Westminstenders: Election Special 3

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Thanks @Random18 sorry I didn’t see your post.

It’s not getting Brexit done at issue for me. I’ve always been realistic that while I would fight to the last for Remain - Leaving may well be inevitable and we will just have to deal with it.

It’s the malevolence of the regime I take issue with. You don’t have to actually vote for the fuckers.

Re the increase in intolerance and xenophobia a group of us were chatting in the staff room about Brexit. One staff member (a doc) who is of asian ancestry basically said that he’d had to deal with rasicm regularly, even on a daily basis, it certainly wasn’t a new thing. At football matches he was called (or heard the p word) even at cricket. Said even if people didn’t verbally abuse him he could see it in their eyes, and this is a lovely guy I’ve worked with for years ! His point was that even before the Eu ref racism was rife, we didn’t live in some harmonious utopia ! Sadly he felt that most now just ignored it, let it go over their heads

Yes, Tatiana. It's very awful.

I'm pretty devastated - and I expect that to get worse as the full dimensions of this sink further in over the next few days.

I wonder how long it will be before people realize that they're being used?

the fact that Johnson is also toxic didn't stop the Tories and ex Labour voting for him in droves. So it's more than Corbyn.

I don't think people will ever wake up to being used. They never will.

Labour are held to a higher standard than the Tories always have been- always will.

Why? I know I'm obsessed with this point but it's to do with hierarchy & our class consciousness. It is almost like a caste system.

Tory-The Tories are the master, they can be brutal but if you work hard , doff your cap and submit then you'll be ok. This fits with Prettybirds Stockholm theory. Be nice to the masters and they'll be nice back. ( Except they won't be.)
*
Labour-*The management here, are either one of us or the one of us made good. A bit like the butler or housekeeper. Always resented, criticised - not as deserving of respect as the master.

I know racism has always existed but now we've got mainstream politicians using the us and them narrative on the lines of race/nationality.

It's worth saying that people vote for a wide range of reasons in a GE.

They vote for a Party, for a Leader, and they also vote on a constituency by constituency basis.

Because Labour were very unprepared for this, because the NEC seized control of many selections, because the NEC chose some candidates on the basis of loyalty to Corbyn, rather than appropriateness - people were asked to vote for some very rum candidates.

The Labour candidate in Rother Valley was quite controversial, to put it mildly.

You just can't do that to people, and expect them to vote for you anyway.

Sure, the Conservatives put up some real horrors - Tories gonna Tory.

But a lot of people who would vote a Labour, vote Labour precisely because they expect better. And will withhold their vote if they don't get offered better.

There's something in that Lonely but how does that fit with what's happened in the US where there's not the same class structure or to the same extent? But similar patterns.

Humans also don't like uncertainty and we're living in times of ever greater risk and uncertainty. Generally, Tories / Republicans are better at attracting authoritarian leaders projecting strong man images. I think that was a big part of Brexit and this election.

Just to point out that I don’t think Cummings was involved in the election campaign.

Cummings has been an key strategist right from his days advising Gove as minister for education, through his time as Leave campaign coordinator to being de-facto chief of staff since Johnson took office in July and was at Johnson's side in his Downing Street study when news of the exit poll came in but I also acknowledge that Isaac Levido was also a key election campaign strategist. A highly disciplined and strategic team.

Cummings blowing his cheeks out after Boris's speech spoke volumes to me. Job done, slogans worked, the' red wall 'was broken down.
His the clever one , not our new MP.

Labour lost because of the People's Vote campaign: www.counterfire.org/articles/opinion/20776-where-do-we-go-from-here-election-briefing-13-december

That last was a joke, by the way.

And Polly Toynbee arguing from the other side of Labour:

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/jeremy-corbyn-labour-manifesto-antisemitism-brexit?twitterr_impression=true

There's going to be one hell of a power struggle in 'the official Opposition' now, that's for sure.

Labour is not alone in being out maneouvered by those playing the long game. This is being played out in many countries.

This is true. And like the US, our news media is owned predominantly by the right. (In the US 6 corporations own 90% of the media - News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS and Comcast).

The widely quoted Loughborough uni research into the first week of the election, found the Tories were covered in the main positively and Labour negatively.

We don’t really have a free and balanced press any more.

It isn’t so much about how messages of social justice work in terms of getting elected - as that any social justice message will be negatively covered in the media just because it’s from the left.

Blair et al understood was that to have any hope of getting into power they needed the media onside. In the current Labour regime there is no understanding of that whatsoever.

Alastair Campbell’s commentary since the referendum has shown that however much he was disliked at the time (and for good reason) his understanding of the media was light years ahead of the current Labour bods.

Its actual interesting that there has been no post mortem on the peoples vote/centrism/lib dems. I said before the election remain had failed to make ground despite claims that they would win a second ref.

I don't think leavers took too kindly to seeing middle class folk going on regular jollies to London to campaign against the referendum result. I don't think the "hysteria " of stock piling helped either. Equally centrists only got their act together opposing the tories when they realised swinson was useless and more austerity under the tories was likely. They then had to consider backing a man they'd spent 3 years criticising. Out of touch doesn't begin to cover it.

I really don't think Cumming's is a genius.

He may be good but ... come on - Labour lost this.

People with actual talent and experience were licked out of senior roles in Labour because they were perceived as a threat or weren't ideologically pure and pro-Corbyn enough.

That's crazy.

We lost to a man who hid in a fridge.

Imagine what Alastair Campbell would have done with that. And been able to do with that

• because he had prepared the ground beforehand
• because he dealt with reality, not some ideologically pure realm of what the media and world should be like
• because he understood that communicating with the electorate is necessary
• because he understood you have to persuade people - not shout at them of guilt-trip them into agreeing with you.

Labour have made so many mistakes.

The 1st was having JC as leader in the referendum campaign.

I truly believe that result would have been different if Labour had had a decent leader who sold the benefits of the EU.

2/ Labour convinced themselves in 2017 that people voted for Labour and their new leader.
Many voted Labour as they were so disgusted at Tories

3/all the stupid political games. The Indicitave votes were the time to make the difference. He resisted that and whipped the party to vote a certain way

4/ Actually too much consideration given to Leave voting Labour supporters. They were a lost cause. They weren't coming back. The majority of Labour voters voted remain.

5/His manifesto - too much all at the one time. People don't really care who owns the utilities - they just want to be able to pay the leccie bill.

The list is endless.

I actually don't see how it can survive as 1 party.

I know that it needs to if it's to win an election again.

But I just can't see if happening - not whilst momentum has its death grip on the party

As for People's Vote

• they were always a tiny group
• they were there to organise a bit of support
• that this election descended into one in which disaster could only be averted by swathes of people tactically voting was an abomination
• it's asking way too much of a small organisation to win an election in which the pro-PV Parties won't co-operate

There's loads more I could say.

There is also something extraordinary about the fact it was effectively shut down the day the GE was called that is truly bizarre.

But I guess that will all come out in the wash eventually.

I do worry Labour will go down hill further. Still there are supporters who won’t look at obvious mistakes that lost votes. And won’t change.
I find it sad if so.

cat I almost always agree with your astute posts.
This
People with actual talent and experience were licked out of senior roles in Labour because they were perceived as a threat or weren't ideologically pure and pro-Corbyn enough. is especially true.

Who do you see and the best choice for leader now?

People like Blair and Campbell have been very vocal in the benefits of EU membership but that message hasn't cut through.

I really agree with a lot of that, Random.

Apologies I misremembered him not being charge of it with him not being involved at all.

There's something in that Lonely but how does that fit with what's happened in the US where there's not the same class structure or to the same extent? But similar patterns.

I'd thought about that before. I do think it's the same as the US. Just for our heirarchy you substitute the American dream.

Here the top of the hierarchy are the royals and then the gentry or the faux Eton gentry.

There the top of the hierarchy are the businessmen epitomising the American dream.

But Johnson must have a strategy.

Oh he has a strategy alright - despite his bumbling shambolic experience. In a remarkably thin manifesto, we have page 14 where he plans to hobble the judiciary and limit democracy. It's customary for the Lords not to vote Manifesto commitments down, so don't tell me that this is there by accident.

Some other thoughts:

When will the moderate decent Tories wake up to realise what they have let in? Is a Government led by a liar and a cheat really the best they can do?

In the north of both England and Wales - did they vote for the Tories or did a vote for the Brexit party let the Tories in?

Farage - well he and Johnson are having a willy waving contest, aren't they? But Johnson will rat on Farage as quickly as he rats on everyone else who doesn't agree with him.