To actually be really cross with Labour for letting this happen?

[RunBackwards]

How did they manage to be so bad at the last two elections that places like Mansfied ended up Tory?

Come to Mansfield and speak to locals before making judgment. They voted for Bradley because they wanted change (despite the Tories having been in power for seven years at that point), they didn't want to be left behind anymore (despite having been decimated by pit closures by the Tories), but more than anything they wanted Brexit.

People in Mansfield like Bradley because 'he tells it like it is'. They fail to see that it's people like them that he's laughing at. He's spent the past week (and many times before) openly deriding the demographic that makes up most of his constituency.

If there was an election tomorrow they'd vote him in again.

I’m glad 2010 and 2015 was mentioned can’t pin that on Corbyn. By 2015 there had already been 5 years of austerity. The so called red wall voted Tory because of Brexit. The media has helped lead the country down this path from anti immigration to benefit scrounger to Corbyn is unelectable stories. A lot of people cannot think critically.

(And yes I am being judgmental about the people that vote for him. Mansfield is never going to get better with the ignorant attitudes these people hold, and that's screwing up the futures of the younger generations.)

Corbyn isn't a communist he's just old school labour for fucks sake. And I blame Tony Blair for this entire shitshow. I think a lot about what would have happened if John Smith hadn't died.

I don’t know how you voted OP, but I hate this argument coming from people who did vote Tory.
No matter how awful labour were, people still voted Tory. Now it’s gone badly for them, they can’t say “oh but labour were awful”.
Vote. For. Someone. Else.
Even if the Tories ended up with the exact same majority, you’d seem like less of an idiot blaming labour for the rubbish-ness of the people you bloody voted for. Plus you’d have given the smaller parties a much needed boost and given the larger two a kick up the arse and the message that they shouldn’t just be thinking “well as long as we’re better than the other lot we’ll be ok”.

@Juniperandrage

Corbyn isn't a communist he's just old school labour for fucks sake. And I blame Tony Blair for this entire shitshow. I think a lot about what would have happened if John Smith hadn't died.

Me too. We've moved so far to the right now that people can't see the difference: and so far into populism that few are prepared to try. I'm in despair now. And I doubt very much I'll be voting for Labour again, or for anyone come to that.

Labour are racist bigots, plain and simple. It's no wonder they lost out because most people aren't overtly racist, even in the north.

Add to that the fact that they've had four leaders in a row that have been completely out of touch and arrogant it is no surprise people won't vote for them.

At least with the Tories you what you get. But Labour have been appalling in opposition - they forget that their job is not just to oppose everything, they need to present a credible alternative. The fact they have not come up with a decent workable idea on how to deal with Covid, for example, suggests they would be equally as incompetent in power as they are in opposition.

Do people not feel embarrassed parroting Murdoch soundbytes? I guess it’s easier to blame Labour than admit you were manipulated, but there was nothing unelectable about Corbyn, particularly when compared to the fact that this country elected Boris fucking Johnson, the least electable man I’ve ever laid eyes on. I’m astonished that people are still so hoodwinked. What precisely was so unelectable about Corbyn, aside from you being told how unelectable he was? Unelectable was literally a Thick Of It joke. Do you honestly think this is your own independent opinion, that he was unelectable, despite so many posters using the same word. It’s embarrassing.

This and everything else you've said Deathgrip.

Deathgrip

Sorry but this narrative that states that people only vote Tory because of a right wing media is one of the main reasons which made Labour so unappealing.

I vote Labour and voted for Corbyn (with a heavy heart) but it was very clear that he was unelectable. The combination of delusional economics, antisemitism and championing of extreme causes was never ever going to fly with a basically moderate electorate.

Every time anyone dared to challenge him on any of these points the riposte was always “you are being brainwashed by the right wing media”.

If you insult people’s intelligence for long enough and dismiss their concerns by telling them they are willing participants in a conspiracy because they don’t swallow all of your highly divisive ideology you will at some point get a negative reaction.

Yet large parts of the party still haven’t really engaged with this and it’s just not good enough.

For the record I will never vote Tory. But it’s time the hard left faced up to this.

The reason that the Tories and the 'right wing press' were able to capitalise was because Labour (starting with Gordon Brown calling that old lady 'bigoted' for voicing concerns about immigration) totally abandoned their heartlands in favour of a privileged minority whose main priority is looking good on social media. People felt alienated and not listened to by their traditional party, enter stage right Nigel Farage, UKIP and the Conservatives.

And I say this as someone who has only ever voted Labour, but Christ on a cracker it was difficult to put the X in that box last time.

The problem is populism always ends in failure. We will shortly see this with Brexit. Another cause championed by the patriotic tabloids.

@contrmary

Labour are racist bigots, plain and simple. It's no wonder they lost out because most people aren't overtly racist, even in the north.

Add to that the fact that they've had four leaders in a row that have been completely out of touch and arrogant it is no surprise people won't vote for them.

At least with the Tories you what you get. But Labour have been appalling in opposition - they forget that their job is not just to oppose everything, they need to present a credible alternative. The fact they have not come up with a decent workable idea on how to deal with Covid, for example, suggests they would be equally as incompetent in power as they are in opposition.

Labour have come up with plenty of ideas on CV, its just that you aren't interested in what they have to say.

Corbyn wasn't unelectable; the hung parliament of 2017 proved that. But Brexiteers of all colours were prepared to lend their vote to Boris by 2019, so that was that.

There's no way on earth that he and McDonnell would have made a worse fist of dealing with this virus, than Johnson. Ludicrous suggestion.

Corbyn is humourless, stubborn, a bit litigious and dangerously loyal to people like Diane Abbott, who is a liability. And while he is a Socialist - people in the Labour Party are supposed to be, btw - he's not a communist or an anti-Semite. Anyone who thinks he is has had a number done on them by Murdoch and his ilk.

And the word is 'avarice'. You'll need to be able to spell it correctly to look it up, as you clearly have no understanding of its meaning.

Brexit and Jeremey Corbyn. Mansfield voted to leave the EU by 70% and Jeremy Corbyn was an absolute disaster so The Conservatives took the seat by a sizable majority.

Why are people supposed to be socialists in the Labour Party

It is not a socialist party never has been it has implemented some socialist ideas and some policies have been from socialist models but the Labour Party is not a socialist party

Corbyn isn’t old school Labour he is part of the left wing of the Labour Party it’s always been split and he was not a supporter of John Smith who was to the more centre

Labour needed a clear position on Brexit and they failed to adopt one.

That said there has been massive entryism in both the Tories and Labour from the right and left respectively. It worked for the Tories and not for Labour, but we are now left with a Tory party that has a load of working man's club-style racists (as opposed to the posh racists that sat on the right of the party in previous parliament's) as new MPs and Labour party trying to rebuild after an failed socialist takeover.

Bradley is just one of a number of new Tories that are products of the stagnation of the communities they represent. The lack of opportunities and insularity of post-industrial towns has bred distrust and xenophobia.

Ed Miliband wasn't electable either. I could have told you that.

Gordon Brown was effectively in power for a decade, managed three years as PM, and lost against a centre-right coalition (because actually most people prefer the centre).

Sometimes Labour stick with who they think ought to be their leader rather than who is actually going to win. The Tories were just laughing at them last time around when they stuck with Corbyn because it made their victory incredibly easy.

Corbyn didn't make labour unelectable. He is truly liberal, which historically was the origins of the party.

Party politics has become far more central than true left or right wing and the media reflects that too.

Many with strong, liberal,
political affiliations backed Corbyn strongly it was those who were more neutral who despised him.

You could track election after election back and claim "thats where it all went wrong" it's totally subjective.

To me the biggest shit shows politically in recent years are the lib Dems deciding to form a coalition with the Tory's and the wrong Milliband winning the leadership vote but others will have their own view.

@Deathgrip I agree with everything you've said. Thank you.

As a furriner... seems to me like the roots of Labour were in class resentment. This the core reason for traditional Labour stronghold in the North of England. Labour tried to build a coalition with metropolitan elites which actually worked under Blair. Then the Tories got better at stoking class resentment than Labour. So Tories won in Northern England in 2019.

Corbyn is (was) a cardigan wearing toff. The wrong class.

Irony is Starmer is far from a toff. But he can easily superficially appear to be one. Is his challenge appealing to those who only have a gut instinct to vote Labour out of class resentment.

Keep trying to blame your decision to vote for ten years of Tory austerity followed by Brexit followed by doubling down and voting in the most capitalist on steroids Tory government in history on Corbyn. It won’t change the outcome.

There are entire regions of the country who felt they had nothing to lose who will shortly see how wrong they were.

Unfortunately the ‘Red Wall’ voters don’t yet realise they’ve been set up. They will be shafted by Covid then destroyed by Brexit. The media will blame them for their own poverty and the Southerners and the wealthy will also say they brought it on themselves and will push back against measures to help. Our country has been divided and conquered to the point that if things get bad richer regions will refuse to support other poorer regions similar to the situation with the Northern League in Italy where a political party was formed to stop the flow of any money from the richer north to the poorer south.

The Tory press invented bullshit culture wars to divide the working people and get them to vote against their interests. Millions fell for it. They are now seeing it was a mistake and thus want to blame it on Labour, a party who hasn’t been in power for a decade and on their temporary leader who was shit (but not as wicked as Boris’s regime) and who hasn’t been leader for some time now.

Anyway if it gives some of the regretful Tory voters (you could’ve voted for a party other than Labour/Tory) some comfort to do this as probably the worst winter this country has seen in our lifetimes approaches whilst well run countries in South East Asia have already recovered and moved on, crack on.

Cummings got his mates to spy on the Facebook profiles of half the country and realised that a sizeable proportion of this country are so driven by resentment and spite that they would eagerly vote to fuck other people over even if it meant there was risk they’d have less themselves. You can always easily manipulate people who think that way.

One of the main things you can blame Labour for was not clocking the Tories were being fuelled by stolen data and the fact that half the top Tories were journalist and PR people who knew how to manipulate people against their own interests using that data.

@Eng123

Similar here I should be a solid labour voter, I want to be! But I've had to vote libdem or local independant for years instead. I would like to see Labour dissolved and a new 2nd party established around a centre left ethos.

The new "centre left" party has been tried twice in my lifetime (SDP and ChangeUK) and failed dismally both times.

And the LDs were a centre left party until the Orange Book mob took over and then jumped into bed with the Tories.

Corbyn. Nobody wanted to vote for the man. He should have been big enough to stand down long before the election.