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 think May was pretty daft to have stood for Leader then. I know it was a long standing ambition of hers, but IMO she would have been better waiting, and then maybe come along afterwards as a safe pair of hands.
Still to give her her due, she hasn't done a runner like Cameron.

ghostylovessheets I think a possible answer to the query you put upthread may be because Labour are seen to award benefits and the Conservatives to cut benefits. Ever met a I made it so why can’t they person? I have and social mobility was still very much a thing when I was young though those chances have diminished now

No I get it - I'm from a poor background and managed to get out via university but it never made me want to pull the ladder up

My point is if the Tories are the party of cutting benefits why are people still having these 'lifestyles' that poster described after 11 years of them in power?

also I'm 51 and from a poor area of Merseyside there wasn't much social mobility when I was a child - just lots of unemployment

Ghostly my df was same and born in a slum just outside Liverpool, his dp were not interested in education at all.
His primary teacher said he was a strong grammar candidate and suggested he try for the test and helped him to prepare.

The system was not ideal but to me seemed much fairer than today when everyone has told rely on their parents helping them not the school.
He said his path would have been different without that intervention because no one at home understood him or his needs.

@Peregrina

and like the wallpaper very few people give a flying f**k about it

But I am 100% sure that if it had been a Labour incumbent of Downing Street who had done that, we would not have heard the last of it.

I also think we would have heard an awful lot more cricitism of any Labour leader who had been divorced twice and was now living with someone he wasn't married to, and had at least six children by three different women.

This is simply not true.

Its a sodding pandemic. People have lost their business, their jobs, many more fearing losing their business or jobs or homes. Or fearing not being to find a job. Its survival time for so many in this country and yet the Labour party were trying to gain votes by banging on about who bought some wall paper?! They could not have more clearly trumpeted how out of touch they were with the very real concerns facing people!

And its not the 1980s. People are just not bothered about public figures sex lives anymore, unless they are sex offenders.

I think part of the problem in terms of political scandals now is that after the tax expenses scandal - which included MPs from across the spectrum - I think the electorate just can't be shocked any further. Nor do we trust anyone.

So even though Boris's re-decorating situation should be a bigger scandal, no one cares. No one is even surprised. That train left the station around the time a Tory MP claimed expenses for a moat and a Labour MP claimed expenses for her husband's porn video.

To have Angela and her first class transport, extreme iPod expenses claims, take chunks out of Boris over wallpaper, they look daft.

They could not have more clearly trumpeted how out of touch they were with the very real concerns facing people!

Well sorry, but a Marie Antoinette figure spending £800 on a roll of wallpaper when people are facing the loss of jobs and would find that amount of money would keep their family fed for a month, ought to be concerned.

Has Carrie ever claimed to be anything else?

What Labour does is insist in their house, you absolutely must take your shoes off.
But when labour goes to someone else's house they keep their own shoes on.
It's this hypocrisy that rankles.

@musingloud

MmeLaraque -The racism, transphobia and generally vile attitudes in here are appalling. Some of you should be really ashamed of yourselves

I agree calling people thick, ignorant, illiterate and shits is a vile attitude and the people, like you, who do this should be ashamed of themselves.

Absolutely agree!

The biggest scandal for me was the bodies piling up one - they used the wallpaper as a distraction from that

people have died, lost their jobs, developed long term illness and he said he didn't care - that was the stick we should have used - not his girlfriends spending habits - that made us look petty and sexist - even though the actual concerns around funding and corruption are real - that wasn't what the press covered.

@Puttingouthefirewithgasoline said

Boris is used to public speaking./debating society

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

Anyone going to university will have had to plenty of opportunity for debating and making presentations. Furthermore, these skills are needed and used in many jobs. It's ridiculous to assume that this only happens in public schools.

Starmer has shown himself to be more than adequate at PM's question time but in my opinion, he's all talk and no action. For example he addressed the recent issue of the 3million excluded but never followed it up.

It's true that the tax payer paying for moat cleaning and porn videos in the past has made people go ' so what ' about some of lulu's posh wallpaper! My sil said it last week ' they all lie and cheat ' ( she votes Tory ) I hear it all the time.,
It's just not a ' scandal ' anymore is it?
It should be ,but it isn't.

@Peregrina

They could not have more clearly trumpeted how out of touch they were with the very real concerns facing people!

Well sorry, but a Marie Antoinette figure spending £800 on a roll of wallpaper when people are facing the loss of jobs and would find that amount of money would keep their family fed for a month, ought to be concerned.

It wasn't public money. No one cares.

No family went without food because one of Boris' mates bought wallpaper. Everyone knows that.

The ridiculous attempt to make a scandal out of someone buying someone else wallpaper when what people wanted to hear was how you lot are going to rescue the economy so I can get/ keep a job and support myself /my family was painful to watch.

Yep. Though they do themselves no favours.
This is a right wing country and I can only it becoming more so.

People are missing my point and I've not made it well re public speaking.

I don't feel as much is made of it at school, you need to get younger dc into it debates, before uni.

But that's across general education spectrum.

If we want brighter politicians (who can debate as well) we need to make sure they can access what they need too.

Surely people can see that a child whose been exposed to public speaking, debating society from a young age is far more likely to then join these things at uni?

and like the wallpaper very few people give a flying f**k about it

But I am 100% sure that if it had been a Labour incumbent of Downing Street who had done that, we would not have heard the last of it.

Peregrina the following quote comes from the New European, a publication I’m sure you approve of.
The Blairs spent a lot on redecorating but I don’t think that is why he stepped down as Prime Minister so evidently it wasn’t that big a deal.

The Blairs, with their young family, started the recent trend among PMs of taking the four-bedroom No.11 flat, rather than the smaller one at No.10. When they moved in it was still kitted out with the same 1960s decor that had so offended Howe almost 20 years earlier. Cherie Blair was an unimpressed as he had been, later writing that her “heart sank at the sight of the kitchen”.
Her husband’s priority, however, was the bed. “I won’t sleep in Ken Clarke’s bed,” he said, of the Conservative chancellor, the most recent tenant. A new bed costing £3,500 was shipped in.

According to official records, the No.11 flat had £127,000 spent on refurbishments between 1999 and 2005. In came £70-a-roll wallpapers, new artwork and a set of custom-made glass-fronted bookcases for Mrs Blair’s office. Another feature is said to have been a mirrored exercise room.

Elections are lost not won. Tories at some point will lose an election and the opposition will win.

Labour I think don't really know what it stands for. The message is incomplete. Tories repeatedly speak to their supporters in a way that they understand. I rarely hear a Tory supporter complain that their party has let them down. They are loyal and turn out to vote.

The thing is Johnson may not last. If those enquiries into the decoration of the flat find he did break the ministerial code he may have to resign. The next election could be against Gove. But if Johnson eventually goes, will Labour have sorted itself out enough to pick up more votes? I don't know.

The trouble with politics is it becomes ' tit for tat'
J C wouldn't have said much about wallpaper or bought it from b and q.
The Blair's were on the take for a while regarding redecorating too ( as well as Labour MPs putting in expenses for dodgy things years ago )
I'm sure they all have many skeletons we don't know about.
We can all do the blame game. It doesn't really get anyone anywhere though.

JC would surely have been happy in the original 1960s, and orange wall paper?

We can all do the blame game. It doesn't really get anyone anywhere though

The80sweregreat - you’ve just done the blame game upthread:

As for a Emily Thornberry , bad comments yes, but I can think of worse that Boris Johnson has said and written about a lot of people too.
Why is that ok

What people seem to forget is that “Labour “ has always been unelectable - well at least since Harold Wilson won in the 1970s.

The only Labour victories have been when the party was headed by Tony Blair who was to all intents and purposes a Social Democrat. Labour need to learn from that.

They are never going to win while aspirational, hard working people who want the best for their children, who save up and buy their own homes and then want to pass that wealth on to their kids think that the Labour party see them as bloated plutocrats and will rob them of everything they have achieved.

Nappy I thought the code was on the body comments?