To think the labour party faces a serious battle for survival.

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The Labour party is in a unwinnable battle, Scotland has gone forever, for any 'English/Welsh' party of any description. There are only a few Labour seats south of Warrington (Merseyside is of course out of sync with most of England). The Labour Party are almost extinct in the South West/East. It could not pick up seats in Derby/Nuneaton which are areas of Skilled/Semi Skilled Workers . s controlled by Liberal Oxbridge Educated academics , who believe they know better and expect the "plebs" to do as they are told and vote for them , without allowing them to ask questions (It is not for them to ask Questions of their betters!".

The Labour Party refused to listen to people like Frank field , opting to go down the left wing path to destruction, coming up with 'targeting' 50-100 thousand Nom Doms" for dogmatic and sound bite reasons, not for any sound financial reason. The same can be said of the Mansion Tax idea )what the hell is Stamp duty , if it is not MANSION TAX. If that idea had been carried out , suddenly you would have found a drop in house price values, or a slow down of purchasing of expensive housing, meaning a drop in revenue from stamp duty as well as "Tourists" non doms putting their houses up for sale and making plans for relocation, causing restaurants , hotels serious issues meaning job losses. The biggest issue though would of course of been all the people employed by the rich foreigners to look after them in the UK Nannies/Gardeners Cooks /Drivers. Rich People who place no demands on the state they use private schools Private Health Care their own Security. Why have policies designed to drive "tourists" out of your Country. The answer to that of course is that this policy plays on the "Envy" of people, not on benefit to the country and that is crutch of the problem for the Labour Party, instigating policy ideas based on crass assumptions about their "voters" ideas or what they have read in their studies at Oxbridge.

They have less understanding about normal people and their lives, views aspirations than the "BULLINGDON" lot. This is because they at least understand who to market products or "seduction" because their own Businesses that need to earn money.

The Labour Party is doomed unless it can realise , nobody outside specific inner city areas or union leaders are interested in tired old sound bites about rich people.

whoever they choose, the press will just hound them, pick up on past mistakes, pick them apart. they must have the skin of an elephant! I didn't identify with Ed either, clearly a well educated soul, better off as a professor at Uni I always thought. He must be a good MP though as they voted him back!

I wonder why so many people think Ed Miliband was privately educated? He went to the same school as Tulisa from N-dubz and you don't see many people calling her posh

Tulisa, I believe, is posher than you think. It doesn't fit her image though.

Besides the point Ed Balls is privately educated and I was speaking about them both. They make fun of DC et al for being posh and out if touch and yet they are exactly the same.

Ed miliband went to a comp iirc so the private school itmisnt really relevant, unless i have my facts wrong..

NRomanoff It's a bit silly to have a go at Labour leaders for being privately educated; that wasn't their choice. Blame Mr and Mrs Attlee, Gaitskell, Crossman, Blair, and many others.

I am not having a go at them for going to private schools. I am saying they are the same as the people they call out of touch posh toff. They are also out of touch posh toffs. Which is why they did so badly, they don't appeal to the people they were targeting.

For the love of god I didn't say ed Miliband went to private school. Ed balls did I was speaking about them both and the fact that Ed Miliband still chose him.

I can not take either seriously when they are claiming the tories are posh out of touch toffs for going to private school. Ed balls did and ed Miliband wanted him as chancellor.

I had a discussion about this with DS yesterday and he wondered about the lack of political talent coming from the state school system. In the past many politicians came from grammar schools. In Scotland it's completely different. Nicola Sturgeon went to the local school then went to University. She has the common touch because she comes from the same type of background as the voters.

If they can't get it into heads in the clouds that this country isn't left wing and is never going to be left wing and isn't going to vote for left wing policies then they should pack up and go home and get another stone saying RIP Labour party. Choose a good leader which is a start. I saw that guy on TV this morning on the Andrew Marr show can't spell his name but initials C M. He sounded really good.

Not many politicians or leaders of this country haven't been privately educated. In fact I cant think of any in recent years, maybe long long time ago but I would need to goggle that one.

The current Conservative leadership and the main contenders are centre-right. There is no room for the Labour party in that ground.

Vivienne, Chuka Umunna.

Thanks The80's. I hope he gets the leadership.

I don't think the leader was the issue-although the media tried to make it so.
Labour actually proposed a sensible plan for reducing the deficit without hurting the most vulnerable. The "anti-austerity parties(-SNP, Plaid, Green) were calling them red Tories-whilst they were seen as too left wing for some in England.
The Blairites are out in force now, urging a shift to the right. I don't know how this is going to pan out.

the80 maybe that's part of labours problem. They claim to understand working people and be the working peoples party but I don't think anyone believes them.

John Major and Margaret Thatcher were state-educated The80s. Is that a long time ago? Doesn't seem so to me

Labour politicians used to be trained up for political work either by student politics, which was OK when they went through the forces as well (Wilson, Jenkins, Healey) or by the trades unions (Callaghan, Kinnock). Labour haven't identified another route to train up promising political talent outside the party itself, and they desperately need to.

I'm a single parent on working tax credits with two part time jobs - one in the NHS and in my other job I am self employed, providing a service only fairly comfortably off people can afford. I live in a rural area. I take my dogs beating in the winter and earn extra money doing that. I could sit down and have a cup
Of tea with David Cameron aNd ED milliband. DC would understand my lifestyle in an instant - Ed wouldn't have clue. My life is a world away from his wealthy North London one. I can't vote for someone who has no idea what I am about

Labour's absolute inability to make any connection with country life is a major weakness I think lucy. I think there is potential there myself (and I actually think you are underestimating Miliband) but their country policies were tin-eared.

It is a huge weakness. Unfortunately the impression I get is that they neither care not realise that. Once the countryside is gone, it is gone for ever.

There is world of difference between going to Eton and all that that implies and going to your local independent day school as Ed Balls did

sorry, I didn't know that about Mrs Thatcher, interesting.

Labour must listen to what people actually want, rather than having an ideology and believing that we must all therefore support it.

Their response to their defeat needs to be "we got it wrong, how can we address what matters to our the electorate?", rather than blaming defeat on the Tories/ SNP/ deluded voters/ the press or whatever.

Labour policy making must move from being driven by some sort of North London, smug intelligentsia.

Warrington has got fuck all to do with anything.

Warrington South has been Labour voting in the recent past. The current Conservative MP got in by a majority of 1000 votes in 2010 and 2000 votes this year. The bookies thought Warrington South would go red on Thursday. Even the exit polling thought it would go red. It wasn't until much later in the night that it became apparent that it was staying blue.

That's hardly a resounding story of being extinct from Labour.

Crewe and Nantwich are a similar story.

Labour have won further south in the past. Google the term Worcester Woman.

Its less of a north / south thing and more of a crap direction and toxic leadership issue.

The thing that Labour need to work out is what they did right in 1997 that they did wrong in 2015. They need to find a leader who isn't tainted by the problems of past and voters see as credible and they can identify with.

I honestly have no idea what you are really going on about.

lucyjordon Country life and farming is completely marginalised and misunderstood because it doesn't need the manpower any more. David Mundell is the only Tory MP in Scotland because he understands rural life. Having said all that, I hope Cameron does not focus on fox hunting again.

Chuka is privately educated but he has a really interesting life story. His father was Nigerian and left the family. His mother is the daughter of a very prominent Anglo-Irish judge. He is said to be the candidate the Tories fear most.

To me the issue is that you can't really stick a fag paper between labour and Tory, and you haven't been able to since Blair took over.

Both are composed largely of the metropolitan rich. They have no connection to the vast majority of British people and no vision for truly taking Britain forward as a decent, prosperous and fair society. They are interested only in lining their, and their pals' pockets by asset stripping the country.

The UK needs a party who create an environment in which business can flourish, without being dictated to by business. They need a proper social democratic bent which sees us have a decent safety net. They need to sort out our frankly crap aspirations re: education and skills and get us back to being an economy driven by making things and doing stuff by investing in R&D, basic and high tech manufacturing etc. we need to build our economy around a good mix of sustainable and flexible industries (tech, pharma, design, manufacturing, engineering etc.)

Right now the UK is a low skill, low wage, high cost of living country. Labour have betrayed what they originally stood for and are now neo liberals with red ties. You can't see daylight between them and the ones with the blue ties. Labour have a terrible track record for running the economy into the ground and are hardly to be trusted with the NHS either, just look at the fecking mess the Welsh NHS is in.

The shift to the SNP in Scotland just shows this - the scots wholeheartedly rejected labour because they had a solid alternative. Unfortunately the English and Welsh didn't.

We need to get a party who are pro (but not the bitches of) industry and business, we need to sort out our education and aspirations and we need to become a knowledge economy, or we will end up in a feudal society with massive inequality.

Depressing times.

Why do you think their traditional voters voted UKIP, Best?

And agree with the posters above re: rural areas.. Labour seem to see anyone who doesn't live in a city as inbred hooray henries who care only about fox hunting.

Very disillusioned with UK politics.