike poses, and shout slogans, and scream “Toff!” at every passing Tory they see."

[TheTravellingLemon]

I thought it was a peculiar choice at best. I hate all this negative campaigning and I do think it runs the risk of backfiring in this country.

I don't think labour stand a chance at the next election. I hope that the conservatives win an overall majority because if they don't, and the lib dems are also decimated, the government make up is going to be very worrying indeed.

I don't know in how many seats UKIP plan to stand, but presumably there is a real possibility they could actually end up with some power.

[claig]

'They don't need a manifesto for this election - no other party has released one. If they released it now it would be old hat by the time of the GE, all the discussion points would have already been done to death.'

No. They should have spelt out their message from day one, 4 years ago. As Dan Hodges said recently on the Daily Politics, their message from day one was wrong and they never changed it. They stuck to it. They put Ed Brawls out to face the public and of course he fell flat on his face, as he was part of the old losing team of Gordon Brown. Dan Hodges rightly said that it is now too late, with just one year left, to change their message. The public won't believe them now.

Cameron is also not very good, that is why half of the Tory Party membership has left the party, but even Mickey Mouse could have beaten Gordon Brown.

'Since Blair we've gone for charisma over conviction'

Yes, because that is all these jokers and actors and players from public schools could offer us - spin. But the public has had enough of it, and that is why they have turned to a party that they all say is "anti politics", but is really "anti spin".

[claig]

Dan Hodges again

"Is this what Miliband meant by the New Politics? Third-rate comedy sketches to try and cover up the gap where Labour’s economic policy should be."

There is only one year to go and this is what Labour's great and good came up with. They probably patted each other on the back and said "that'll show 'em".

As McEnroe would say "you cannot be serious!" and it is that lack of seriousness that will sink their prospects of victory.