To think we won't see a Labour Government again for many years?

[Rosehip10]

Even discounting the changes in the ex-industrial former "red-wall" seats, no Labour leader has ever become Prime Minister without winning at least half the seats in Scotland. Even if Scotland does not vote for independence in the next few years, Labour is never going to recover there. If independence comes then it is academic anyway.

Combine that with the changes in the former Labour seats in the north (which I think will only continue) then a Government cannot be formed of London MPs, a few larger cities and some seats in university towns/cities.

I don't think Starmer is the most charismatic leader but I think any ppolitican would struggle to solve this. Very hard to try and appeal to ex-industrial seats AND young, metropolitan, middle class voters in London etc.

One of the best comments I saw yesterday was Labour trying to make traction of the conservatives being corrupt and stuffing money into places that voted for them, was people thinking "well all politicians are corrupt anyway, so we may as well vote for Boris to get some of that too!"

I remember Liverpool in the 80's under Militant - Momentum are the same - they are thugs and bullies - they don't actually do a lot of the grass roots work, door knocking etc - they are social media warriors but they are also racist and very anti anything they see as divisive - women's groups, Black groups, Jewish groups - within the party - they hate decent and silence those who dare question their views - it has been a horrible time as a party member with that awful feeling of being unable to speak.

Screaming beans I agree, Emily thornberrys white van man comment ad the flag /whilst purporting to be a caring Labour supporter, people do not forget these things.

But people are quite happy to forget the £100bn plus handed over by the tories to their mates last year, for things that didn’t function?

This is what I don’t understand - people seem to have a very long memory when it comes to bad behaviour of Labour MPs, yet forgive BJ basically anything. It makes no sense to me.

If you equate Corbyn to Michael Foot, you've got a good idea of how long it will take to rebuild confidence in the Labour Party.

I see the finger wagging is in full swing from labour voters, even on this thread. Yet the same people qualify their thinking by making statement ‘I just don’t understand how anyone can vote Tory’. Do you a mirror in your house - try looking in it. You have big Tory recruiter badge on your forehead. Now, back to the finger wagging.

Exactly ghostly!! That poor lady who tried to go into the the leadership contest and had her window bricked.

Imagine the uproar if the tories happily let the BNP flourish within their ranks?? Momentum is no different!

Sst, arf

@derxa

The SNP, Welsh Labour and the Conservatives in England won their votes due to incumbency during the pandemic. Their leaders were on the TV doing Covid briefings party political broadcasts all the time. I like Keir Starmer a great deal and I don't know what he's done wrong. I suppose he could try and get a Twitter ban for people like Ash Sarker and Owen Jones.

If you write off the majority of the population of Britain's voting choice as being due to "incumbency", thats a great way of insulting tens of millions of people.

Keir Starmer is too reactionary rather than pro-active. As are you.

Peregrina I don't think Johnson is a good public speaker. Of the current politicians the best speaker to me would be Sturgeon.

Honestly, from the part of Scotland that I come from, she sounds permanently angry and very urban/central belt centric. I once made the mistake of watching her with the sound off, and the constant head bobbing and angry expressions is something that still haunts me! I just also cannot imagine her shoutily hectoring people on the European stage. The SNP get in because they are seen, at the moment, as better than Labour. They appeal not only to poorer people but to aspirational people too (particularly if you or your family want a job with the council or funding from the mysterious and unfathomable Scottish Enterprise for a wee limited market company supplying a council diktat).

Pats

Yes perfect!

That's my husband in the picture. I'll show this to him

Do you a mirror in your house - try looking in it. You have big Tory recruiter badge on your forehead.

Do you a mirror in your house - try looking in it. You have big Tory recruiter badge on your forehead.

Ash, Grace, Owen and the insulting ones most certainly are. They told us they don't want our votes, we abstain then they insult us further when we don't vote for them at their request. It's not very logical.

I suspect they spend far too much time in the mirror admiring their superior IQ, literacy skills and ideas.

@sst1234

I see the finger wagging is in full swing from labour voters, even on this thread. Yet the same people qualify their thinking by making statement ‘I just don’t understand how anyone can vote Tory’. Do you a mirror in your house - try looking in it. You have big Tory recruiter badge on your forehead. Now, back to the finger wagging.

I'm still not convinced that Keir Starmer doesn't secretly work for Boris Johnson

@Puttingouthefirewithgasoline

Jamie, Boris is used to public speaking./debating society.

How many schools aside from public schools push public speaking competitions?

I imagine Starmer got plenty of practice when he was studying Law at Oxford.

Farage played the game and stood down many Brexit party contenders so as not to split the vote

I never quite worked out why he did that - especially, as you say, since he got no obvious reward for it - and as a politician it's unlikely to have been out of pure principle

Beats the heck out of me ...

The irony is if Jeremy Corbyn had stood on a leave vote for brexit in 2016 he may not have bombed as much as he did. He only gave the EU 7 out of 10 on 'the last leg ' I believe ( might have been 8 ? ) and the presenters were a bit ' oh' he isn't a ' true remainer' then! It was a pivotal moment that even JC had doubts about the union and he even said ' we should leave on the 24 th June' which is more than ' call me Dave ' did ( he ran off , as did Boris who didn't exactly look happy that morning)
Took years to actually leave in the end under a Tory government with a remainer at the helm ( Theresa May)
Boris Johnson didn't become leader until three years after that vote.
Why did they make her leader back then? Just to buy some more time because they didn't really want to leave ?
The whole thing was a cock up, but we are still here with the tories pissing on labour's chips.

In the late 80s and early 90s people were saying the same after the disastrous Kinnock years. Then came along Tony Blair who turned it around very quickly, knew his target voter (politically central, average worker), came up with good policies to attract the target voter, and stormed into a fantastic win in 1997. Then came Brown, Millibrand and Corbyn who didn't appeal to the middle ground and lost their votes.

Nick Clegg did the same with the Libdems in 2010. Again, concentrating on the target politically central voter.

Pandering to extreme and minority groups never wins elections. It didn't work for Labour in the 80s, it didn't work for Labour in the last decade.

Labour need to realise their target voter is the modern version of the 1990's "Mondeo Man". If they can find a good centralist leader who can appeal to the majority and put similar people in the senior shadow ministerial positions, then come up with some solid policies to appeal to the majority, they could well win in 2025. The question is whether they can nudge out all the extremists and minority interest groups to allow the moderate centralists to take back control.

This is what I don’t understand - people seem to have a very long memory when it comes to bad behaviour of Labour MPs, yet forgive BJ basically anything. It makes no sense to me.

If you equate Corbyn to Michael Foot, you've got a good idea of how long it will take to rebuild confidence in the Labour Party.

These two posts one after the other illustrate it well. Foot was cricitised for wearing a 'donkey jacket' to the Cenotaph. It wasn't, it was a good coat from Harrods. Corbyn was criticised by Cameron for his dress sense. Yet Johnson turned up at the Centotaph looking untidy and dishevelled and laid the wreath the wrong way round and that's lovable Boris - and not what an untidy, disrespectful mess he is.

He still is an untidy mess IMO, but I think things have improved now that Cummings, another untidy mess, has been given the boot.

YANBU, I think labour may be finished in Scotland (at least for the next decade, maybe longer).
We'll eventually, as a country, be sick of the Tories, but it may take many years to get to that point.

@BigWoollyJumpers

Further to a pp above though. Wales is another odd one. Drakeford was consistently poor in decision making during Covid, Wales has the highest death/million in the union, the worst NHS outcomes over several years now, and vilified in the media, and yet, is still voted in.

Education has problems as well.

Higher death rate - well there's an older population with large pockets of deprivation and some areas in Wales had really low rates throughout plus vaccine program is doing well in many areas.

However Mark Drakeford and Vaughan Gething while at times looking out their depth - as many others have -have always come across as wanting to to their best to me at least - though I didn't vote for them this time.

I think pundits are talking about clear water between Welsh Labour and UK Labour and all the incumbent governments doing well.

It is something I suspect, even with local poltics in play, that the main Labour party would benefit from researching.

Death grip, the difference is,

Emily was supposed to represent kinder politics, and especially the everyday working person, poorer person, average person, and yet that's exactly who she attacked with her white van man comment.

She slayed her golden goose.

The tories didn't go to the factory of x and say they would give them a contract, then expect their vote, then suddenly turn tail and go with their rich mates.

Agree with PP, labour (or other parties) need to get the printed media on their side and they might have a chance.

How many schools aside from public schools push public speaking competitions?

Anyone who has been to university will have had the opportunity to gain experience in public speaking, through joining societies or giving presentations as part of their course.

Many people work in areas where public speaking or giving presentations is part of the job.

And if they haven't done any of those, there are umpteen companies offering training in public speaking.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Farage played the game and stood down many Brexit party contenders so as not to split the vote

I never quite worked out why he did that - especially, as you say, since he got no obvious reward for it - and as a politician it's unlikely to have been out of pure principle

Beats the heck out of me ...

It probably was out of principle because he had no ambitions to be a political party leader or government minister. He was a "one trick pony" which was to leave the EU. Usually conviction politicians don't want to become party leaders or ministers because they're not interested in the power/glory etc. It's probably why we end up with so many crap politicians in senior positions.

Not true kj and the longer Labour believes this, the longer they will be out in the wilderness.

People are not stupid, they see what's going wrong with their everyday lives, they don't read a paper to tell them this.
The paper however may expand or confirm what they see but it doesn't tell them what to see.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Farage played the game and stood down many Brexit party contenders so as not to split the vote

I never quite worked out why he did that - especially, as you say, since he got no obvious reward for it - and as a politician it's unlikely to have been out of pure principle

Beats the heck out of me ...

Yes he did. Farage got Brexit out of it. If he hadn't withdrawn candidates, the right-wing vote (already smaller than the left-wing vote) would have been split and there may not have been a Tory majority. It's quite possible that we would have ended up with a Labour Goverment, or Lab-Lib and/or SNP coalition (and a Corbyn one at that).

That would have likely led to another referendum.

User my point was that public schools probably set more store by such things but dc in an average school probably don't have the access or support to do it.

Those that want to can seek it out, sure but doesn't that undermine those that could but don't have the backing to?

It's perhaps a small reason why it's the public schools and grammar alumni who continue to dominate politics?

@sst1234

I see the finger wagging is in full swing from labour voters, even on this thread. Yet the same people qualify their thinking by making statement ‘I just don’t understand how anyone can vote Tory’. Do you a mirror in your house - try looking in it. You have big Tory recruiter badge on your forehead. Now, back to the finger wagging.

Love this! So true!