Is a more left Labour government what people want?

[punkhairbrush]

I keep hearing statement after statement from Labour MPs and Rayner saying they essentially want a more left version of the Labour Party. From my understanding the majority of the public are fed up with work not paying and whether we like it or not, nothing being done about the welfare state and also illegal immigrants. Surely a more left approach isn’t going to solve either of these issues and will just cause Labour to be even less popular than they are now. Or have I got it all wrong?

I think they should stop giving themselves wage increases and put money into things people want such as being able to get a doctor's appointment like you used to be able to Spend money fixing roads and pavements They should be making places accessible for disabled Much smaller classes in school I've no idea what's left or right Id just like to see changes that improve people's lives

Well, respected polling companies say this is what the polling shows..... but of course, in some areas, immigration IS a deep and valid concern, which makes it even more weird that Cameron took away financial help for areas most affected.

UkiP got 3% of the vote in 2010, so tell me again the peoples of the UK were sooo concerned about migration?

On 2010 GE lose, it was a hung Parliament, with an electorate deeply unhappy about the state of the economy after the GFC....

Interesting you mention Bigotgate... a story hammered by the 'right wing media to drive Brown out, same as they have done on all issues negatively affecting Labour... its almost like they had a 5 year plan from July 2024 to destroy any chance of Labour being a success.

Cameron was the UK's weakest PM, terrified of his shadow, let alone ERG wing of the Tory party... called a referendum, then run away.

Is the use of the shorthand “left” and “right” truly useful shorthand? Because Labour started out acting for workers, but now it has drifted into paying as many people as possible not to work and to allocate very high demand work to relatively few people.

It’s a terrible way to run a society because we need to work, it’s wired in. We just need to do a reasonable amount of work and have a reasonable amount of time to look after children and family relationships.

The “left” doesn’t promote that. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Angela Rayner and those calling for more Left Wing politics should remember that the last GE there was a swing to Labour that was really a protest against the awfulness of Boris and Truss. So Labour is benefitting from a blip. Many of those voters will not be voting Labour next time.
Major, Blair, Cameron, (Clegg?) won the centre. That is what usually wins here in UK.
Will the centre vote to re-join the EU? I doubt it.
The ideas that Starmer has about re-joining are now so dramatic that we would have to have a referendum. One line in the next Labour Manifesto would not be sufficient to answer the Democratic accountability questions. Especially at the prices we would have to pay. France and Germany have already given us warnings on this.

@Alexandra2001 Notice you ignored Brown’s ‘British jobs for British workers’ comment. It would have been a bizarre comment to make, apropos of nothing. He made it in 2007.

UKIP vote share increased from .4% in 2007 to 3.1% in 2010, a 675% increase. That is significant.

Labour are reducing the payments for disabilities & tighter criteria, increases are due in no small part to changes from legacy to UC and a rise in MH conditions in younger people.

Suicide rates in the 20 to 35 male age group is up by 30% (since 2010) so presumably these MH issues are genuine.

How would you address these people?

No i'm not ignoring it... we just lost a re fitting of the David Attenborough ship to a Danish boatyard, done under rules introduced by Sunak in 2023... that the lowest bid should carry more weight.

Labour are changing these rules but too late for Falmouth.

An interesting use of statistics... but the bottom line is, that migration or the EU in 2010 was not, for most people in the UK, an over riding concern... it became more of one as Farage was given a massive platform for his repugnant views in the 2010s....

He now promises to deport people given asylum, given right to remain... EU citizens too, deporting people legally here, he promises levels of deportations not seen in Europe since the 1930s.

How do you explain the rise of Reform?

Proliferation of quangos, spads and onerous recording and reporting requirements.

Tories started off with the intention of rectifying some of the bloat through civil service reform but the coalition, Brexit and later Covid slowed all of that down. And the Tories were pretty much carrying on from New Labour as Cameron moved them more to the centre.

I’m not a Reform voter, I think Farage is a fascist. But I see why people want to vote for him. We’ve had successive governments who haven’t championed Britain or British workers and it’s been a disaster. France and Germany laugh at us. They have both got protectionist loopholes they use when it’s in their interests.

Theres a good 2 part documentary shown on BBC2, probably still on iplayer. It’s worth watching. It shows resistance to immigration was gaining ground from the early 2000s. I still think Farage has been pushing on an open door.

I think Alexandra answered that one in a nutshell when she wrote Farage was given a massive platform for his repugnant views in the 2010s.

I refer to last week’s results.

Remember, many of the anti-Farage posters, previously suggested that the older demographic (or gammons as some were called) were dying off etc.

So, how do you explain his popularity now?

Are all these threads just posted by Reform trying to back up their "success"? They're all remarkably similar and filled with disinformation and wild generalisations. It says something interesting about the future of politics and government if people are being manipulated in this way - and by interesting, I mean along the lines of "may you be cursed to live in interesting times".

It wasn't even a "swing" towards Labour. Starmer got barely higher proportion of the vote than Corbyn did the previous time. What happened was that Sunak caused a massive loss of Tory votes. That's how Labour got their massive majority - it wasn't because they attracted more voters, it was because huge numbers of historic Tory voters didn't vote Tory.

Nail on the head.

Because people need someone to blame for what is wrong in their lives. They need someone to blame for the state our public services are in and the housing shortage. Farage has encouraged people, for many years, to lay the blame at the feet of immigrants. People have bought into this.

On the other hand, Reform got 27% of the vote in England. Reform didn't win in Scotland and Wales. So the majority of people aren't voting Reform, which is encouraging. Although you will find it disappointing.

No, the one we already have is too far left for my liking.

Yes. If Labour goes more to the left. Reform party will walk in safely in two years time. However, let’s not kid ourselves this was always their intention. Starmer was to get in and fool the people.

It’s not immigrants per se, but it is immigration. Significant numbers coming to live here with infrastructure not keeping pace to accommodate, plus a non contributory welfare system that means immigrants can claim all the in work benefits as soon as they start work.

Wales and Scotland have nationalist parties they can vote for. And they did.

If Labour want to become more popular they would need Shabana Mahmood as PM.

More popular with you maybe. I think they're going to need more than one vote.

Those parties are left leaning, not right. Very different beasts to the English nationalism as practised by Reform. Compare the manifestos and you will see.

I don't know ... speaking for myself I would find it hard to vote for the Tories because of the absolute mess they made of the country last time they were in charge.

I'm undecided between Labour or Conservative but it would feel worse in a way to vote for Conservatives unless I was more convinced that they have changed.

Because your wish list is mostly spending, and higher taxation levels which are suppressing growth. (see Laffer curve)

UK isn't attractive anymore, with high employment costs, high energy and a corporation tax rate that 17% higher than the European average.

Borrowing isn't a solution, as we're already paying over £350 Million a day in interest payments.

The truth is un-electable, we need to drastically cut public spending, and I don't think that's on Angela's agenda...

It's certainly what I want.