Labour has lost the election, what now?

No one throws out an incumbent for Bambi and his progressive new untried, untested team of Oxbridge graduates who have never run a business and couldn't run a knees-up in a brewery and who say they have changed ther spots unless they are fed up to the back teeth of the incumbent, whose economic record was OK.

That is what happened to the Tories in 1997. Bambi won a landslide and the Oxbridge graduates thought it was their good work but it was because we the people had had enough.

'This country has had a voting systems favouring the Labour party by around 20-seats for years'

Yes and the BBC have been right behind them for years. Let's see if the Tories have the guts to slash the BBC as Farage would do.

The problem Labour has is that how ever many business suits they wear, no one thinks they do business better than the Tories - and big business and most certainly small business generally agrees. We don't trust Labour. We know those inexperienced W1A university graduates who have never run a business know all the BBC spin but they will tax us and take it out on us for daring to put a patio in our gardens or daring to stick our necks above the economic parapet.

"What's in it for us?"

More taxes, more regulations, more political correctness, less civil liberties and less free speech.

No thanks, as Richard Littlejohn said we'll hold our noses and vote Tory or some of us will vote UKIP and vote for change.

I agree Isitmebut and that is why they are finished and will never win again unless the Tories get as arrogant as they have sometimes done in the past and allow Labour back in. A Labour in the centre, in their suits, cannot beat the Tories ever. They now need PR voting and some new thinking that is real left if they are to offer anything new.

Claig ... Labour cannot live/govern on those past laurels, especially having had 13-years in power to change the lives of the poor/working class and blew it.

And just imagine, the Tories now have five more years to change the lives of the poor and working class for the worse! Let's see how many they can kill.

'What I feel is the real issue is why Labour didn't get the Libdem voters.'

The Daily Mail articles say it is because of fear of the SNP and also the economy

I saw a table somewhere (and I can't find it again which is really frustrating me) that showed that the swing from Lab to UKIP was far smaller than the swing from Con to UKIP.

Not surprising really. Not to me anyway.

What I feel is the real issue is why Labour didn't get the Libdem voters.

Ukip took on the Bnp voters.

I read it in an article today, but you may be right about the figures and UKIP not making much difference there.

Claig in Morley and Outwood, Ed Balls only lost by around 400 votes. I think Labour had an increase of 0.4 and Conservatives had an increase of 3.6. It was always a marginal seat. Why do you feel that UKIP took Labour votes?

'They aren't the reason labour lost.'

Some analysts are saying that the reason the Tories took Ed Balls's scalp is because of UKIP. UKIP took some of Labour's working class vote and the Tories knocked him out.

'a move back to Blair would be more disastrous than a move to the left.'

Yes because Blair is just Tory-lite. Blair was Thatcher's heir and Cameron is Blair's heir. It is almost a continuum. No one will vote for Blairism because Tory-lite will not put more money in their pockets than Tory. Labour have to be far more imaginative, far more daring, having to offer us more, something better.

'There has been no rise of UKIP. They only won one seat and he was a sitting ex Tory. They aren't the reason labour lost.'

The rise of UKIP is the story of 2014, a party of "fruitcakes" that won the European elections, won a landlside in Clacton and now took 3.8 million votes, more than the SNP, Plaid and the Greens combined and more than the LibDems to become Britain's third largest party by vote share.

By 2020, it will be much bigger because it meets a need, it opposes our political class.

Claig I like you a lot you know, even in your previous posts before the election, I could see sense in your UKIP ramblings. Not because I believe in anything you say about Farage or UKIP and I don't quite believe that Labour needs to radicalise. But you are very astute.

People don't believe socialism pays. We need to hammer it home in a sensible, iron-clad way that will put money in people's pockets and create a fairer system that can be accountable to the general public.

Blair got us elected but then forgot he was meant to represent the workers. Not the working class but people who work. By providing real opportunities to work, by making work pay, by making work provide a standard of life for everyone.

Some Blairite said today that we need to be "economically competent and socially responsible". Yes exactly. But Blair never achieved that and a move back to Blair would be more disastrous than a move to the left.

'You are correct, labour voters don't vote.'

They are not Labour voters, they are voters. That is the mistake Labour make. They took the Scottish people for granted and thought they were their voters. They took their Northern heartlands for granted and thought they were their voters, but now they have UKIP on their tails and by 2020, they wil face a huge shock in the North of England because their London metropolitan elite took those voters for granted and thought that they were Labour voters and not just voters.

'Britain 'is suffering a huge loss of faith in its institutions': Trust in all politicians has slumped to an all-time low, say researchers'

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2296085/Britain-suffering-huge-loss-faith-institutions-Trust-politicians-slumped-time-low-say-researchers.html

This is the white elephant in the room. We don't trust them - the charities, the bigwigs, the BBC, the political class, the media, the banks, the hospitals, everything.

Any party that can win our trust will win elections. We have more faith in Cameron than Miliband, but we don't think much of Cameron either. Here is Richard Littlejohn in today's Daily Mail on why Cameron won and what "was in it for us"

"So what’s in all this for the English voters who have given Cameron his majority?

Not only will we get the EU vote the other parties would have denied us; the Human Rights Act will be scrapped; the low-paid will be taken out of tax altogether, millions of hard-pressed middle-income earners will be taken out of the 40p band and the top rate won’t rise to an enterprise-sapping 50 per cent.

We’ve also been spared the mansion tax and the bullying bureaucracy and attack on civil liberties and free speech which would have come with a recovery-wrecking Labour/SNP set-up.

For that we can thank the sensible voters of Middle England, however reluctant many of us may have felt when voting Tory.

Time to stop holding our noses and breathe a deep sigh of relief."

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3074274/Scottish-Stalinists-Dave-s-lucky-bunny-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-gives-view-Cameron-s-narrow-victory.html

It's not that people like Cameron, he only won because he was better than the alternative.

There has been no rise of UKIP. They only won one seat and he was a sitting ex Tory. They aren't the reason labour lost.

English labour could do with learning from the snp about how to appeal to urban & rural, rich & poor- universalism. They fought with the snp over this and look who won.

You are correct, labour voters don't vote.

A volunteer posting leaflets saw them being put in the recycling in the most deprived areas. People in deprived areas also had a low turnout percentage at the count.

I voted Balir in 1997, but never again after that because unlike all the Blairites are saying on TV now, that Blair understood aspiration, he did no such thing, all he did was please his millionaire mates, he didn't do "anything for us". It was under Blair that Lord Prescott was up to his stuff

"SPY in the sky cameras could be used to slap higher council tax bills on householders who make home improvements."

and it was under Blair that they wanted to strip our civil liberties and give us biometric ID cards and DNA databases for "our own good".

Blair did nothing for us, he did everything for his mates and now he travels the world doing stuff for leaders across the globe.

So Labour will go back to Blairism, but this time they have UKIP to contend with, and we will defeat them no matter how many Murdochs help them.

'They should campaign for compulsory voting as its their potential voters who don't come out.'

This is what they will probably one day try to do. Thiis is always the socialist solution - to force voters to the polls whom they think will vote for them. But they may find that those voters vote for UKIP instead of them.

But if they try to use compulsion, UKIP will oppose them and the Tories will too and the people will too. We don't trust our political classes and we certainly don't want them to force us and tell us what to do.

They have to respect he people and our liberties and our wishes. The rise of UKIP is because they ignored us, lectured us, hectored us, spun us and disrespected us.

I didn't realise Bob Was TUSC. Yes Bob was phenomenal. He was the Farage of the left, able to outwit his opponents and appeal to many voters. He did make mistakes and was wrong on some things, but he was right on a lot of stuff too.

I am on the right, but if there was a meaningful real left wing solution to housing and employment and job security and prosperity, I think millions on the right would go for it too. UKIP voters would too.

The current Labour people criticising Ed Miliband are right that Labour must appeal to aspiration. That is what most people want, just a good life with good prospects and a good future. The problem is that lots of people don't think Labour will offer that or even understands that that is what people want. Sky News just interviewed voters in Ilford North and one woman said "the Tories offer us more. We are not on welfare. What is in it for us?" and she came from a family of lifelong Labour voters. Aspiration is fundamental. But Bob Crow understood that. He made sure his workers got the best pay and conditions possible. Nothing was too good for the workers and that is how it should be.

Unless the Tories really mess up like they did in 1997 when even Tories like me had had enough of their arrogant faces on TV and all the sleaze that was associated with them, then most people will never believe that Labour will offer them a better future than the Tories because Labour are seen as wanting to tax what little the squeezed middle has, typified by Lord Prescott

"SPY in the sky cameras could be used to slap higher council tax bills on householders who make home improvements.

Tax inspectors have looked into using satellite and aerial photographs to spot extensions, conservatories and other improvements, Whitehall officials confirmed last night.

The idea has brought a furious response from human rights campaigners.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: 'It's ludicrous. It's not only a waste of resources, it's a shockingly disproportionate interference with people's privacy.

'It seems now that an Englishman's home is no longer his castle if he puts a conservatory on it.'

The technology has been explored as part of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's plans to increase council tax bills for those who have extended or made improvements to their homes."

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-1595711/The-new-council-tax-spy-in-the-sky.html

Labour's punitive policies alienate millions of ordinary people who feel that they will be penalised for working hard and doing well.

Labour must become a party of the people - a Red UKIP - that understands people's aspirations and does not only talk about people on welfare etc because that is the impression they give to lots of people.

Lots of UKIP and Tory voters want railways nationalised

"British people support re-nationalising the railways by 60-20% - for the main reason that they should be accountable to taxpayers rather than shareholders"

yougov.co.uk/news/2014/05/11/why-do-people-support-rail-nationalisation/

Any party that said they would rein in salaries of fat cats in public industries, hospital trusts and councils and slash them, that promised to do quantitative easing to build milliosn of homes and employ people to do it instead of bailing out banks. Any party that said they would create new factories in every town to produce basic goods and utensils that every home needs and that these would employ the unemployed first, any party that offered small businesses interest free loans to expand businesses, that promised to slash wasteful spending on foreign aid or to think tanks and charities and foundations that are often stuffed full of ex-political figures and their mates, any party that slashed HS2 and put the money into new nationalised science parks and hubs and new universities for science and technology only (similar to Harold Wilson's White Heat of Technology), any government that had some national plan for growth, that did not just sit back and let the market do everything, but said we know what to do and how to do it in areas where progress should occur quicker, any government that said we will concentrate on essentials, we will cut salaries at the BBC and their taxi fares and the licence fee and things for which the public are being overcharged, any government that said we will stop the growth in the third sector charities, stop spending money on some of these projects and spend it creating nationalised building companies with apprenticeships that would repair and build homes. Any party that did half of that, would give people hope.

The problem is where would the money come from and are they allowed to do that when they are tied up by EU and WTO trade law etc. I don't know. But there is lots of money in the country (the fifth largest economy in the world) as the quantitative easing showed. But that money was not spent on production and employment, but to bail out the financial industry.

I think we will eventually go back to the need for some state planning to step in where markets do not go or do not go fast enough.

I don't believe it is not possible because after World War II, the country was on its knees, and we still created the NHS and better homes and a better life.

Labour can never beat the Tories by being Tory-lite. They can only beat them by offering more and offering to do it quicker and in a planned way rather than letting wealth trickle down or the market do it if it feels like it.

Labour has to offer hope and a plan and appeal to all the people, not just to people on welfare and Labour has to be different to the Tories or nobody will think it is worth making a change.

What it come sdown to is what the woman who was interviewed on Sky News said

"What will Labour do for us?" "What's in it for us?

"What have Labour ever done for us?"

They have done a lot and they have to do more and they have to explain what it will be and why it will be good for us. Tory-lite is nowhere near good enough, Blair is a joke and was only kept in power because he went to war and pleased the millionaires so the press mocked the Tories.

People are not born right wing, they are right wing because they don't believe that the left offers a good enough alternative. They didn't believe Ed Miliband would be better than Cameron for the economy. That is because Ed was just Tory-lite or as the Scottish people rightly said "Red Tories". A left wing radical solution that offered hope and a plan and that "would do something for us" would expose the hollowness of the Tory alternative to let the markets sort things out if they get round to it.

And why Labour need a Bob Crow and not a human spin machine is because Bob Crow didn't spin, he said it like it was, he took them on on Question Time, he made us laugh, he took it to them, he gave us hope, just like Farage.

Labour doesn't need to forgo its principles though. It needs to make that believable and palatable to the marginals.

'Scottish' labour needs to completely split from London labour. (Like the greens)

rUK labour then needs to move right to appeal to middle englander Tories in the marginal seats Blair stormed through in 1997. They should campaign for compulsory voting as its their potential voters who don't come out.

Also Bob Crow did have a party, TUSC. He was the co-founder. Bob was a great man, inspiring and relentless. I was a union rep under him and he inspired me every time he spoke.

Epson should read reason, sorry!

Writing on a phone with a toddler asleep on your arm is not ideal.