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The Labour Party are unelectable. Can they turn it around? What would they need to do to gain your trust?

528 replies

flashbac · 06/11/2021 10:38

After another week of corrupt shenanigans from the Tories (last week was allowing literal shit pumping into watercourses, this week attempting to set aside a finding of dodgy dealings) we would still be stuck with them if there was a snap election tomorrow.

The Labour brand has become far too toxic. Keir is next to useless and all of them listen to the wrong people instead of instinctively knowing what to fight for. If they can turn it around and rebuild trust it won't be a quick or easy job. They have lost all credibility.

What do they need to do to rebuild trust or is it too late?

For me they need to start with the following:

  • Get a leader with charisma and strong values surrounding fairness. The current one just doesn't cut it.
  • know wtf a woman is. Stop trying to erase natal women as a sex class.

What's on your wishlist for a credible alternative to the Tories?

OP posts:
mumda · 06/11/2021 18:35

@BackBackBack

Stop patronising the average person on the street in the working class towns they claim to want to represent but spend all of their time avoiding. Come and actually talk to us, and listen to what we have to say, rather than sitting in London and sneering at the provinces for being out of touch because your Oxbridge degree/private education/London-centric life means that you know what's best for the proles.

The majority want people to be treated fairly but don't want men in women's sports.

Twitter is a disproportionately loud echo-chamber that is made up of a tiny number of people, who by and large do not represent the views of the average person on the high street. Stop running scared of what's on social media and stop giving it so much head-room.

The NHS needs to work for its patients, treat its staff like human beings, and not be privatised by stealth. Public sector key workers - NHS staff, fire fighters, dentists, bin collectors, cleaners, drivers and so on, need to be properly recognised as valued and valuable occupations.

University degrees shouldn't cost the earth, but at the same time shouldn't be peddled as the only route to work. Vocations and apprenticeships need to be equally valid and valued.

Trickle down economics is a con and does not work. The taxation system needs to be completely overhauled and applied proportionately and fairly. People should be encouraged into work, but the social safety net needs to work humanely and sensitively for people who cannot work - whether that's temporarily or permanently.

The effect and impact of large corporations needs to be recognised. It should not be allowed that a low wage is propped up by the tax-payer when a multi-national is raking in billions. Likewise the ability of private equity firms to come in and asset-strip firms, loading them down with debt and then passing the buck to the taxpayer when the pension scheme collapses, should be outlawed.

Certain key functions should be under national control, so that they are non-profit making because the rewards are driven back into the function, ensuring it runs efficiently and pays staff properly. Energy, water, the NHS, public transport and education should all come under this remit.

Private schooling should have its charitable status abolished and they should also be subject to the national curriculum - which should be set by a board of nominated teaching staff on a fixed tenure basis. Private enterprise should not be allowed to profit from a child's education - or as is so commonly the case, creaming off NT children and leaving the 'difficult' ones to be off-rolled.

That's off the top of my head. I believe in a meritocracy, but with safeguards and controls. The Labour Party needs to stop trying to make everyone happy and go back and remember who is the base - and it's not the people kicking off on Twitter, waving flags and shouting loudest. It's the quiet people in the industrial towns and cities who feel completely abandoned, and who express their frustration at the ballot box. Brexit being a perfect case in point.

Please send that to every person in the labour party.
BackBackBack · 06/11/2021 18:37

@mumda Blush

I genuinely despair of the mess that the party is in right now. They should be carving the Tories up daily, instead of navel gazing and engaging in 6th form common room ideology.

FOJN · 06/11/2021 18:46

BackBackBack

I agree with every point you made and would vote for a Labour party with that agenda in a heart beat.

prudencepuffin · 06/11/2021 18:51

Adopt Corbyns policies (which were actually popular) but without Corbyn who would have been a shit leader unfortunately. Not sure who would be better.
Drop the TWAW stuff and stop bullying people like Rosie Duffield who doesnt believe in it and is perfectly entitled to say so.

luckylavender · 06/11/2021 18:53

@mumda @BackBackBack - Labour is already doing or proposing many of these things. Strange you don't know.

DerAlteMann · 06/11/2021 19:04

@WinoAnon

If you can vote for Tory as an alternative then you don't stand for labour values. Spoil your ballot or don't vote by all means but Tories stand for everything that socialism is against. I have never understood floating voters between these two parties, they are chalk and cheese.
As a floating voter I have to say I do not see that much difference between the two parties in practice. Oh the rhetoric may be poles apart but when it comes to actually doing anything when in government ....
DerAlteMann · 06/11/2021 19:07

@KeflavikAirport

Margaret Beckett and Harriet Harman both led Labour briefly.
Temporarily and on an "acting" basis. Labour has never had a female leader and it's front bench is painfully white.
Poetrypatty · 06/11/2021 19:09

Private schooling should have its charitable status abolished and they should also be subject to the national curriculum

What is the point of them having to be subject to the national curriculum? I just don't get why that would be a good policy

Evesgarden · 06/11/2021 19:10

Get rid of Nandy _ she promotes male rapists in womens prisons

Get rid of Angela Raynor she holds no class and certainly doesn't speak for me (working class single parent mother)

Admit that males can not change in to females magically

I have heard rumblings that AR is going for KS spot and I was Shock I actually like KS. I just dont like his team, they are damaging his party.

labour are completely unregnisible from who they were

Poetrypatty · 06/11/2021 19:10

For those that say they can't vote Labour though, what about the Green Party? Caroline Lucas seems thoroughly decent.

BackBackBack · 06/11/2021 19:11

[quote luckylavender]**@mumda* @BackBackBack* - Labour is already doing or proposing many of these things. Strange you don't know. [/quote]
I'm a paid up member of the party. My first post pointed out the split between TWAW and women's rights. Another poster has already provided the screen-grab of KS saying that it's wrong to say that only women have cervixes. Strange that you don't know that.

Poetrypatty · 06/11/2021 19:13

To my mind that is the dream team of Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham

I'd switch to the libdems if it was that pair. My dream team would be Yvette Cooper/Hilary Benn. Which goes to show that there's no way to please everyone and maybe Keir Starmer is an okay middle ground.

BackBackBack · 06/11/2021 19:15

@Poetrypatty

Private schooling should have its charitable status abolished and they should also be subject to the national curriculum

What is the point of them having to be subject to the national curriculum? I just don't get why that would be a good policy

Because private schooling should really be abolished. It's discriminatory and perpetuates class differences and the 'old boy/girl network'. There shouldn't be a need for private schools - but one of the key reasons why people don't use them is because they don't follow the NC. It levels the playing field (forgive the analogy) by making all schools subject to the NC as well as addressing the issue of a NC which is fit for purpose (by having it set by actual teachers rather than ministers with no teaching experience whatsoever).

Therefore if parents want to pay for private education then they can, but children from state schools are not being disadvantaged by being subject to the NC when privately educated children are not.

BackBackBack · 06/11/2021 19:16

That should say 'key reasons why people DO use them'

KeflavikAirport · 06/11/2021 19:16

Temporary and acting leaders are still leaders Confused

UnshakenNeedsStirring · 06/11/2021 19:17

How on earth can anyone vote for the tories?! Mindboggling....

Motherdare · 06/11/2021 19:17

I would vote Conservative again and again simply for their view on gender and for being the least woke party. I can’t stand Labour these days and I have voted for them at three general elections.

TipseyTorvey · 06/11/2021 19:22

I haven't had time to read the whole thread but basically if Labour can't accept women and men are different sexes then I won't vote for them despite having done so my whole life. It's incredibly important to be me that women are protected in single sex spaces and girls at schools have their own toilets etc. If labour are in stonewall land then that's their decision but it leaves me politically homeless.

luckylavender · 06/11/2021 19:22

@BackBackBack - yes I do know that. But it wasn't the only thing you mentioned.

Gingernaut · 06/11/2021 19:24

@Poetrypatty

For those that say they can't vote Labour though, what about the Green Party? Caroline Lucas seems thoroughly decent.
The cunts who told us we were 'non-men'?

Fuck off

BackBackBack · 06/11/2021 19:27

No. It wasn't.

But the key policies that I mentioned have been lost under the weight of the identity politics that the party seems to be prioritising, at the expense of the majority of people who desperately need those key policies.

The party is failing the electorate. It should be marmalising the Govt right now. Instead it's busy turning itself inside out, to try and satisfy a tiny cohort of people who are so far removed from the working class people the party is supposed to represent that it's not even funny.

luckylavender · 06/11/2021 19:28

@Motherdare - does the fact that the Home Secretary is currently trying to change the law so that if migrants drown while trying to reach our shores, then no one is culpable, not bother you at all? Or even that the Good Friday Agreement is in jeopardy which means a probable return to the troubles?

luckylavender · 06/11/2021 19:29

@BackBackBack - have you not read anything they've done this week?

BackBackBack · 06/11/2021 19:32

Yes. But they haven't "done" anything, have they, because they aren't in Govt! And there has been so much flip-flopping that I will believe it when I see it. KS is yet to walk back on his statement that it's wrong to say that only women have a cervix.

The point of this thread is what they need to do to turn it round - and top of the list, as evidenced in this thread, is that they need to make a commitment to the people they claim to represent.

BrightYellowDaffodil · 06/11/2021 19:33

[quote luckylavender]**@mumda* @BackBackBack* - Labour is already doing or proposing many of these things. Strange you don't know. [/quote]
Labour proposes a LOT of things. They can say what they like - increase in social housing, fix the NHS, close tax loopholes, free puppies, flowers and rainbows for everyone - but whether people trust that the promises have been properly costed and are actually achievable, or whether they ever get into power in order to implement them are very different things.

Politicians can promise anything while in opposition.