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.

And now he has gained a reputation of being ready to bow to his Party's will over certain issues, so that one won't stick as a complaint, either. So I suppose next it wil be that he does not stick to his principles.

All in all, the impression given is that the right wing members of the Labour party do not want it to swing to the left at all and are crying the extremist wolf to scare people - and that is because of the way they played it.

The Labour Party under Blair may have been toxic for some but he won three consecutive elections

I agree unless people are interested in the parties they support and most people aren't just when it comes to elections they have little idea of the troubles within the party

Many won't work work with him they feel it compromises their principles now with such a surge in voters they might be able to compromise but that would take comprising from both sides and I can't see that happening not with momentum backing Corbyn

Let's not pretend that he has been a competent leader he has been poor. Very poor judgement during the referendum, poor at holding the government to account when it was handed to him on a plate a good leader will manage their party (even May managed to get her deeply divided Party whipped into line to trigger Article 50) it's part of the job. Blair managed to deal with rebellious MP's, Brown not so well, Cameron has and so on

Corbyn surrounds himself by those who will never be a threat and are simply not up to the job of being in cabinet and struggle with the position in a shadow cabinet that isn't likely to change but his position isn't challenged for now

The left of the party have a hold now something they have wanted years a mandate to move Labour to the left and that is excatly what they shall do and the infighting shall carry on

There was no period whatsoever of seeing if it would work, or helping the new leader settle in.

Well that's rewriting history.

They did try to work with him.

I suppose the on the record accounts there of what it is like to work with him and his team by MPs aswell as respected economists (including thise that coyned the corbyomics phrase) that quit as it was impossible to work with his team are all made up then?

Righto.

I wouldn't want Labour to move any closer to the Centre even if it would bring back some of the Blairites who refuse to vote for a Corbyn Labour because its the only major Left Wing party the UK has and the UK is already quite Right of Centre, without a proper Left Wing to balance things out it'll just start going more towards the American way and then the NHS and education will be completely fucked.

The UK needs a proper Workers' Party to be honest.

The corbyn lovers have got to accept they need the votes of us toxic blairites to get into power. I'm afraid it's not just the moderates that have to make a few shabby compromises for labour to see victory!

If the conservatives offered up some more centrist policies and a better campaign, Corbyn will not get the same result.

Really, 2&5! What he is offering to dish out he ought to have romped home.

NoLotteryWinYet

And the opposite is also true

No argument here on that - moderates always compromise.

Exactly, Carl, as I said upthread the PLP would love to woo voters like me who've voted Labour in the past - the Corbynistas won't countenance it, as several on here have made abundantly plain. Mandelson said as much yesterday but of course the Cobynistas just went mental shouting him down as a Blairite.

Do also be aware lalaland that not everyone who has pointed out to you that going more central will lose voters as well as win them is a Corbynista. One doesn't have to be on that wing of the party to recognise that he obtained a tremendous personal vote here.

It's one thing to say we need a candidate who'll unite newly engaged youth and left votes with those who are more central, quite another to actually pull that off. I don't think people are entirely engaging with the fact that this is a break in the usual pattern of what happens when Labour lurches left. I don't think they've ever improved their position with a more left wing manifesto than the last, and yet that is what has happened here.

And by the same token, someone like Ruth Davidson couldn't be Tory leader at the moment either. For all that she'd appeal to the ordinary voters much more, which she most certainly would, the more right wing and/or pro-Leave elements in the party would never have it. She's a relatively wet Remainer. Not going to happen at the moment. They're too afraid of the UKIP spectre. Which is unfortunate for the Tories because historically they do quite well with a recognisable human being at the helm.

...and the young, who can pursue their ideologies with the protective cushion of youthful good health & minimal responsibilities.

Which is about all the protective cushion our young have at the moment. With that in mind, dismissing them and the policies they voted for in that way simply won't do.

The youth turnout in the GE and also in last year's referendum is setting a new pattern for youth engagement in the voting process. No doubt they have noticed how rigidly fucked they're being by their parents and grandparents generations. In voting for policies that would financially advantage them and give them a bigger slice of the pie, they're doing no differently to what pensioners and boomers have done for ages.

Which is about all the protective cushion our young have at the moment. With that in mind, dismissing them and the policies they voted for in that way simply won't do.

Sorry, you misunderstood me, that particular post was specifically wrt the more ideological manifesto & lure of the Corbyn style left of politics.

I'm not dismissing them at all - I was similarly ideological in my teens & 20s - I probably would have voted for Corbyn if I was at that age & stage in life too tbh.

It was more to do with how the purely ideological approach can't attract more than just the youth & the comfortably off.

Any Labour supporter who voted Tory was never a Labour supporter to begin with IMO.

It will be a cold day in hell when I vote Tory. I'd consider Lib Dem. Even Green. Never Tory.

But charma not everyone who voted Labour is young.

But equally, the current position hasn't won enough support in the country as a whole - especially when you consider how weak the Tories are in terms of their public appeal and how awful their campaign was.

Ok people keep saying this but I'm confused - I thought the general consensus was that the Tories were going to win a landslide. They were extremely popular. Unless you are implying that a stream of people were going to reluctantly vote Tory only on the basis they hated Corbyn, which frankly is ridiculous. I fail to see how anyone with even vaguely left leaning views would vote for the current Tory manifesto OR May.

Just noted this thread, sorry to be late joining. To answer the question, he's a politician as is May who, despite everything is carrying on without any reference to her poor showing. Unlike Nicola Sturgeon who at least admitted her party had suffered.

I'm old and voted Labour.

It's interesting that you define it as purely ideological charmageddon, rather than people simply doing as so many do and voting in their own economic self interest. In that respect, the distinction between 18-25s voting Labour for no tuition fees and pensioners voting Tory for the triple lock isn't immediately obvious, albeit I appreciate that the Tory position has been a bit more complicated this time than in previous elections.

As an outsider, I see the rise of Labour and that means the Tories have a tough time ahead. I believe , now more than ever, Labour under Corbyn could go on to win the next election. Jeremy Corbyn has a cult like following and it's bound to grow and grow, particularly with the youth.
Boris Johnson would be sweet music for Labour.

The Tories started off in a much better position than labour. I think not necessarily becuse they were popular, but because Corbyn and the Labour Party has looked like such a joke for a year and a half.

What the campaign did was alleviate some people's fears that Corbyn was weak and useless. The Tories shot a bit of an own goal there by trying to smear him. He ended up looking much stronger than May. As such Labour made gains and May lost out.

It was a truely awful campaign by the Tories and the fact that they still won 56 more seats than Labour must be a bit of a blow to Corbyn. Or maybe he'll start to see that after the fuss has died down and they start to dissect the results a bit. Labour gave it their all, promised a moon on a stick and didn't come close to winning. Where can they go from here?

Surely they'd be concerned that if the Tories actually get a competent and likeable leader with some decent policies they'll be back with a majority in the next election?

I'm not sure Corbyn's appeal can grow - there's nothing else for him to add th the manifesto without losing plausibility.

I reckon he could cut back renationalisation, or kick it down the road, ease off the corporation tax rises as it doesn't make sense to do them whilst brexit is causing a downturn without losing electoral credibility or seriously affecting the youth vote.

I don't think he can touch pensioners, 'free' tuition, police cuts, NHS or education spending that he's promised, no.

Both parties are going to have to change their manifestos so there will have to be some 'hypocrisy' which I would call moderation.

I reckon Davidson at this point could be a waste of a decent politician - whoever has to deliver Brexit is going to be ruined over that electoral turkey, let's face it.

At least if Boris had to deliver Brexit there would be some justice in it - that said, the tories tough line on Brexit has been rejected, so that'd take them in the wrong direction.

They don't have any other particularly good policitians - Rudd doesn't have enough charisma either.

What the Labour Party needs right now like a hole in the head is to re-attract more of the centre ground who need to grow up and start supporting a centre ground party rather than trying to force a left wing party towards the right. It's the utter lack of principles of new Labour that switched those now beginning to vote, again or for the first time, off - New Labour did not have any central spirit, just a desire to win elections at any cost. Well, sorry, but that is no longer enough, it will not heal the huge divisions that have opened up between different sectors of society. People are craving a clear vision of a better future, not a jaded, cynical continuation of a world order that people feel is failing them. Failing to deal with climate change, failing to deal with inequality, failing to deal with corruption, failing to deal with obscene levels of greed, failing to deal with dwindling resources, failing to deal with hatred and intolerance, failing to change for the better, failing to provide any clarity of vision, instead slavishly obeying the whims of the world markets, which are all manipulated and controlled by hedge fund managers, anyway, thus meaning we are all controlled at the end of the day by greed. We cannot go back to what worked before, because the genie is out of the bottle and will not go back in. Whether better or infinitely worse than the status quo, people are desperate for something different.