"Corbyn is clueless about the working class" Janice Turner in The Times today.

[Trewser]

I found this article powerful and quite moving. Summed up a lot of what I instinctively felt about Labour but wasn't clever enough to express. Thanks Janice. I'm not sure how to share...

article

• all-encompassing term

it tells you everything about why Labour lost their working class heartlands in this election.

It’s full of sound bites and rhetoric. It doesn’t add anything we didn’t already know.

those bloody thickos, not voting like they're supposed to vote eh? must be because they're stupid and racist

OR the labour party could do some reflection, realise that nobody owes them a vote, and wonder why people felt the LP was not for them

good article

Yep. Sums it up. Labour are out of touch with the voting public.

Labour was so out of touch it was untrue but, they thought the youth quake would see them through.

I live in the Midlands and my partner works with many nationalities in his workplace and they would not vote Labour.

So are all those ex Labour supporters ill informed and ignorant or just not being heard ?

It’s full of sound bites and rhetoric. It doesn’t add anything we didn’t already know

It's a comment piece in a newspaper. It's not a data analysis. Corbyn fan are we?

Thank you for the share tokens. I buy The Times every couple of days, mainly for writers like Janice Turner.

Speaking as a Northerner who was born in the most deprived area of Liverpool (and that was a tough competition at the time) and one who has lived for many years in the Northern heartlands where the working assumption was that everyone supported Labour, she is - as ever - bob on.

I do not believe that just changing leader will be enough. The Labour Party needs to start again with a blank page, if only for the fact that democracy depends on there being a credible Opposition.

Those who think that a cosmetic change will be enough to bring back those disillusioned heartland voters might want to reflect on this. If Boris completes his full five year term - does anyone here think there's the remotest chance he won't? - then it will have been over fifty years since any Labour leader not named Tony Blair has ever won an election.

I am not advocating for Tony Blair, by the way. Just pointing out that anything to the left of his policy position has failed, time after time. I think Boris is occupying - or planning to occupy - much the same position on the political spectrum as Tony Blair once did in the days before Iraq.

The times is owned by Rupert Murdock it will be biased.
Unless you're that way inclined (Tory) I wouldn't bother

OMG! Don't read it!! You might catch opposite thoughts

The Times actually has very balanced coverage from a range of political viewpoints. The writer of this article, Janice Turner, is left wing. Not that that should matter. People should take a range of different viewpoints. If Labour routinely did so, it would understand why the northern working-class electorate is apparently being so disobedient.

I filched this from another thread:

"Never underestimate a pissed-off Northerner".

I agree with much of the article.
The reason the Conservative won the election is because Labour stopped listening.
The MP saying climate change needs to be tackled is the equivalent of telling someone whose been hit by a car that speed needs to be sorted, well of course it does but that stop the bleeding, will it?
Not agreeing with Labour policies doesn’t make us racist or thick.

Who’s bloody autocorrect

I do not believe that just changing leader will be enough. The Labour Party needs to start again with a blank page, if only for the fact that democracy depends on there being a credible Opposition.

I completely agree with this, but think it's unlikely to happen. The problem is Momentum. Those people are not going anywhere anytime soon, and they have an unpleasant habit of aggressively bullying more moderate members out of the party.

I am also horrified at the calibre of some of the candidates that Momentum put up in the north. The prime example being Sophie Wilson in Rother Valley, a privileged 23-year old who proceeded aggressively to hector and abuse survivors of sexual violence (including those working-class girls groomed in Rotherham) with her belief that sex work empowering, and that not wanting a male sharing your bedroom in your women's refuge is bigotry. It's grossly insulting and arrogant to assume that you can field such a candidate and have the electorate show up and vote for you as they always have done. I've generally voted Labour in the past, but I think they deserved to lose on the basis of this alone.

Although I could be thick for having not read my post before hitting post
Should say, does not stop the bleeding

The prime example being Sophie Wilson in Rother Valley, a privileged 23-year old who proceeded aggressively to hector and abuse survivors of sexual violence (including those working-class girls groomed in Rotherham) with her belief that sex work empowering

I could not believe this candidate. So unbelievably arrogant of the Labour Party.

I am also horrified at the calibre of some of the candidates that Momentum put up in the north.

I completely agree with this. I think Momentum is in Hiroo Onoda mode.

While Labour continues to navel-gaze, the new Conservative Party is moving on and changing the narrative.

Anyone who thinks that the Conservatives are stuck in a mindset, please consider this: it's the only national political party to have had two female Prime Ministers, two female Home Secretaries, one female Defence Secretary, one female Trade Secretary.

Which other political party in this country could even begin to match that?

The new Conservative Party already looks different. For a start, there has been an immediate 29% increase in the number of woman MPs. There are now 86 women in the HoC and while there is still a long way to go, that's a considerable improvement on the 67 women MPs of the 2017 intake.

Some more facts people might want to consider. Look at who holds the three Great Offices of State: the son of Pakistani Muslim immigrants, the daughter of Ugandan-Indian refugees, the son of a Czech Jew who fled the Nazis as a child refugee. Boris himself is the great-grandson of a Turkish minister who was assassinated by his political rivals.

And this? The Party Chairman is the son of a Sierra Leonean. The Work and Pensions Secretary was a Barnardo's Child. The former leader of the Scottish Conservatives made history by being the first woman openly lesbian to be elected as party leader - and she is still the darling of the wider Conservative Party because neither her biological sex nor her sexual orientation matter: she's just damn good at her job.

By the way, the youngest MP in the HoC is now Sara Britcliffe. She has just taken Hyndburn off Labour. She's 24 - and yes, she's a Conservative.

Sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, youth - none of these things matter in the Conservative Party any more. Identity politics do not matter. What you are does not matter. All that matters is what you say and what you do.

Labour would really really need to work hard and run fast to catch up.

That's all true about the women PMs

Posted too soon!
But I could never vote or join Tory as I am fundamentally opposed to their free market, top down, anti welfare, individualism ideology. My background is pro union (because I have seen proper unions actually protect the workers, less so now) pro socialised medicine and transport, pro living wage, pro checks and balances on big business. However I am also very pro small business and enterprise, and want ordinary people to be able to rise economically and in politics.
I believe in social mobility and totally get the point about the new car and the bottle of wine. I want working class people to have their safety net, but also be able to nurture ambition, start a business and end up creating jobs, and not be hobbled by red tape and excessive taxes.
I think that's what most people want tbh.
(One of) the problems with Momentum Labour has been that they seem to want the working class to stay in their box. I have met so many middle class lefties that rant against Right to Buy for example. Well, OK, if you already own your own house it's easy to say it's wrong. Or if you are 37 and renting in London with no hope to buy, you might feel it's unfair. But if you are a single mother in a council house and its the only chance you will get to own property, build an asset, leave something to your kids, then you have a different perspective.
And if you actually LIVE on a council estate you can see right away that social mixing is a good thing, that ghettos where everyone is the same and going nowhere are often horrible places to live.
The problem isn't that working people are able to rise, the problem is when systems become static and rigid and people get stuck (whether that's in insecure private rental or in some godforsaken crumbling tower block with no nearby facilities.)
I just want Labour to go back to supporting the people who made them instead of demanding support and patronising with free broadband. Pragmatic policies that help communities.

My background is pro union (because I have seen proper unions actually protect the workers, less so now) pro socialised medicine and transport, pro living wage, pro checks and balances on big business. However I am also very pro small business and enterprise, and want ordinary people to be able to rise economically and in politics.

• I believe in social mobility and totally get the point about the new car and the bottle of wine. I want working class people to have their safety net, but also be able to nurture ambition, start a business and end up creating jobs, and not be hobbled by red tape and excessive taxes. I think that's what most people want tbh.*

Now that's not a million miles away from my own political stance, IfNot. Throw in "No to Self ID" and you might just have a new party.

Yep. Identity politics can fuck off and all Singing
I just can't understand politics at the moment. We have had a decade of austerity and pain. People want a decent bus service that costs less than a taxi, a job with the chance of progression, somewhere safe to live. These are not esoteric, theoretical ideas! I would vote for anyone who could work towards those things in my community and represent their actual constituents in parliament. Instead, Labour field..student type activists spouting word salad and calling people cunts if they question anything they say.
They are so completely our of touch it's hilarious.

I've worked with unions in my business for 25 years. They do exist under a conservative government you know

Most of what IfNot would like, if not all, is in line with One Nation Conservativism, Trewser, including trade union representation

It's not! Thatcherism destroyed the unions!
Tories want free market, privatised public transport. I don't. I remember after private companies took over the buses from the council in my town. There used to be a viable network of buses, now not having a car is incredibly hard.
Tories brought in UC. Tax credits had their problems but when I worked freelance/seasonally they worked for me as they were based on the whole tax year. Now it's really hard for people to have a fluctuating income. Children's centres were shut down. Social care has been cut to the bone.
I believe in infrastructure that is not nesscarily profit making because healthy stable communities prosper and thrive.
I don't think we should live in a society where you only think of your immediate, individual needs.
So I'm deeply pragmatic but defiantly not tory!

Should have said, yes unions exist but most have no teeth.

Tories want free market, privatised public transport.

Actually, IfNot, the one who has fought the hardest for public-funded public transport in my rural area has been my Conservative MP. She knows the value of making sure communities have the right infrastructure in order to access jobs, education, shops, and to run small businesses.

She also campaigns hard on improved social care for the young and the elderly, and is very active in local support groups.

She's a One Nation Tory. It's a very specific type of Conservativism - on the left of the party.

I think the majority support soft socialism as a safety net, and controlled capitalism for business.

I think we need a new centrist party now.,