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Anyone in Hartlepool - what on earth is going on

999 replies

Purplecatshopaholic · 07/05/2021 07:21

Genuine question. (Apologies if this is in the wrong place, I don’t post much). I’m Scottish and in Scotland, and I am constantly aware these days of how different the views are of Westminster up here, to across the border sometimes. We also have our own Labour Party leader up here. But really? Is Keir Starmer that bad? Are other parties not available? Who on earth is still voting for Boris…? Any WHY?

OP posts:
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5
risefromyourgrave · 07/05/2021 08:41

@GiveMeTulipsfromAmsterdam

People get what they deserve.
No, Hartlepool has never gotten what it deserved, which is investment. They have voted Labour the whole time the constituency has existed and it has been in a decline ever since, under Tory and Labour.

People in Hartlepool are, on the whole, extremely nice people and they have been fucked over by every single government. So I am not going to blame them for voting in a Conservative. (First female MP by the way) Think what you like about Boris, but he is personable, Kier Starmer has zero personality and has done nothing to help the North East.

Traditional Labour voters have been let down by the in-fighting in the party, all this identity bollocks means nothing when you are worried about your job.

MrsWooster · 07/05/2021 08:43

There’s an appetite for a slightly left but central party-Blair2. Labour are wilfully throwing the country to the Tories.

caitQ · 07/05/2021 08:43

In Hartlepool, voting Conservative was a protest.

Keep an eye out for the Mayor of London results on Saturday evening - those should be interesting.

Xenia · 07/05/2021 08:43

toocold - you sum up Labour's issue. It thinks it is right. It thinks people must be thick to support Boris J. It characterises the white working class as thick - peasants to be pushed around and told that they must be ashamed of the British past (even though my ancestors were down mines digging coal aged 10 in those days), it tells them that they have to think in certain ways. It tells them they must put the environment over affording a square meal for the family. it tells them men are women even if in law those men are still men (Labour unlike the Tories supports self declaration), Labour is not proud of our great nation. It offers no hope just moan moan moan. Boris J may have his faults but I would rather be stuck on a train with him than Stamer any day of the week.

Fairyliz · 07/05/2021 08:44

@TrickyD

Thick plebs voting for toffs.

Preferring to be told attractive lies rather than truths they don’t want to hear.

@TrickyD
So you really think the best way to persuade people is to insult them? Hope you don’t work in management.
AgeLikeWine · 07/05/2021 08:44

Labour are going to continue losing until they actually start listening to the people who live in places like Hartlepool.

The Labour Party emerged from the trade union movement to represent the economic interests of working people in Parliament. Now, it represents the cultural & ideological attitudes of a tiny, unrepresentative ‘woke’ middle-class metropolitan sect.

If Labour wants to win again it must start listening to the ordinary working people outside the M25 who it is supposed to represent. Lecturing and patronising white working class voters who feel ignored and abandoned about ‘colonialist’ statues or Palestine or fucking pronouns is not the route to success. Nor is sneering at their patriotism and desire for law & order, or telling them that the feral criminals who destroy their communities are ‘marginalised victims’, or telling them that their concerns about uncontrolled mass immigration are racist.

RedMarauder · 07/05/2021 08:45

@ichundich he is.

I saw him on a few politics programs. He is unable to back up his arguments.

Tulipomania · 07/05/2021 08:45

I think the main reason is the Labour candidate was a vocal Remainer in a very strong Brexit voting constituency. I'm sure they had other great qualities but it was a dumb strategy.

Looneytune253 · 07/05/2021 08:46

[quote Rosehip10]@Looneytune253 Hmm Get real, the days are now gone when people voted labour cause their dad/working man's club/shop steward in pit/factory/works told them too. We are seeing the result of this change (i.e Tory party benefiting) in working class communities which has been accelerating more and more.[/quote]
I didn't once mention voting labour

SunsetBeetch · 07/05/2021 08:46

Ooh I haven't ticked
"Led by the nose by a biased press"

off my bingo card just yet.

I'm sure it's coming though...

sHREDDIES19 · 07/05/2021 08:46

I do agree that your question needs to be reframed as right now the Labour Party are a complete mess, so out of touch, with a lack of unity, credibility and a sickening need to come across as ‘woke’. At least with the Tories you know where they stand, what they’re about. Take it or leave it.

RedMarauder · 07/05/2021 08:47

@Xenia if you were stuck on a train with Starmer at least you would be able to get some sleep....

thinkingaboutLangCleg · 07/05/2021 08:48

And -please help me understand the “trying to erase what a woman is” argument. I know it is about trans rights, but if a biological women is transitioning to a man, and wants the legal right to be a man, is that not “they don’t know what a man is” too?

Cormoran, it’s simpler than that.

Women harm only themselves when they want to be men. They have mastectomies and take hormones with irreversible harmful effects. Also, they’re not a threat or a danger to men if they go into eg men’s changing rooms, and they don’t win medals in male sports.

Men rarely have major surgery when they transition. Most transwomen keep their fully functioning penis. Any man can gain access to most women’s single-sex spaces, even though self-ID has not been officially legalised, because it is unofficially so widely accepted by large organisations.

Having been so successful in gaining entry to women’s spaces, the trans lobby is now pushing for gender-neutral language, eg “pregnant people” to start erasing the concept of separate sexes.

This is the reason for strange new expressions like “cervix-haver”. It’s to give the impression that anyone might have any body parts — eg cervix, vulva, penis - and that doesn’t necessarily make them a man or a woman. That’s biologically untrue, of course. But it all helps to erase any barrier to male-bodied people claiming that they are women. It also helps break down women’s boundaries.

User135644 · 07/05/2021 08:49

@NoWordForFluffy

It took Neil Kinnock nine years to drag Labour back to an electable state the last time the it was rendered unelectable by its extreme wing. Members of the shadow cabinet rubbishing their candidate on the media didn't help either.

My mum is a Tory voter, and she likes Keir (she'd have liked him to be a Tory so she can vote for him!). She's likened him and his internal battles to Kinnock's.

How much policy can Keir change outside of the party conference? I think he's probably toothless because of how the party works.

Kinnock was a remainer though. These are different times. Labour need a leader who believes in Brexit.

Kinnock was just a figurehead to take the party back from the left and then pass it on.

Parker231 · 07/05/2021 08:49

Xenia - it’s Boris and his crooked cronies who think they are right. Labour failed, not because they are wrong for the country but because they haven’t recovered from a party reorganisation since Starmer took over. Listening to PMQ’s each week is now hilarious with Starmer running rings around Boris.

Hopefully a investigation into the Tories handling of the pandemic will start soon and Boris can start telling some truths.

Lightswitchesoffatnight · 07/05/2021 08:50

and others have explained why it wasn't a surprise to many of us

And many others and not just on here, have said how surprised they are by the voting figures.

It’s really cleaver to be wise, when you know the result @SunsetBeetch 😂

User135644 · 07/05/2021 08:51

They have voted Labour the whole time the constituency has existed and it has been in a decline ever since, under Tory and Labour.

Labour voters have been let down for far too long.

The people of Hartlepool deserve nothing more than applause and a genuine apology from the Labour Party.

Tulipomania · 07/05/2021 08:51

It was a Brexit election.

Nothing to do with 'wokeness'.

Andante57 · 07/05/2021 08:52

@ichundich

Because there is no choice of independent newspapers in this country. 90% of people in my village read the Sun or the Daily Mail, and even The Guardian isn't an alternative anymore.
Why isn’t the Guardian an alternative anymore?
lavieengrenache · 07/05/2021 08:52

Some of the responses on here are a perfect example of why people in Hartlepool voted Tory. What does it tell you when a constituency that has voted labour for decades no longer feels that labour represents them. Not that the voters are thick, but that they are fed up being bottom of the heap, back of the queue, and the party which should be representing them is far too busy working out their pronouns to push for investment in the area, bringing much needed jobs, housing etc. Will the Conservatives do any better? Who knows, but people were probably willing to vote for them to find out.

It was the same during the EU referendum - lots of insults from middle class metropolitan types who had never set foot in ex industrial areas with high unemployment, no aspiration, social issues.

Feelinghothothottoday · 07/05/2021 08:53

@CormoranStrike

And -please help me understand the “trying to erase what a woman is” argument. I know it is about trans rights, but if a biological women is transitioning to a man, and wants the legal right to be a man, is that not “they don’t know what a man is” too?

Sorry, small point, but I find this issue and all the arguments very confusing.

Because trans men do not demand access to men’s safe spaces, they don’t demand that the word man isn’t used when talking about prostate cancer etc etc. They are also very much aware that they are not physically as strong as men so probably do not announce that they are using men’s toilets and changing rooms.
overnightangel · 07/05/2021 08:53

Turkeys voting for Christmas and thrilled to death about it Confused

SunsetBeetch · 07/05/2021 08:55

@MaxNormal

I'd image that Owen Jones on twitter single-handedly lost Labout thousands of votes, for instance. Not sure what he's up to these days mind you as I'm blocked (and no I was not abusive).
Honestly, when I was on twitter the worst abuse I got was from young, male Labour activists and supporters. And I was never rude to them, just trying to have a conversation. They were far worse than alt- righters and MRAs Shock

And Owen is just an absolute arse.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 07/05/2021 08:55

I see that Momentum is already blaming the ‘disaster’ on Labour’s failure to capitalise on their sort of agenda.
You honestly couldn’t make it up.

Until Labour rid themselves of Momentum and the Uber-woke brigade, they will IMO be wringing their hands and blaming the non-right-thinking masses for a hell of a long time.

Pyewackect · 07/05/2021 08:55

@AgeLikeWine

Labour are going to continue losing until they actually start listening to the people who live in places like Hartlepool.

The Labour Party emerged from the trade union movement to represent the economic interests of working people in Parliament. Now, it represents the cultural & ideological attitudes of a tiny, unrepresentative ‘woke’ middle-class metropolitan sect.

If Labour wants to win again it must start listening to the ordinary working people outside the M25 who it is supposed to represent. Lecturing and patronising white working class voters who feel ignored and abandoned about ‘colonialist’ statues or Palestine or fucking pronouns is not the route to success. Nor is sneering at their patriotism and desire for law & order, or telling them that the feral criminals who destroy their communities are ‘marginalised victims’, or telling them that their concerns about uncontrolled mass immigration are racist.

This totally.