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

[flashbac]

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?

I've read elsewhere that a recent poll actually puts Labour ahead. It was taken pre Paterson too. Perhaps the electorate is tiring of the Tories.

@ElectAClownLiveInACircus

No, I wasn't saying Labour voters were stupid. I was talking about the people who DID vote for Boris Johnson and his government and DID lead to him winning. They DID vote for someone who likened Muslim women to pillar boxes and they DID vote for someone who likened to the climate crisis to being on the losing side at half time in a football match. It was not me who made these analogies and it was not me who voted for the person who did. But 50% of the population DID.

You are badly wrong.

13,966,451 People voted Tory at the last election.
Estimates say there were 66,000,000 people in the UK at that time.
By your own measurement that's about 21%

Even if you take the more sensible measurement of those who actually bothered to vote, it's only 43.6% who voted Tory.

Why would anyone imagine it was 50%?

Support womens rights to single sex spaces. will they listen? will they 'eck.

People in Colwyn Bay have got the right idea; perhaps next time they could just keep the graffitti off neighbouring properties.

www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/vandals-daub-corrupt-scum-graffiti-22096391

@BlackeyedSusan

Support womens rights to single sex spaces. will they listen? will they 'eck.

Yes another vote for this here.

Although I am not sure I can go back now. Seeing the contempt Labour's beardy woke Momentum types have for anyone who is not a male beardy woke Momentum type has left a bad taste in my mouth. And seeing people like Kier and Jess flail around cynically denying what they know to be true to keep those people onside and throwing - mainly poor, vulnerable - women under the bus to do so has made that nasty taste a whole big mouthful of cold sick.

I don't think I ever really understood why they say the left will eat itself but it does doesn't it?

@EwwSprouts

Harriet Harman is problematic as she brought in the EA 2010 which gave us TWAW and her association with PIE.

I think you are confusing the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) 2004 under Labour with the Equality Act (EA) 2010?

GRA = dangerous claptrap, creates a legal fiction around 'living as a woman' and confuses sex and gender

EA = protections for sex, as well as protections gender reassignment with exceptions

Harriet Harman is a really competent politician, which makes her decent into PIEdom and the more recent bollocks of gender identity ideology bewildering.

People in Colwyn Bay have got the right idea; perhaps next time they could just keep the graffitti off neighbouring properties

But how exactly is vandalism going to help?

I'd say they should have thought about what was next door, except that this sort of behaviour shows exactly what kind of brain power they have

Keeps the issue top of mind, Puzzled. Where it needs to be, unless you want the corrupt scum to fester.

Believe me I am doing, Church ... it's just that rather than helping, I believe this kind of thing gives the extremists an opportunity to say "There you see; these are just the sort of people Labour attract and think what it'd be like to have this sort running the country"

They wouldn't be running anything of course - most of them couldn't run a bath - but I'm no more keen on encouraging the far right than I am their opposite numbers

Last data I can find is as of 06/11 and shows the Tories on 39% and Labour on 35%.

It will be interesting to see how the next week pans out on the back of Johnson's approval rating. Although even with everything that's going on, the Observer's poll still puts BJ at 30% approval vs KS 29%.

I think the Labour Party are very electable.

It’s getting boring hearing people parroting the same line that they’re not. It’s become a self fulfilling prophecy.

They've got to get back in touch and relate to their core labour voters. More in tune with the Northern working class, than the Islington momentum members. Clear the front bench of the political lightweights, somehow break the hold of the unions and communicate what their policies actually are.

1. Stop picking unelectable leaders. Milliband, Corbyn, Starmer - all are unelectable. Corbyn because of his honesty about his views, Milliband and Starmer because they look like they'll say anything to get you to vote for them.
2. Ensure candidates to be MPs are respectable people. Not people who will resort to calling their opponents "scum" or who will be convicted for threatening a member of the public.
3. This is the big one - have opinions and policies that are a) workable, b) better than the Tories', c) are based on foresight not hindsight.
4. Remember that simply opposing everything the Tories do isn't enough, maybe it's enough to remain in opposition but not enough to get elected.

I think the Tories keep getting in because people know what they stand for - helping the rich get richer, keeping the poor poor, promising things will get better when actually they get worse. With Labour, who knows what they are really about? They never seem to put forward any ideas until after the event when any fool can see them. People might say "read the fucking manifesto" but that's the point - I know what the Tories are likely to be spouting.

I know what the Tories are likely to be spouting

Do you agree with what they’re spouting @HarrietsChariot?

Or do you vote for them just because they’re predictably immoral and corrupt?

Do you agree with what Labour are spouting @Sean2001? Is it transphobic to say only women have a cervix?

Nothing will make me vote labour after the Self-ID stuff. I couldn't trust them not to lie and then U-Turn. They are about as trustworthy as the Tories in my eyes.

There isn't a party I could actually vote for right now (lib-dems are also shite) but the notion of ballot spoiling pisses me off. If you spoil your ballot you might as well just vote Tory,

And another thing that's really bloody annoying. The Liberal Democrat women are bloody excellent in the Commons today on parliamentary standards - Wendy Chamberlain, Daisy Cooper, Wera Hobhouse - but are a bloody joke when it comes to their pandering to the gender identity ideology lobby.

My point being, you can have excellent MPs but if you require them to spout shite, you're going downhill. It's happening to all the opposition parties - Labour, LD, Greens, SNP, Plaid.

We know why. Stonewall 'Law' became the new orthodoxy because it lobbied MPs behind the scenes.

Maybe that itself needs to the subject of a parliamentary standards inquiry.

I come from a family of lifelong Labour voters. My Grandad was a union rep, DS (mid-20s) worked for a Labour MP, wanted to go into politics himself. I can't believe I am writing this but wouldn't vote for them if there was an election tomorrow and my whole family have felt the same for a while, there isn't one left. My son has now left his job to do something completely different.
Reasons are in summary, a total lack of recognition of the views of working class families, lack of focus on core values such as reducing child poverty, inequalities, gig economy, student fees. For my son it's mostly to do with an inability to be an effective opposition even when the ineptness of the Tory gov't particularly during the pandemic seemed to be a massive open goal.
I would like Labour to get back to focusing on core issue such as re-distribution of wealth, removal of charity status from private schools, rights for women and those with protected characteristics.
The TWAW/ self ID bullshit is part of a wider tendency to run the party like a student union - lots of belligerent middle class know-it-alls lecturing ordinary people how to be on "the right side of history" . Massive tun-off for core voters.

So, Live from the Commons, Keir Starmer is currently being almost magisterial.

So why the fuck can't he apply his logic about Johnson's 'devaluing the rules' to the issues around women's rights?

Actual, proper left-wing policy instead of centrist bet-hedging.

Sticking to their principles and actually defending them, rather than soft-shoeing anything they think might be unpopular.

Get rid of Starmer.

I think that sentence is uncompletable with a positive, Sean2001.

The Labour Party are very electable because... [Boris is a lying POS]

@HarrietsChariot - that made me laugh. Very succinct and I suspect on the money

@BackBackBack

The party would do better to close the many loopholes that exist around corporation tax and ensure this is applied fairly.

Close the loop holes of intra-group lending and services and accounting practices of being able to carry forward losses if it is demonstrable that you are a multi-national and the rest of your group is in vast profit. Amazon's European sales topped £44bn in 2020 but they paid zero corporation tax. Zero. Even someone on NMW pays more tax than Amazon - no wonder that Jeff Bezos has a personal net worth of over $200bn which is quite frankly immoral and totally indefensible. No single human being needs a billion dollars let alone 200 of them.

Amazon and Facebook and Starbucks will not pack up and leave - they'll threaten, but they won't. There are too many consumers here to ignore and the negative PR associated with refusing to pay a fair tax would be awful.

This, and a lot more of what Back said (you should get this back to LPHQ if you're involved).

Have been life long Labour supporter (member and campaigner during the 1997 election). Found it hard to support them recently.

It's a big old mess but there is a lot of sensible advice here.

Disagree with those who say don't tax the rich more - I have paid into the system all my life and now, finally having children of my own, I'm not even entitled to child benefit. I'm not rich, far from it. BUT I understand that there are people in far greater need than me and I can pay a greater share. A progressive/fair tax system (focussing on closing all the loopholes) IS necessary for a moral society whose focus should be on reducing the disparity between the haves and the have-nots. I firmly believe that GNH (happiness) should replace GDP as general measure of success of a country (a la Bhutan).

I can't stand the narrative at every election around reducing pennies in income tax. These policies are only wheeled out to win votes and make very little difference in the grand scheme, but more, they are damaging because they promote the narrative of "what's in it for me?" as the primary focus of every election rather than "how can we build a better nation?". This small minded Tory trait continually dominates all elections discussions in popular media channels and it never gets challenged. All evidence shows that once people have enough of an income that they can get their basic needs met and have a little extra, every pound beyond that brings diminishing returns in terms of happiness. How can you spend £200b on yourself??!

A fairer society is a happier one and i think Labour should launch a campaign of positivity, of focusing on something everyone can relate to and aspire to, and that is of building a happier, more contented nation.

And definitely tackle the entitled MPs who think being in politics is a million pound meal ticket rather than a duty to do good for their constituents.

@luckylavender

Nope I still don't get it. You don't like Corbyn? Fine, I didn't. You don't like Starmer? Your choice. You didn't like Blair, because he wasn't Labour enough and Iraq. I understand. I loathed Thatcher with every fibre of my being but I would swap her in a heartbeat for this excuse of a PM. He's a liar, a cheat, he's lazy, corrupt, racist, homophobic and he wound sell his grandmother for a free lunch. The rules don't apply to him. And he got Brexit done sure, whatever you think of that. But at what cost? He's sold the GFA down the river and he would do the same to anyone or anything in his way. And I will never understand how anyone could vote for him. And I judge anyone would could. Because he is not a force for good in this country. And he is doing us real harm.

This.

Well I hope they sort it out soon. I've just been reading about the efforts the Tories are making to get the Daily Mail bloke to head OFCOM. Once the communications regulator is captured we are done for. Fake news will be mainstream. Fascism is coming folks.