What do the Labour party need to do to stop their slow death?

[flashbac]

I'll start:

Starmer needs to stop acting like a rabbit in the headlights and actually stand for something. He has no charisma or gravitas. We want someone with a personality. Stand for something Starmer!

Stop pandering to the 'red wall'. Inspire people to vote for the party with some good policies instead of flip flopping about.

Have some inspiring and uplifting policies like:

• Free childcare for working parents
• making public transport normal and affordable
• subsidised green energy initiatives to help householders lower energy bills eg solar panels etc

And they NEED to distance themselves from that anti science TWAW stance. I'm all for being kind but a blanket dilution of what 'woman' means is regressive.

I don’t think they despise success or ambition hence their demands that schools and colleges receive more funding and ordinary kids receive a decent education. And it was the coalition that cut surestart centres which were designed to help struggling families

You miss the point. The things you mention are about helping children. But what happens when those children grow up and are wanting to work and earn more and more money and become the bosses and the landlords etc of the future Then they become the enemy.
Can’t you see the problem

Is it portrayed like that? I just googled because people were saying about it. That said the first person convicted was in 2008. Hence why I suggested that would make them quiet on the subject.

Anyway after your question about Where would someone move too? Because apparently that is all you got from their post. Well I am not surprised it is you being quick to defend. About as out of touch with your posts on this thread as labour currently is being. You are not bothering to read peoples threads properly and too much on the defensive. Though thanks for providing so background to the post office scandal.

I'm a labour voter and not got a problem with people working hard and earning lots of money. Not got a problem with ambition and aspiration. Where does it say that the labour party hates that ?

Previous labour party member, now I spoil my vote:
Please keep women's sex based protection, transmen still have the ability and instinct to harm women as much as men do.
Sex work is rape - please look into the Nortic model.
Housing and childcare are unaffordable - people who are coddled by their parents don't experience this, please look into giving equal opportunity for education, careers, healthcare and retirement.
Why should I work to 67 when others (within the right industries) get to retire 20 years before me? They have not worked harder.
Food banks should not be required.
Why is end of life care a charity? What happened to cradle to grave?
Why is Labour not addressing the Conservative corruption?
Why is Labour not addressing the evil that is buy to let? Even Blair was a part of this.
We need council housing, not the swindle that is part rent part buy.
How about reading Utopia for Realists?

@AnneElliott

Plus they need to address the issue of anti Semitism - I don't think a new leader is enough. Before the 2019 election my Jewish friends were honestly planning to leave the country if Labour had got in. They had packed and asked me in all seriousness how long I thought it would take to pass laws to take their passports or stop them leaving (I'm a civil servant). I couldn't believe that in the UK I was being asked how long before we started taking their rights away. That will take a long time to heal.

Yes I completely agree. A local woman giving out Labour leaflets before the last election now refuses to speak to me because I said I could not vote Labour while they were so riddled with anti-semitism and identity nonsense. Her response was a sneering “ Oh so you are a tory” Honestly they are clueless.

I don't agree that a leader with more charisma is needed. Charisma is Tony Blair and to some extent, Boris Johnson - both self-absorbed, unprincipled narcissists out for self-enrichment and influence rather than making this country better.

Aside from that, Labour are so radically out of touch with ordinary people that I am amazed anyone can still vote for them. Taking the knee, wanting harder and earlier lockdowns, supporting any minority cause going whilst completely neglecting the working class issues that they are supposed to be addressing.

In a nutshell, it feels like Labour really dislike its core voter demographic and just throw them a few sweeteners whenever they need a vote.

Her response was a sneering “ Oh so you are a tory”

Pretty much the lame-brained sort of response we have come to expect of Labour. Especially the 'sneer'.

Post office scandle been going on 20 years - so 2000s.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56718036

Between 2000 and 2014, the Post Office prosecuted 736 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses - an average of one a week - based on information from a recently installed computer system called Horizon.

...

After 20 years, campaigners won a legal battle to have their cases reconsidered, after claiming that the computer system was flawed.
...
Horizon was introduced into the Post Office network from 1999

I think some of the earliest news articles came from 2009 - computer weekly and Private Eye.

I don't think the Labour government was to blame or the Tories though I do wonder why it wasn't picked up quicker than a massive miscarriage of justice was occuring or more done quicker to stop or help the people caught up in it.

This thread is fascinating.

I was a life-long Labour voter until the dark Corbyn years and now definitely cannot vote for the party until they recognise the paramount importance of sex-based rights. I held my nose and voted Tory last time but it didn't feel very good.

On the back of this thread I went to Starmer's website to see these 10 pledges referenced by a PP. This screenshot sums it all up for me, tbh. The form to share your thoughts is broken.

@btwwhichonespink

Her response was a sneering “ Oh so you are a tory”

Pretty much the lame-brained sort of response we have come to expect of Labour. Especially the 'sneer'.

I got asked on twitter "Does politically homeless mean bigoted cunt who secretly votes Tory?" (I had politically homeless in my bio at the time) by a charming young, male Labour Councillor.

Do they really think this sort of attitude is going to win us over? Or do they think they can spare the votes?

Andante57

I think it was me who wrote about leaving.

Where would we go?

I have looked at going back to Europe where my family is originally from (I was born in the U.K.). But for various reasons it doesn’t appeal to us.
If we choose anywhere there are a couple of areas in the U.S that we think we could make work. I have done so much research on visas and on what would work as a business that if we do decide to go it will be an overnight decision.

@AnneElliott

Plus they need to address the issue of anti Semitism - I don't think a new leader is enough. Before the 2019 election my Jewish friends were honestly planning to leave the country if Labour had got in. They had packed and asked me in all seriousness how long I thought it would take to pass laws to take their passports or stop them leaving (I'm a civil servant). I couldn't believe that in the UK I was being asked how long before we started taking their rights away. That will take a long time to heal.

We were in this position. DH and I actually had a plan. I and the Dcs would leave the country. He would pack up the house and the pets, sell it and follow us. We were genuinely genuinely frightened. My parents live abroad, my dad a son of holocaust survivors.

I'll never vote Labour again.

There were at least 2 inquires under the Tories, both said there was no evidence any monies had been stolen! one even said Horizon had issues!

Yet nothing done.... but somehow this is portrayed as a Labour failing.....

Despite the fact you are wrong about when the Post Office/Horizon scandal started as shown in randomlyLost's post, why when it was shown under enquiries that the people had done nothing wrong yet were still being prosecuted and their lives ruined were the Labour Party not shouting from the rooftops about this and offering support to those affected? Why were they not holding the Government of the day to account over this? Why the deafening silence?

@TruelyWonder

Is it portrayed like that? I just googled because people were saying about it. That said the first person convicted was in 2008. Hence why I suggested that would make them quiet on the subject.

Anyway after your question about Where would someone move too? Because apparently that is all you got from their post. Well I am not surprised it is you being quick to defend. About as out of touch with your posts on this thread as labour currently is being. You are not bothering to read peoples threads properly and too much on the defensive. Though thanks for providing so background to the post office scandal.

I think they are quiet because Starmer was DPP.

No, i was interested as to where someone would move to, after (in their opinion) society has/will collapsed to such an extent they would emigrate, purely because Corbyn is in power and that not only they but their friends also had plans to move as well.

Given that in this doomsday scenario, housing prices would also collapse, where would the money come from for such drastic measures?

Bythemillpond yes but some time ago Jasjas mentioned he/she was leaving England for, I think, France.

I think they are quiet because Starmer was DPP.

Well that's a ringing endorsement of him isn't it.

@PickAChew

Split. It's (at least) 2 different parties, moving further and further apart.

Not RTFT but I agree with this 100% unfortunately. It cannot appeal to the identity politics student group and the red wall simultaneously. Trying to do both is just making them look weak and indecisive and undermining their remaining credibility.

I personally would prefer Labour to return to the likes of Alan Johnson who actually understood what 95% of the population were quietly thinking. Instead the Labour Party is now dominated by the vocal minority who would rather lose and maintain ideological purity than actually compromise to make things better for the vast majority.

@BronwenFrideswide

I think they are quiet because Starmer was DPP.

Well that's a ringing endorsement of him isn't it.

Any DPP can only act on the evidence provided by the Police, he didn't do anything wrong but his dept's decision in prosecuting would be used against him. Just as some 'papers tried to link Starmer with Saville and Warbouys.

But yes, given the horrendous nature of the PO/Horizon scandal, disappointing.

I got asked on twitter "Does politically homeless mean bigoted cunt who secretly votes Tory?" (I had politically homeless in my bio at the time) by a charming young, male Labour Councillor.

Sunsetbeetch that is disgraceful. Yet somehow Labour aren't polling well at the moment? Maybe the sheer arrant misogyny on display from the WokeBros and handmaidens could be the reason why

I’m a labour voter and not got a problem with people working hard and earning lots of money. Not got a problem with ambition and aspiration. Where does it say that the labour party hates that

When there manifesto says it is going after the wealthy, the billionaires, big businesses etc to pay for their policies but then you find out the wealthy could include a family who have only one income of £80,000.

Also that's part of what I was mentioning earlier - that a lot of this stuff has infiltrated right through local party politics and policies too - it goes all the way down at the moment. Until Starmer is willing to bring it into line and stop allowing the party to be a home for woke misogyny, women will not vote for them.

@EsmaCannonball

Next time there's a big election they need to kidnap Owen Jones, Ash Sarkar and their like and lock them in a cupboard till it's all over. They need to distance themselves from loud, ubiquitous commentators who are voting-booth poison.

They need to reconnect with real people's real concerns. Nobody on a crime-ridden sink estate wants to abolish prisons and the police. Nobody whose job is at risk cares about pronouns.

at that first sentence!

As for the rest, I couldn't agree more. This article is just as relevant now as it was when first published three years ago. www.feministcurrent.com/2018/03/23/leftist-women-uk-refuse-accept-labours-attempts-silence-critiques-gender-identity/ The bit towards the end about the Deptford Project pinpoints what's gone wrong.

I was a student in the early 80s when Militant Tendency was trying to take over Labour from within. I had joined the party and was intending to get involved in student politics, but my college Labour Society was taken over by Militant, and it put me off organised politics for life. I remember vividly sitting with an activist over coffee and listening while she explained that elections were not necessary. Neighbourhood meetings would be scheduled where party workers would explain to local people what the government wanted to do and the people could have their say, and any concerns would be fed back up to the top. Yeah, right. Worked brilliantly in Soviet Russia and Mao's China.

Ludicrous nonsense then, and now, and totally removed from ordinary people's concerns. I don't see Starmer doing a Neil Kinnock and tackling Momentum head on, more's the pity. 12 years it took from this speech.

stackthecats

I think Labour have 2 glaring problems
One is with with basic maths and the other is they only like to surround themselves with people who think like they do.

Someone mentioned upthread about women being the 51% that Labour are ignoring. In their mind it is about going after the 100% of the Woke brigade that they think will bring in more votes (after all 100% is a bigger percentage than 51%)

Whilst university is just 3 years of their lives for a lot of students I wonder how many will be as Woke when they get out in the real world. So Labour surrounding itself with a group of chanting students with their Woke ideas sounds like a brilliant idea to capture the voters of the future but in real terms once these people face the harsh reality of having to negotiate the Tax Credit/Universal Credit systems and the shock of living on a minimum wage job (if they are lucky) then getting het up because someone misgendered Tommy or Samantha goes right down the list of their priorities.
They want a government who is more interested in helping them rather than one who gives them the tools to be successful but then turns them into public enemy when they do become successful.
Labour seems to think making Woke policies at the forefront of their campaigns.
But Woke policies have nothing to do with most peoples every day that lives

I wonder how many will be as Woke when they get out in the real world

It took my DS a year post-university to emerge back into the light. It was sports that did it.

This is the key bit from that Neil Kinnock speech.

Fourthly, I shall tell you again what you know. Because you are from the people, because you are of the people, because you live with the same realities as everybody else lives with, implausible promises don’t win victories. I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, out-dated, mis-placed, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end up in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers. (Applause) I am telling you, no matter how entertaining, how fulfilling to short-term egos – (Continuing applause) – you can’t play politics with people’s jobs and with people’s services or with their homes. (Applause and some boos) Comrades, the voice of the people – not the people here; the voice of the real people with real needs – is louder than all the boos that can be assembled. Understand that, please, comrades. In your socialism, in your commitment to those people, understand it. The people will not, cannot, abide posturing. They cannot respect the gesture-generals or the tendency-tacticians.

Comrades, it seems to me lately that some of our number become like latter-day public school-boys. It seems it matters not whether you won or lost, but how you played the game. (Applause) We cannot take that inspiration from Rudyard Kipling. (Continuing applause) Those game players get isolated, hammered, blocked off. They might try to blame others – workers, trade unions, some other leadership, the people of the city – for not showing sufficient revolutionary consciousness, always somebody else, and then they claim a rampant victory. Whose victory? Not victory for the people, not victory for them. I see the casualties; we all see the casualties. They are not to be found amongst the leaders and some of the enthusiasts; they are to be found amongst the people whose jobs are destroyed, whose services are crushed, whose living standards are pushed down to deeper depths of insecurity and misery.