Why doesn't Corbyn understand that he lost?

[Sittinonthefloor]

I'm totally bemused! He thinks it's an absolutely 'incredible' result and that May should resign. Has no one told him that more people voted for her and the tories have more MPs? The tories ran an appalling campaign, trying to sell hugely unpopular policies, May comes across dreadfully (all twitchy and brittle) yet still more people voted for her - even with all the bribes he was offering. A decent candidate could have won it for labour, (Yvette cooper?) I know there's been a big swing, but still! Not winning against a poor opponent who's run a dreadful campaign is hardly a cause for celebration.

Sure piglet, I wasn't thinking of Trump although obviously yes that's true, May got the most votes whereas he didn't. However, as I said, we in England are about to learn that you need to be able to say a bit more than I got the most votes and the most seats.

JC, Tim Farron et al's calls for Theresa to resign have only served to convince me that they are not fit to be in charge of the country.

Real, proper grown ups have pushed their sleeves up & are getting on with the day job, whilst the kids are still squabbling.

Real, proper grown ups have pushed their sleeves up & are getting on with the day job, whilst the kids are still squabbling

This is squabbling?

Nah, just wait until the Torys start. As soon as a couple if them kick it off they will all be swooping in for the kill.

Now that will be a bloodbath

Excellent post guitargirl!

You needed that to convince you that Tim Farron isn't PM material?

To everyone saying you weren't born this age, I know that. You also weren't the same person claiming we only voted to take part in a hashtag, to follow a trend. sorry but if that's your opinion, you either don't know anyone under 30 or you've never bothered to listen to us because it could not be further from accurate for the vast majority of us.

Another point is that many of my age range are young teachers and new NHS workers who are unhappy with the direction those services are taking and have voted in opposition to the tory policies, not on some pie in the sky liberalism leftie-ism. Their views echo my mothers who worked for 20+ years in education, always voted labour despite not being very left (think old school WC) and was dismayed by the what the education system was becoming. 18-30 or even 18-25 encompasses students voting in their first election to those of us who are paying back our student loans (so have no personal benefit in fee abolition) and paying into pensions or even with children and mortgages of our own.

But you know, we're lazy when we don't vote and too thick to know what's good for us when we do vote. What a glowing testimonial of the generation your generation raised.

(God now i'm singing The Who. Miles before my time, mind you. But when I'm not taking selfies and watching keeping up with the kardashians i do dabble in a little bit of pre-historic culture from like, what, the 1800s? )

lalalandfill that's what I think and there must be more of us in the convertible old gits section.
To win then Labour needs to win over the centre. It's all very well saying it's the youth vote wot won it but it didn't actually win it. Good that young people got engaged in the electoral process of course. That's one good thing to come out of it. The Tories will be offering them freebies more next time I should think.

So you think it's great that our current leader is "toast" and tories are discredited. Really odd you're so happy with that, as they'll be running the country as it stands for the next five years and through a Brexit deal. But as long as you're happy they're discredited that's the main thing, hey.

Dollshouse, if you really think this government will still be in power in five years' time you're doomed to disappointed. No-one seriously thinks they'll make it much past the end of the year. At some point they'll fall out with the DUP, or they'll lose English votes that their Scottish MPs and DUP mates can't vote on, or Johnson or Gove will engineer a revolt. And May is only too well aware of that.

As for Brexit, I strongly suspect that that's the worst aspect of this for May. She called the election because she perceived her hands were tied for Brexit negotiations whilst she has a small majority and has to pander to the lunatic fringe in her own party, and she wanted a nice big thumping majority so that she could just get on with it and ignore them. Now she has no overall majority and has to start pandering to people like Gove that she was happily ignoring before, and she basically announced to the world before she started that if she didn't increase her majority she'd be fucked. So the EU knows she's coming naked into the debating chamber, to use her own quote. What would have been ideal for her would have been to hand the whole mess to Corbyn, because she knows perfectly well that Brexit will be a disaster, and at least that way round she could claim it was all Labour's fault. Now the disaster is going to be laid fairly and squarely at her door - unless of course she's booted out and Corbyn has the sense to put the brakes on in a big way and sort things out properly.

fauchevelant I thought it was more they were saying the youngsters hadn't been around for the bad old days of Labour in the 70s. It's not like the youth have just invented voting Labour, they've been popular for a long time. I think some young people were more impressed by JC than certain older more cynical people like me but not always the case of course.

Real, proper grown ups have pushed their sleeves up & are getting on with the day job, whilst the kids are still squabbling.

Lol ok, you mean May is trying frantically to clean up a huge mess of her own making.

I voted for labour even though I would be worse off under them. I'm not that young (31) and wouldn't be affected by free university tuition. However, I have had enough of cuts and watching the affect of cuts on people around me.

I believe that we can judge a society on how it treats those with the least power - poor, sick, disabled, children and elderly people. I want women to be able to leave violent husband knowing that the state will support them if necessary. I want a decent standard of healthcare. I want all children to have a good education. I want proper pay and conditions for all workers. I want those unable to work to have a decent standard of living.

If that means I have to pay more tax, then so be it.

So JC and MAY are out on the Serengeti plains and MAYs bending over slipping on her running shoes JC also spots the lion she had and says you'll never outrun it,as she smiles and replies my dear I really don't know what you mean ! I don't need to outrun the lion .....

The trouble with that little story is that the lions are in front of May, in the shape of people like Johnson dying to edge her out, the DUP ready to shaft her if she doesn't do everything they want, and the potential disaster of Brexit. Yet she is still running full tilt towards them.

ceto I doubt Corbyn would in fact have the sense to do that in that scenario, since he could have campaigned for remain in the first place and let the country down there already imo. To be fair to TM she inherited a very difficult hand because basically nobody else in the Tory party wanted to deal with it.
Some JC supporters seem quite deluded about what he would have actually achieved, given how ineffective he was prior to the election. He's a good campaigner for sure, that's how he got in in the first place.

That is admirable emilybiscuit and I agree, but I'd need to know the party I was paying the extra tax to was spending it wisely and fairly. I wouldn't trust the likes of Diane Abbott to sort out my direct debits even to be fair.

The youth vote may have won it for Corbyn but if another Labour leader had been in charge, Labour would have attracted a LOT more old-git votes from people like me.

Perhaps, although that certainly hasn't been the case in the last couple of elections so it would've taken something of a sea change here. You'd have to explain what this alternative Labour leader would have that the previous couple didn't, to get more older votes. But looking at where Labour made their gains, I'm not sure whether getting more older voters with a more centrist candidate would've served them as well as getting the youth vote.

Also, I think I saw you claim upthread that this is going to be the administration for 5 years. You really think this is going to hold for a whole term?

But the sea change would be post Brexit and Theresa May surely miss shittybennet

Also it shouldn't be an either/or. A good Labour Party should be able to harness the youth and the gits

You'd have to explain what this alternative Labour leader would have that the previous couple didn't, to get more older votes

It has been explained myriad times.

Too many sweeties & not enough pocket money.

Not only that, he proposed punishing the very people that provide most of the pocket money, thus risking them taking their money elsewhere - but the sweeties would still need to have been paid for.

If he'd offered a targeted & prioritised range of confectionary at a reasonable cost, then more people would have chipped in.

But only because of Scotland and I think Ruth Davidson and not Teresa May gets to take credit for that.

True but the same goes for the Labour gains in Wales. They stood on a Welsh Labour ticket with seperate manifesto but it won't be Calwyn Jones that gets the credit but Corbyn.

And Labour gains in Scotland too Piglet, thanks to Kezia.

Very interesting article that explains how a monetarily sovereign nation's ( such as UK who is charge of its currency unlike Greece) money system works. Author argues debt and deficit are not a good indicator of whether an economy is being managed effectively. Government does not use tax to fund expenditure as it creates money.

A government should be judged on whether it creates the necessary infrastructure to sustain a healthy economy. Investment in health, education, public services, housing, transport, sustainable living, jobs, tackling inequality and poverty.

think-left.org/2017/05/06/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-how-our-money-system-works-but-were-afraid-to-ask/

Chukka Umunna has indicated today that there does need to be some analysis done as to why they got the youth vote out, increased seats etc but couldn't get past the winning line.

They need 60 odd seats from somewhere to win.

Until Labour goes centrist again, they will struggle to win.

Sigh. How long before people realise their doom and gloom predictions keep on being wrong?

"He'll never become leader."
Comfortably wins two leadership elections.
"Yeah but he'll lose a lot of support now."
Wins all by-elections and swells party membership.
"His policies are based on a magic money tree"
Produces fully costed manifesto backed by economists.
"It will be the greatest Tory landslide in living memory"
Makes historic gains and removes Tory majority.
"Yeah but..."

The lesson here is that just because you don't support someone and their progressive policies, doesn't mean that the rest of the country feel the same. It's pretty arrogant to keep making these (incorrect) assumptions.

I'm not denying that Piglet but Corbyn made gains in England and May didn't. May and Sturgeon lost seats. Corbyn, Dugdale, Jones, Davidson and even Farron all gained.

"Also, I think I saw you claim upthread that this is going to be the administration for 5 years. You really think this is going to hold for a whole term?"

The first thing Theresa May needs to try and do with her tiny majority, is repeal the Fixed Term Parliament act. It's an inept piece of legislation, and a future Prime Minister (won't be May) will need the flexibility to call an election.