to think that until the Left engage rather than name call, there will be a Tory govt?

[ApplePaltrow]

Over the last year every thread on UKIP or tory voters has been 80% name calling. Over and over people have called them idiots, racists, disablist and worse. Any attempt to discuss calmly any potential valid concerns were met with vitriol. Even post the election, most of the commentary has been that the electorate were duped or that they were evil cunts.

AIBU to think that this is part of the problem? It turns out that when you name call, people are quiet - but don't change their views! UKIP are wrong - 100%. But people had fears and concerns about the future of the country and instead of engaging with them, the left made them feel ashamed and told them to shut up. So they went to UKIP and they abandoned Labour.

I think a big issue and very prominent on mumsnet is that the anti-fascist working class seems to despise (what they perceive to be as) the "softly pro fascist" working class. There seems to be huge contempt on the basis that "we grew up similarly and I didn't fall for it". They have the evangelical zeal of ex smokers. But not everyone is you. And you have to meet people where they are, not where you want them to be.

You can't win people without respecting them. Part of respecting them is listening to them. (John Harris at the Guardian is actually pretty good on this.) Labour will not win again until they realize that.

Aermingers: "The other group are public sector workers who vote out of personal greed (just as much as any of the Tory voters who have been accused), because they know it will lead to more of their favoured sort of job, higher pay, more opportunity for advancement."

This is an astonishing assertion.

Take health workers. Their pay review body recommended they have a one percent increase - not very much, but better than nothing. In the past, governments have always accepted the body's recommendation. This government refused to pay even that paltry one percent.

We - you and I, and everybody on Mumsnet - relies on the health workers. We depend on the NHS being able to recruit doctors and nurses and porters and healthcare assistants and all the rest. If we don't pay them properly, then we won't get people who can do the job. Do you really think the nurse working a 12-hour shift, the nurse looking after your dying parent, the midwife delivering your baby are all greedy? Compared to say, the bankers whining because they don't like the idea of having a few million chopped off their bonus? Or the people moaning that they might have to pay a mansion tax on their multimillion pound property?

Because really, if that is what you think, I do think you ought to say it to their face.

I don't know why people think Labour would make work pay. Wages dropped in real terms from the ascension of the new EU states. And for lower waged workers much more than the averaged out fall as they were hit hardest. And in astronomical increases in the cost of housing and Labour very definitely did not make work pay from 97-10. I'm not sure why I would believe them suddenly having a conscience about it now.

Wages in white working class professions that should traditionally be Labour voters, such as construction and manufacturing collapsed after 2004. I know my family were were hit incredibly hard and we weren't wealthy anyway.

So quite frankly if the party who were prepared to do something so catastrophically damaging to the working poor now suddenly want me to believe they've seen the light the can fuck right off.

I will never forgive them for that, it's a struggle for us to pay the bills month to month and it's directly traceable back to that.

I don't know why people think Labour would make work pay.

I don't - I agree that they failed working people, and I don't think they've seen the light. I don't think they get it.

Aermingers. I am going to say something hugely controversial !.

I wonder if the minimum wage hit the "skilled @ semi skilled working class".

The reason I say that is because the jobs you describe should be paying £10 per hour plus but have been brought down to £6.50 per hour to cover the universial cost of every job being paid at least minimum wage. Therefore the losers of the minimum wage are the skilled/semi skilled working class.

P.S this is not to say in the least that everbody deserves at least minimun wage , but to argue that maybe some jobs were cheapened to pay for every one to get at least the minimum wage.

So how do the Conservatives help you? What have they done for industry, wages, job creation that has won you over? I'm genuinely interested, not looking for a bun-fight or name calling.

Good post, Aermingers. I think you make some good points.

Yes, people are not forgetting what Labour did to them, not ever.

How with the Conservatives help us? Well they just got power on their own... let us count the ways - so very many, getting lots of people into work, making the UK prosperous, rewarding hard work, trying to reduce the deficit.

Unless Labour moves more towards Tory values it is not going to get in again which would be great news for me of course so keep hard left Labour and we shall have good Tory rule and a better nation.

I don't think the minimum wage did. I work in admin, my husband works in construction. His weren't affected at all by the minimum wage. And my first job as a school leaver was still above minimum wage even before it was introduced.

Decent employers didn't pay far off. I think it only really got the unscrupulous. I know Cafe Rouge for example paid 50p per hour plus tips. Anyway, all of the political parties pledged to raise it and I don't think they would if it would drive down wages overall.

Lotus can you expand a bit on what you said here with specific examples if you can please.

How with the Conservatives help us? Well they just got power on their own... let us count the ways - so very many, getting lots of people into work, making the UK prosperous, rewarding hard work, trying to reduce the deficit.

YABU, plenty of name calling and vitriol the other way too. This place has been horrible for the last few days and I am glad the election is over. I didn't want the Tories in but they are and that's that. Not do I hate Tory voters....everyone votes based upon what they think will be best for the country.

Apologies if this has been posted, just seen in on another thread and I feel it perfectly encapsulates Labours issues:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/09/labour-left-miliband-hating-english

"It could not because Labour’s leadership of former special advisers does not look like the people it wants to represent and does not look as if it likes the look of them either. In this, it is typical of the wider educated left in England, which almost alone in the world, makes a virtue of denigrating its own people".

"The universities, left press, and the arts characterise the English middle-class as Mail-reading misers, who are sexist, racist and homophobic to boot. Meanwhile, they characterise the white working class as lardy Sun-reading slobs, who are, since you asked, also sexist, racist and homophobic. The national history is reduced to one long imperial crime, and the notion that the English are not such a bad bunch with many strong radical traditions worth preserving is rejected as risibly complacent. So tainted and untrustworthy are they that they must be told what they can say and how they should behave"

Brilliant summing up.

"What truth there is in the caricature is lost amid the accompanying hypocrisy. The intellectual left deplores racism but uses “white” as an insult. It lambasts the sexism of the right, but stays silent as Labour candidates run meetings where Muslim women’s inferiority is confirmed by stewards who usher them into segregated seating"

Rosa - great article

rooty - I didn't bring up housing or even benefits levels. I still maintain that a labour govt could win votes on the left and the right increasing benefits. But as I said a million times, it would have to be part of a grander vision for the UK than just taking us back to 30 years ago. No facts or figures or arguments you've made in this thread have refuted or even responded to this. But as you said, it's a free country and I'll put on my "big girl panties" while you hit labour talking points that were exhausted and unconvincing before the election and are the same now. The difference is that now most of the Labour Party - including the shadow cabinet - seems to disagree with you. Maybe they don't have degrees in economics?

I didn't bring up housing or even benefits levels. Nor did I . I was responding to Aermingers' posts.

I feel you're trying to have an argument, Apple, that I am not making. I'm in that odd place where I'm having to refute things that I didn't say, and point out that, in fact, I didn't say them. I think you started this thread because you have an axe to grind and that's fine, but drop the holier than thou routine. Coupled with the emotive language and snide asides, it's a bit much.

I've been staggered by journos on the left blaming the electorate. And names like scum, and vile leave me shocked quite frankly. Blaming the electorate is a bad call. I'd rather listen to sane voices like David LAmmy who sees very clearly the reasons for labours defeat and he certainly doesn't blame the voters.

Chip I am with you on David.

Agree, David Lammy is coming across quite well. I hadn't noticed him before, and now he is starting to stand out.

DL is the only MP in a long time who struck me as sincere as soon as he spoke, Chuma is slime ball compared to him.

I have just seen this article posted to facebook and I think it sums it all up brilliantly.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11597436/Stop-your-whinging-why-the-Left-are-such-bad-losers.html?fb_ref=Default

rooty

I'm honestly (not passive aggressively) sorry if it seems that way. I didn't really start the thread with an axe to grind so much as ask a question that was different (I thought) to the many (MANY!) benefits/bedroom tax/NHS/housing benefit threads that are on here and have been argued down into the ground. I'm (honestly!) not really trying to misquote you so much as work out what you are trying to say and how it relates to what I've actually said. But fair enough, if someone thinks that the welfare state issue is the real problem then it's totally valid to bring it up no matter what the thread is about.

I guess then my question to you would be: what do you think Labour needs to do to win next time?

Good posts, ApplePaltrow.

And I couldn't agree more with what you are saying.

We need to engage people in conversation. Otherwise we may start to see Labour permanently losing a lot of voters to UKIP up North, and being decimated down South. They've already lost Scotland--some careful thinking is needed right now.

So quite frankly if the party who were prepared to do something so catastrophically damaging to the working poor now suddenly want me to believe they've seen the light the can fuck right off.

Aermingers post sums it up really. Excellent post that I wholeheartedly agree with.

Good quotes Rosa. Yes the left seem very sore losers. I started off (being Tory and compassionate) feeling a bit sorry for them but now it's just laughable. People want the Tories and they got the Tories and the Tories will be good. So the left just have to suck it up. Not be appalled some people (most people) disagree with their incorrect views.

"How with the Conservatives help us? Well they just got power on their own... let us count the ways - so very many, getting lots of people into work, making the UK prosperous, rewarding hard work, trying to reduce the deficit." You want examples? Well IDS with universal credit is trying to ensure work pays. On deficit reduction the Tories have just had a few days so it's hard to say yet but they need to spend less than they get in like every family. Rewarding hard work is hopefully lower tax but we can only do that once we have enough money coming in again. We do need to incentivise people like I am who generate a lot of tax to think yes it's worth working on Sunday because I will keep x% of what I earn rather than no point in bothering as more of what I earn goes to the state than not.

what do you think Labour needs to do to win next time?

Every word of this:

labourlist.org/2015/05/it-wasnt-what-was-in-our-manifesto-that-was-the-problem-it-was-what-was-missing/

But to re-purpose a West Wing quote:

Josh Lyman: Leo, the-the Democrats aren't gonna nominate another liberal, academic former governor from New England. I mean, we're dumb, but we're not that dumb.

Leo McGarry: Nah-I think we're exactly that dumb.

The dig in that case is against (presumably) Michael Dukakis, losing 1988 Democrat candidate and former governor of Massachusetts, but in West Wing World, Bartlett becomes president anyway. However, the Labour Party will keep on nominating as leader people who look like the previous loser until something radical happens. If Burnham becomes leader, Labour are in the wilderness until 2025: if you think Tory attacks on Miliband for his loose association with Brown were brutal, just wait until Mid Staffs and what Burnham did or didn't know and did or didn't do about it becomes front and centre at PMQs every week. The civil service joke about Ed Balls was that he is nearly as clever as he thinks he is; Burnham isn't remotely close, and is ultimately just a union hack. The Tories will take him to pieces. And he's the current favourite.