To be scared of how right wing the Labour Party have become?

[sourdrawers]

Considering the rout it suffered on Thursday has prompted demands for a return to “New Labour” and Blairism.

whatsthat LOL I wish more people recognised that

The Tories are way to the left of the American Democrats, but the howling and breast-beating is still phenomenal.

The U.S. political system is broken. You can vote for the party of the rich, or you can vote for the other party of the rich.
I'm glad I live here.

I don't often find myself saying this but I agree with Lord Sugar! www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32692668

I'm a lifelong Labour supporter and I'm completely at a loss after this election, to be honest. I am reasonably well educated, politicised and aware of current affairs, but I just dont know what to think about Labour anymore, and unsure as to whether I will vote for them again. Which leaves me feeling very depressed about politics in this country.

I want a really robust, socialist democratic party. Currently, we dont seem to have one in the UK.

I wasnt hugely convinced by Labour's election campaign or by Ed (although I cant see how he was genuinely 'Red' at all - it all seemed like a lot of confusing spin coming from both sides to paint him that way - a combination of Labour's desperate attempts to distance themselves from 'New Labour' and the banking crisis, and the right wing press getting their knives out because the unions voted Ed in as leader..)...but I am completely despairing of them now.

A move to the right to woo disgruntled Lib Dems and flaky floaters who voted Tory last minute is going to alienate people like me....and completely lose the core Labour vote. But it seems that is the direction theyre headed. I'm going to the Lab conference in September...that should be interesting. I'd like to see what ordinary members across the country make of the 'we should have appealed to more Tories' line they seem to be churning out now.

That political compass thing seems a bit off really. The green party are not libertarian at all. They want far more control over personal lifestyle than UKIP for example. Unless I have a different understanding of what libertarian means of course.

I started voting for Labour in 1997 and I stopped this year as did many others. I rejoined as a member recently so I can have a vote in the leadership election. Nothing wrong with having very left wing values but it won't get you elected.

Surely it's a scary prospect that the Tories might have no opposition or that UKIP get stronger? Don't Labour owe it to the people to move closer to the centre if that's what it takes to get elected?

We can talk all we like about 'building a socialist alternative' to Labour. God knows, I've supported a few over the years. They come, and then they go. Dave Nellist is usually involved. We can sit smug in our socialist purity, but the public won't be convinced. It won't work under FPTP, the Greens are currently occupying that position.
When it comes down to it, Labour is all we've got. It continually lets us down, but id rather a bad Labour government than the alternative.

OP mine was actually a genuine question about TUSC. I think there is room for parties of many types; they can get the ideas out there.

No party that is seen as either too right or too left by people generally ever gets in. To appeal to the swing voters who decide the outcomes of the election, the party needs to be seen to be in the centre somewhere. And they need to be seen to appeal to those in the middle, which is most of us! I do not think the Tories are doing anything at all for those in the squeezed middle at all but I agree with Peter Mandelson entirely that Labour made a huge mistake moving away from New Labour.

stubborn I think this is what is missing on the debate re Scotland.
There is no real affordable housing shortage and no real pressure on services from immigration. Scotland has an ageing population with lower life expectancy than rest of UK. Figures showing a positive net migration for the first time in a long time were met with jubilation this year. Income inequality is not so great and most families are a mixture of backgrounds. I think these factors are more relevant to how Scots perceive the political landscape than a rise in left wing thinking or nationalism.

I think the SNP Scottish Parliament record can be viewed as pragmatic rather than progressive - eg free prescriptions because it is cost effective, free personal care for elderly to relieve pressure on NHS, student loans with lower maintenance grants than England but no fees and different repayment could actually be seen as more right wing.
Nuclear weapons are kind of irrelevant to the Scottish debate imo as if Engalnd decides on mutually assured destruction or robust foreign policy the Scottish stance will make no difference to the outcome.

howabout I live in Cornwall, which has very little immigration. Funnily enough, services are still suffering though, even in the absence of a convenient scapegoat . 7000 people voted for UKIP in my constituency, even though Cornwall receives subsidies from the EU- for being so poor. We also have an ageing population of internal immigrants, who have pushed up house prices, and whom we believe are the reason for the Tory surge in the SW .

Income inequality is not so great and most families are a mixture of backgrounds. I think these factors are more relevant to how Scots perceive the political landscape than a rise in left wing thinking or nationalism.

Yes, but why is income inequality not so great? Is that not a result of Scotland being more left wing for at least a generation, rather than a cause?

In Cornwall people make money and then price out the locals. In Scotland people who make money have historically left never to return. Not an absolute but maybe part of the issue. No idea why UKIP makes sense in Cornwall and I do have family there

The reason the parties have gone more right wing is because the media is increasingly right wing.

This is because the media moguls have so much vested interest in keeping big business happy, taxes low and poor working conditions for employees so that they can make more money.

Many people align themselves with a party that they are told to by the media, it is of course dripfed to them for years before an election. This time the disabled, unemployed and immigrants were the lazy bastards that were wrecking the country after Labour had started off the world recession.

Of course the parties feel they have to appease the papers because sadly people believe this stuff.

Yes, but why is income inequality not so great? Is that not a result of Scotland being more left wing for at least a generation, rather than a cause?
I'd guess that it's more because Scotland doesn't have a financial and banking centre which routinely pays six-figure salaries; because the majority of organisations headquarter in London, not Edinburgh, so the most senior and high-paying jobs are not based here; because the wealthiest people in the UK don't choose to live in Scotland and because we don't have a large population of wealthy expats; because, as a result of all this, property prices haven't sky-rocketed so astronomically that they leave a yawning great divide between those who are home owners and those who are not.

I think they are still tarred with the Iraq War (understandably), Blair and Brown, angry people that think they encouraged life on welfare and mass immigration (not my view but it is one that crops up time and time again and again on forums etc). I prefer the move to the left, I liked Ed but it seems it is more about being an almost celebrity like performer to be able to win these days. Poor Ed means well and is a nice guy but got slaughtered in the right wing press. However they do have to attract enough voters and not be seen as the party for people on benefits which some seem to feel it is and like the Tory hard line view on that. Also the Tories managed to convince people they have sorted out Labour's 'mess' of the economy so more focus on the economy would also be helpful as that also seemed to win it for the Tories.

Ed lacked both charisma and gravitas so he was always going to struggle despite being intelligent and thoughtful. The big question is how to win over middle England (needed to actually win a majority) without alienating the grassroots voters in N. England, Scot and Wales. If I knew the answer to this I'd be a successful politician!

I couldn't agree more Treacle. I think you've hit the nail right on the head in fact. A subservient media play a very important role in shaping popular opinion. Though they can't be held to blame for the failure of left-wing politics completely.

That said - any genuinely left-wing political party or even a public figure with progressive, anti establishment political views, generally gets demonised, and ridiculed in the media (right across the spectrum). There's a well established tradition of British press scaremongering to prevent any threat to corporate interests come election time. As usual, the Murdoch press has led the way.

OP, if by "not helpful" you mean my previous post does not support your own views, then I agree. However, it is reflective of the reality that I see around me. Both the Socialist Workers Party and TUSC are little more than jokes and I don't even know if there's a communist party any more.

Your statement that capitalism is the root cause of austerity and war is a personal opinion not a proven fact.

I am not a Tory but I realise that they appeal to sufficient English voters to be able to form a government which indicates to me that a left wing party stands no chance.

The UK isn't and wont ever be socialist.
The sooner the Labour Party grasp that, the better for them.

Many people align themselves with a party that they are told to by the media

Ken Livingstone* has stated the that genius of Margaret Thatcher was that she managed to treat the working classes as middle classes, and people vote the way they like to be perceived ...

*In "If Voting Changed Anything They'd Abolish It." - well worth a read. Shame no one in the Labour campaign bothered.

No it means you are casting a personal, prejudicial view of politics whilst claiming it to be 'just the way things are'.

Labour have run on a substantially left-wing manifestos once in the past fifty years: 1983.

In 1983, in an era in which trade union membership was at an all-time peak of about 13m people, Thatcher was in office and setting about dismantling large parts of our manufacturing and extractive base, "working class solidarity" in factories and mines was still a thing and there wasn't the threat of either UKIP or the SNP or anything like them, Labour polled 27.6%.

This year, with trade union membership at half that level, working class voters atomised, UKIP prowling to take the votes of the naive and the SNP rampant in Scotland, Labour polled 30.4%.

How anyone can think that tacking to the left would revitalise Labour's fortunes is a complete mystery. It would destroy Labour beyond any possibility of recovery, leaving them a novelty nostalgia act ("oh look, there used to be a working class party, how quaint") in the manner of the Krankies or the Lib Dems.

Isn't that true of all of us, regardless of party affiliation?

The UK isn't and wont ever be socialist. The problem with this rant/ view is that it fails to take into account the forces that are against progressive change. Namely the corporately owed media and the ludicrous FPTP electoral system which generally favours the Conservatives (this time) or whoever represents elite interests most effectively.

There were plenty of excellent, progressive parties to vote for in the General Election, but the BBC and other media made sure we didn’t hear too much about them and their policies.

I'm surprised that Ken Livingstone said that about Margaret Thatcher. When I was growing up under the Thatcher years I thought that she considered us all to be scum. I was only a child but watching the miners strike on TV and hearing Norman Tebbit tell people to "get on their bike" I thought that the Tory party hated people like me.

Now Tony Blair was a different matter. I could understand someone saying that about him. I was in my early 20s when new Labour came into being and they made us believe that we could achieve anything.