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!"

Removing all legal rights from women is not progressive. Just because misogyny is popular - or at least not unpopular enough to make people stop voting for independence - doesn't make it right.

@Peregrina

Union power can probably be explained by our history of leading the industrial revolution and the male dominated heavy industry.

A country which had industrialised later, with many more women in the labour force would probably have had less confrontational models.

Thats a good point Peregrina. And also a need for a large, cheap workforce concentrated in certain areas, many of whom are still in those areas.

I don't think the SNP's 'woke' politics does chime with the majority of their voters, the HCB is deeply unpopular in almost all quarters. It's just that independence fever overrides everything else by some magnitude.

If by some miracle Scottish independence is achieved in the coming years the SNP might not actually fare too well post separation as new battlegrounds emerge and politics shift.

@TheInebriati
For what it's worth I agree with you. The omission of protection of women from the Hate Crime bill is appalling.
However, thanks to the aforementioned brilliant PR machine it's seen as a party of the people for the people and one that looks after minorities.
My point was they do what they do very well and Labour appear to not know where they stand or what they're doing.

I’d like to vote for the British version of
The NZ prime minister and Angela Merkel combined.

@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.

I rarely de-lurk but this post has been there for a while unchallenged and it is factually inaccurate. Wales does not have the highest death/million in the UK, England's is higher. Here is a handy summary from the NY Times: www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/europe/united-kingdom-coronavirus-cases.html

They state their original data sources as "Department for Health and Social Care, Public Health England, Public Health Scotland, Public Health Wales, Public Health Agency of Northern Ireland, Chief Medical Officer Directorate."

ILoveAllRainbowsx
All the people wanting Proportional Representation should look at all the European Countries with extreme right parties in power or coalition becuause of it.“

Isn’t that exactly what democracy means though, giving people what they vote for, however much you personally disagree with the result?

@OvaHere

I don't think the SNP's 'woke' politics does chime with the majority of their voters, the HCB is deeply unpopular in almost all quarters. It's just that independence fever overrides everything else by some magnitude.

If by some miracle Scottish independence is achieved in the coming years the SNP might not actually fare too well post separation as new battlegrounds emerge and politics shift.

It’s not just about independence. People like a lot of their policies (granted not all) like baby boxes to all pregnant women, free sanitary products to girls and women, prescriptions and others things like treatment of nurses, progressive taxes etc. While some might seem simple they are noticeable and have positive impact.

Or probably ever again. Go woke go broke

One thing Labour shouldn’t do is look to the left success in other countries and try to sell that back to English voters. There are fundamental differences in culture and socio-economic development.

Labour needs to appeal to English voters. It needs to address and improve England’s social and economic systems. If that isn’t their starting point they are doomed.

Labour needs to appeal to English voters.

Yet many of the policies Corbyn proposed were quite popular.
The Tory Mayor of Teesside has done things like take the local airport back into public ownership, which seems quite socialist, and a long long way from Thatcherism. So what exactly do Labour need to do?

In the other Mayoral contests so far declared the Labour Mayors held onto their seats, but two Tory Mayors lost. Labour did well in Wales, so somewhere Labour is doing things that people want.

@Peregrina

Labour needs to appeal to English voters.

Yet many of the policies Corbyn proposed were quite popular.
The Tory Mayor of Teesside has done things like take the local airport back into public ownership, which seems quite socialist, and a long long way from Thatcherism. So what exactly do Labour need to do?

In the other Mayoral contests so far declared the Labour Mayors held onto their seats, but two Tory Mayors lost. Labour did well in Wales, so somewhere Labour is doing things that people want.

I was just about to post similar!

Johnson is also getting so much credit for the vaccine rollout, had these elections gone ahead last May, we'd be seeing the tories getting a hammering.

This report from sky on voting says that Tories' majority would be cut if local voting was translated nationally.

Of course it won't be and isn't. Six years ago when UKIP was riding high it looked as though they would win a large number of seats at the next election but got one.

Where it is useful I think, is it can show emerging trends. One thing I noted that although the Tories have taken control of a number of councils, their actual increase in councillors isn't as great as I would have expected. Labour Mayors have also had a good night. You wouldn't think so from the Press - it's how Khan was run closer than had been expected, not how two Tory Mayors have lost.

I rarely de-lurk but this post has been there for a while unchallenged and it is factually inaccurate. Wales does not have the highest death/million in the UK, England's is higher. Here is a handy summary from the NY Times

The New York Times article was saying we have the most deaths not the highest death rate per million/100,000

Last time I looked we were 12th or 13th and falling like a stone down the list.

We have the highest amount of deaths probably because we have one of the highest populations together with one of the highest population per square mile/kilometre in Europe.

Labour tried to stuff the EU down our throats and now they are paying for it. All the Brexit lies we were told. That Britain would be chaos with lorries queing for 30 miles to get in. House prices would nose dive and inflation would rocket. None of it turned out to be true and people no longer trust Labour judgement. Add that to the wokery of Westminster and it is not appealing. Brecit was a good thing for UK and it would help Labour if Starlmer held his hands up and said OK I got it wrong. People could relate to that, but he won't. He also went on record as saying he would be responsible for Hartlepool result, then sacked Raynor, so pushed blame on to her.

This report from sky on voting says that Tories' majority would be cut if local voting was translated nationally.

It's difficult to extrapolate local results clearly onto national party politics. In my area in the 2019 general election the Tory MP took the seat from Labour with a huge majority of about 7k. Yesterday the 2 councillor seats went to Labour and Lib Dem which is more or less as it has been for many years.

Both Tory candidates did make large percentage gains finishing in third place when usually they would be languishing near the bottom, I think the local Conservative party will be surprised and pleased about this. They put virtually zero effort into campaigning in local elections here so I presume the bump is purely due to the Tory branding.

So it's possible in the next local elections they might actually try to target this ward rather than writing it off because the same (very well known locally) Labour and Lib Dems always get back in. Whilst they got back in again this time it wasn't with a very comfortable lead.

Who knows how things will be by the next crop of elections though, as they say a week is a long time in politics!

To add I would actually prefer it if local politics didn't come with a rosette. In my experience national politics often don't have a bearing on who is good on local issues and I really dislike voting for someone I like knowing that it will be seen as an endorsement of their wider political party who I sometimes do not like.

Labour tried to stuff the EU down our throats and now they are paying for it.

They didn't actually - they sat on the fence over it.
But you have got your Brexit now - what do you want to see from it? If you say 'sovereignty' how will you know that you have got more of it?

Corybn and crew have been life long anti eu camp supporters, they didn't want UK workers wages to be undercut, as well as other things they couldn't impose on us being part of the eu.

EU support and anti eu support was cross party and cross electorate.

Sovereignty or more political transparency peregrina?

Because we definitely have more transparency only having to deal with and concentrate on one lot of politicians

I don't think we ever will again. They relied on Scotland for mps and now that's gone, they are done forever

So essentially one party state then.

I think Labour also overestimate the popularity of some of their most extreme policies with the metropolitan graduate types they feel a lot of their vote lies with. They should move away from twitter and really talk to some of those voters. They will probably find there is more common ground between those voters and the ones they lost than they think. Focusing on education, jobs, workers rights, equality, health - the bread and butter stuff works for all voters. They don't have to bow down to the demands of their most extreme activists to keep their graduate/professional voters base. Most of them are grown ups who will recognise that it is better to win than to always be ideologically pure.

ITV News September 2019

Labour MPs have demanded a People's Vote on EU membership "now", despite the official party policy being to hold one after a general election.

Protesters heard speeches from [Emily] Thornberry, as well as Labour shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer and other figures from the political left, including Green MP Caroline Lucas.

Sir Keir told the crowd a second referendum is the "only way out" of the current impasse, as he said he would support Remain.

www.itv.com/news/2019-09-21/labour-mps-demand-a-people-s-vote-now-as-they-join-thousands-marching-through-brighton