Wipeout for Labour in Hartlepool

On Radio 5, they've just been laughing about Lloyd Russell-Moyle being first out of the traps to criticise Starmer and saying Labour needs to go more in the Moyle* direction, which the commentators are saying will delight the Tories.

*I won't call this 'further Left' because his brand of beardy wokebro misogyny is the opposite.

It is a case of 'the Torys may destroy women's rights' compares to 'Labour/Lib Dems/Greens definitely will destroy women's rights and laugh and call us bigots whilst doing so

This. The Tories only got onboard the trans train because they wanted a progressive issue to jump onto to allay the 'nasty party' thing and they thought it would be an easy win. They really dont care that much either way

as opposed to every other political party who proactively want to get rid of single sex spaces and happily indulge ageism in the process by dismissing any woman who raises an objection as old and out of touch and a Karen.

I held my nose and voted Labour. For years I always floated between them, Lib Dems and Greens but can't see that happening ever again. I shuddered seeing the LD logo on the ballot, and it was a relief to see no Greens standing. How has it come to this?

If Starmer goes I can't see who would take his place that wouldn't make me abandon Labour for good too. That he didn't cave over the appalling trans pledge business is practically the only hope I'm holding out at this point.

It’s like Labour moved to London and had a 5 year conference on what they wanted people to think and just worked off that. (The heartlands used to be Hull. Now it’s Islington. In an organic pub.)
I think you've summed it up well here. They are spending too much time listening to a particulqr group of 20-somethings with narrow life experiences who want to pat themselves on the back for 'raising awareness' on Twitter, and not enough time realising that the electorate want more than identity politics and telling off.

Many people I know voted Labour to try and prevent a Tory win, and it didn't work. There's a lot of people who would vote for a centre left party that sticks up for workers, families and public services. Labour aren't listening though.

Unfortunately in the last few years the Overton window in the UK has also shifted to the right, so even policies that would have been distinctly centre ground are viewed as radically left, and Tory cronyism is dismissed as Boris just doing his best.

But the last Labour Party manifesto did pledge to maintain sex-based rights.

And as I said, maintaining the NHS and not undermining the law courts may be more important than activist ideology.

It would be really good to know how much the lack of support for single-sex spaces and rights affected voter decisions beyong the FWR / GC twitter bubble.

Media talks only about the Brexit effect.

Our friends in the north who voted for brexit and Tory told us that they did so because, why not? Nothing really changed for them from Tory to Labour to Tory.

It’s like Labour moved to London and had a 5 year conference on what they wanted people to think and just worked off that. (The heartlands used to be Hull. Now it’s Islington. In an organic pub.)

‘Why People voted wrongly’ - fucking hell!

Destroying through neglect versus it being a mission statement.

but I don’t get why people think Tories are a good option on women’s rights.

It is a case of 'the Torys may destroy women's rights' compares to 'Labour/Lib Dems/Greens definitely will destroy women's rights and laugh and call us bigots whilst doing so'

The people in the centre are voting Tory, we had better move further to the left then they will definitely vote for us. Tory scum.

Agree with a lot of what is said here about Labour, but I don’t get why people think Tories are a good option on women’s rights.

The Tories want to change Judicial Review to make it harder. JR is the main way women have been fighting back.

The Tories like to bring more private sector companies into the NHS. It’s profit motive in the privatised US health system that a lot of people think has been driving the gender issue.

The only Tory MP who actually speaks out on women’s rights is Jackie Doyle-Price. As there are more Tory MPs, and they face less pushback from activists than in the other parties, where are the rest?

Baroness Nicholson does a lot but she is a very old style kind of Tory (and there are Labour peers who are also speaking out). The new Tory MPs from the Red Wall were actually in favour of GRA reform and self-id (suspect because they are younger, rather than that’s what their constituents want).

And yes, Liz Truss read the room, but that doesn’t have to mean much, there’s the conversion therapy push and plenty of ways to enable self id in practice. And there’s lots of lobbying and plenty of potential for donations … of course, the Tories won't be interested in that, will they?

What I find odd (and I've rarely seen mentioned, except by Grayson Perry!) is the way this generation of Labour, both Corbyn and Starmer sides, have totally embraced Globalisation with all its insecurities and its Tebbit 'on your bike' attitude to working class jobs, when my generation of Leftists 20 years ago took to the streets to protest about it.

And the first reply to that tweet is from Susanna Rustin, Guardian journalist, agreeing how hard it is. LOJ will be demanding her sacking come Monday.

My twitter timeline has been full of tweets like this:

twitter.com/WTFoucault/status/1390364961570967552

for the last 48 hours. They could bring tens of thousands of women back in one fell swoop with a concerted and overt support of women (as a concept) and of women's sex based rights . Heck, loads of Conservative women would vote Labour at least the once if there was some clear blue water on this - women are begging for a party to vote for that will stop their erasure. #LabourLosingWomen

I didn't vote Tory, in the end. But for every one of my lefty liberal friends making stupid, sneery comments on social media about them, I felt more inclined to do so.

Honestly, when will we move beyond this stupid, childish point scoring bullshit?

Great comments. I read this name for Lloyd - Lloyd the Rusty Mole

The comment that Labour don’t seem to like the people they want votes from really struck a chord

Lots of Labour activists on twitter saying things like “ppl who vote Tory don’t care about decency or fairness” or the more straightforward “Tory bigots” and you know really?

I vote(d) Labour all my life but my husband votes conservative. He is a decent kind man and Labour are hardly going to persuade him to vote for them by saying that the reason he doesn’t atm is because he’s an awful person

if someone says they are 'left' 'leftish' 'Labour' I don't really know what that is likely to mean, and I say it about myself. What it does tend to mean in reality is a lot of negative groaning about lots of apparently insoluble problems

Labour need positive policies to win votes. Right now, I have no idea what they stand for.

Really? I hope when you typed incompetent you actually meant competent...

The Conservatives are certainly presenting an unclear identity with contradictory messages. But the electorate seem to have a choice between bumbling, dishonest, confused but at least basically sane and competent with cloud cuckoo land Orwellian batshit.

I don't want any of the current parties on offer, but will choose incompetent every time over insane and dangerous.

If they move left again they’ll be lost for years.

So frustrating to see

Depressing to see Diane Abbott et al calling for a return to Corbyn's policies. They really don't get it, do they?

I get the impression that a lot of people long for a steady centre-left government and only vote Tory because Labour seems a long way from offering that. Labour also seems to be oblivious to the fact that for a lot of ordinary people the furlough scheme was a life-saver and more generous than they might have expected. That'll have been a vote-winner.

The Conservatives led by Johnson also appear to be presenting an unclear identity to the voters and are putting out contradictory messages. However, they seem to be flexible and able to respond to massive changes in events. At the moment the Conservatives appear less ideological than they have been for years, while the opposite looks true for Labour, and I think in this way the Conservatives are more catching the current public mood.