Labour has lost the election, what now?

[Isitmebut]

After 13-years of a New Labour, and trying from 2010 a New-Old Labour as demanded by their core vote, what now?

Commentators talk of the political 'centre', 'centre left' and 'far left' - where is Labour's next direction of travel, who within will take them there, will they still need to keep the trade unions sweet?

Indeed do the trade union barons having brought in THEIR Miliband brother, funded/sponsored the offices of the shadow cabinet and most Labour MPs, and dictated most of the policies of the past 5-years, bear any responsibility for Labour's current loss?

Interesting times.

I think labour need a female leader.
I wonder who will stand?

Yvette Cooper?

I like Rachel Reeves, but I think she once said that she does not want to be leader

Actually, I would like Tom Watson to stand. Not a woman, obviously, but I think he's decent, brave, and genuinely cares.

I agree, Tom Watson is excellent. Lots of courage and a sense of humour too. Decent guy.

Yvette Cooper is in the running

Ken Livingstone was on Newsnight tonight and is exactly right that Labour must go real left wing - not the phoney Blair hand gesture, pointy thumbs, pregnant pauses, words and spin about "fairness" but real actions. Some Blairite type Labour MP, Jonathan Woodcock, chair of some politically correct type group, probably a teenage think tank type of thing, laughingly called "Progress", was advocating taking Labour back to the centre while old school Ken Livingstone said take it left, build homes and invest in manufacturing again.

Their proposed leadership candidates are full of the usual progressive crew - Liz Kendall (Oxbridge), Yvette Cooper (Oxbridge), NHS Warrior Andy Burnham (Oxbridge), Tristram Hunt (Oxbridge), and then Chuka Ummuna (progressive champion) and Dan Jarvis (whom they think will appeal to the people).

They haven't got a clue and they will lose and lose again.

Their think tank types think that they have to appeal to Middle England. They can never ever appeal to Middle England because they are politically correct and Middle England isn't. Middle England is Daily Mail. Their problem is that they are spinners who want to sell their "message" to the people, to Middle England. We are not interested in their "message", in their "spin", we want solutions. Instead of getting their think tanks to try and sell their "message", they should try and work out what is wrong with the country, what we want fixed. Ken Livingstone has a gut instinct, a street instinct not learned at Oxbridge that understands what people really want fixed.

You can't beat the Tories by being Tory-lite because Middle England prefers the Tories and the Daily Mail to that politically correct Labour crowd from Islington, But if they offered a solution that fixed the country's deep problems - housing, opportunity, social mobility, the chance to make a good living and have a good future, secure employment and respect for the people - then we might listen to them. But they have to offer something real and radical to win Middle England over from the Daily Mail and that would have to be a common sense but radical left wing agenda that was real and not just progressive fluffy words about "fairness" and that type of spin.

The reason people vote Tory is because they think that is the best there is. Only a radically different version, not Red Tory, not Labour Tory-lite, can ever hope to win Middle England over from the Tories.

Labour as you say needs to stop trying to be something it is not. There is nothing wrong with labour being labour and electing a Ken/Alan Johnson character.

Yep. Livingstone said he had been all over the country and people who have been Labour for generations are angry and turned to the SNP and UKIP because Labour isn't speaking to them and solving their problems.

The country is not Tory because Tory is inherently right, but because it is better than Tory-lite. There is nothing else on offer but if there was then it would be a completely different story.

I joined the Labour party a few weeks ago and helped out.

I take it I get to vote For a new leader?

Our local party are interested in new members views and why we joined.

We have a Mum of five, a criminal barrister, myself and a chap who recently retired, who joined and helped out. They were so inclusive and grateful.

Good luck Joan, but I fear it is going to be a very long road back and Labour, unfortunately, are going to be in the wilderness for years to come. Now they will have to work out which direction they will go - left or back to Blairism. I think they will choose Blairism and that will be a disaster. But either way it will take years to recover from this.

Ken Livingstone? are you having a laugh?? He was going on about how Labour should win the election by showing more support for manufacturing. Er yeah Ken, what manufacturing would that be? It's 2015 and most people work in services nowadays, not manufacturing- and anyway what would Ken know about life outside London?

Wake up and smell the coffee: the Scots ain't never coming back to Labour. If Labour wants to win again they have to appeal to middle England, which is naturally conservative and loves to vote for posh boys.

I have had worse struggles than being a member of a losing political party.

I think anyone who cares for others could be a labour voter. It is not about money, education or lack of. It is ok for a party as it is a person to be who they are and to avoid being a fake.

'If Labour wants to win again they have to appeal to middle England'

But Middle England is Daily Mail and they don't like the progressives. But if they solved the real problems that ordinary people faced, offered secure jobs, higher pay and a security against the forces of globalisation and could really deliver it not just talk about it - by taking radical actions that inspired confidence, then they could win ordinary people over. But without that, they will never win Middle England over.

'the Scots ain't never coming back to Labour'

Yeah it seems that it will take tears and years before they do. I think the Establishment will offer more power and fiscal inependence to the SNP, hoping that the SNP will mess things up and make Scots angry because of that, in which case the Establishment hopes they will come back. But whether that works or not, we will have to wait and see.

It is not the Daily Mail wot won it, it is Middle England, and Labour can never appeal to them unless it offers something really remarkable, not just second best.

"This was YOUR victory: How Middle England rose up to humiliate pollsters and save the nation from Red Ed

The roar of the voters of Middle England delivered David Cameron a stunning election victory yesterday and forced his three main rivals to resign.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3074115/How-Middle-England-rose-save-nation-Red-Ed.html

Maybe they should stop thinking about how to win elections and focus on their core values and ethics. There is no shame in being an effective, strong opposition with integrity, standing up for what they believe in and representing the people who share those values.

I think they will gain more respect in the long run than trying to be all things to all people and pandering to the DM.

Devastating analysis of Ed Miliband by the editor of the New Statesman. He rightly says that the progressives don't appeal to the majority of ordinary people and Middle England and that left wing academic theories are the wrong way to do it. But he doesn't realise that the people are smart enough to know that the Tories do capitalism better than the progressives.

He rightly unserstands how out of touch this left wing groupthink W1A Oxbridge clique is

"Miliband surrounded himself with a small group of like-minded, scholarly, middle-aged men: most notable were Stewart Wood, a former Oxford academic, and Marc Stears, also an academic and an old friend of Miliband’s from Oxford University who wrote many of his speeches.

It created a peculiar kind of group-think. Their meetings had the atmosphere of lofty seminars; but then no one around Miliband had run or set up a business.

Throughout his leadership and encouraged by his supporters, Miliband liked to style himself as an ‘insurgent’, challenging a nefarious establishment: big business, the Press barons, the energy companies.

Some of his positioning was bold and, indeed, courageous — especially when he defied David Cameron and refused to support British strikes against the Assad regime in Syria in 2013.

But it never seemed to dawn on him that he, too, was an emblematically establishment figure. He just happened to be a member of a different establishment from the Prime Minister. That of the liberal metropolitan elite."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3074177/Messianic-self-belief-little-clue-real-life-searing-verdict-editor-New-Statesman.html

They can never appeal to Middle England unless they offer something substantially different to the Tories - not NHS warriors like Burnham. They need a revolution in the Labour Party, where the working class topple their Oxbridge metropolitan elite, where the Bob Crow's of the future topple the eggheads and academics from Oxford. But it won't happen, their W1A thinkers and their media chums have too strong a grip on the party, so they will remain in the wilderness until they change their politically correct groupthink.

Claig, you have some great points and I broadly agree with you although I'm not sure about your solution.

Labour does need to win the "blue belt" southern England vote. There was a Epson why we didn't win enough seats from the Libdems and that is because those people would rather vote Tory.

How do we gain the trust of those people whilst remaining anything vaguely left wing?

At the moment, the largest proportion of the voting public are "on the right". UKIP is not a left wing party, Claig. I know, I know, you like the Peoples Army but their policies are not left wing.

Swinging to the left even more now will not get us elected. No way. If the public is on the right and we come at a further left position, trying to win votes will be harder than shitting a unicorn. We need to be elected, so that we can start the shift back away from the right.

We need to have the discussions about how a left wing party can be trusted with the economy, can make socialist policy economical and viable, that social responsibility can provide a stable economy. This needs to be our core message going forward. How socialist policies can provide real jobs, more money in your pocket for the average working person.

I completely agree now that Labour needs someone from a normal working class background who comes across as strong and intelligent. In fact we need more people actively involved in the party.

Epson should read reason, sorry!

Writing on a phone with a toddler asleep on your arm is not ideal.

Also Bob Crow did have a party, TUSC. He was the co-founder. Bob was a great man, inspiring and relentless. I was a union rep under him and he inspired me every time he spoke.

'Scottish' labour needs to completely split from London labour. (Like the greens)

rUK labour then needs to move right to appeal to middle englander Tories in the marginal seats Blair stormed through in 1997. They should campaign for compulsory voting as its their potential voters who don't come out.

Labour doesn't need to forgo its principles though. It needs to make that believable and palatable to the marginals.

I didn't realise Bob Was TUSC. Yes Bob was phenomenal. He was the Farage of the left, able to outwit his opponents and appeal to many voters. He did make mistakes and was wrong on some things, but he was right on a lot of stuff too.

I am on the right, but if there was a meaningful real left wing solution to housing and employment and job security and prosperity, I think millions on the right would go for it too. UKIP voters would too.

The current Labour people criticising Ed Miliband are right that Labour must appeal to aspiration. That is what most people want, just a good life with good prospects and a good future. The problem is that lots of people don't think Labour will offer that or even understands that that is what people want. Sky News just interviewed voters in Ilford North and one woman said "the Tories offer us more. We are not on welfare. What is in it for us?" and she came from a family of lifelong Labour voters. Aspiration is fundamental. But Bob Crow understood that. He made sure his workers got the best pay and conditions possible. Nothing was too good for the workers and that is how it should be.

Unless the Tories really mess up like they did in 1997 when even Tories like me had had enough of their arrogant faces on TV and all the sleaze that was associated with them, then most people will never believe that Labour will offer them a better future than the Tories because Labour are seen as wanting to tax what little the squeezed middle has, typified by Lord Prescott

"SPY in the sky cameras could be used to slap higher council tax bills on householders who make home improvements.

Tax inspectors have looked into using satellite and aerial photographs to spot extensions, conservatories and other improvements, Whitehall officials confirmed last night.

The idea has brought a furious response from human rights campaigners.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: 'It's ludicrous. It's not only a waste of resources, it's a shockingly disproportionate interference with people's privacy.

'It seems now that an Englishman's home is no longer his castle if he puts a conservatory on it.'

The technology has been explored as part of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's plans to increase council tax bills for those who have extended or made improvements to their homes."

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-1595711/The-new-council-tax-spy-in-the-sky.html

Labour's punitive policies alienate millions of ordinary people who feel that they will be penalised for working hard and doing well.

Labour must become a party of the people - a Red UKIP - that understands people's aspirations and does not only talk about people on welfare etc because that is the impression they give to lots of people.

Lots of UKIP and Tory voters want railways nationalised

"British people support re-nationalising the railways by 60-20% - for the main reason that they should be accountable to taxpayers rather than shareholders"

yougov.co.uk/news/2014/05/11/why-do-people-support-rail-nationalisation/

Any party that said they would rein in salaries of fat cats in public industries, hospital trusts and councils and slash them, that promised to do quantitative easing to build milliosn of homes and employ people to do it instead of bailing out banks. Any party that said they would create new factories in every town to produce basic goods and utensils that every home needs and that these would employ the unemployed first, any party that offered small businesses interest free loans to expand businesses, that promised to slash wasteful spending on foreign aid or to think tanks and charities and foundations that are often stuffed full of ex-political figures and their mates, any party that slashed HS2 and put the money into new nationalised science parks and hubs and new universities for science and technology only (similar to Harold Wilson's White Heat of Technology), any government that had some national plan for growth, that did not just sit back and let the market do everything, but said we know what to do and how to do it in areas where progress should occur quicker, any government that said we will concentrate on essentials, we will cut salaries at the BBC and their taxi fares and the licence fee and things for which the public are being overcharged, any government that said we will stop the growth in the third sector charities, stop spending money on some of these projects and spend it creating nationalised building companies with apprenticeships that would repair and build homes. Any party that did half of that, would give people hope.

The problem is where would the money come from and are they allowed to do that when they are tied up by EU and WTO trade law etc. I don't know. But there is lots of money in the country (the fifth largest economy in the world) as the quantitative easing showed. But that money was not spent on production and employment, but to bail out the financial industry.

I think we will eventually go back to the need for some state planning to step in where markets do not go or do not go fast enough.

I don't believe it is not possible because after World War II, the country was on its knees, and we still created the NHS and better homes and a better life.

Labour can never beat the Tories by being Tory-lite. They can only beat them by offering more and offering to do it quicker and in a planned way rather than letting wealth trickle down or the market do it if it feels like it.

Labour has to offer hope and a plan and appeal to all the people, not just to people on welfare and Labour has to be different to the Tories or nobody will think it is worth making a change.

What it come sdown to is what the woman who was interviewed on Sky News said

"What will Labour do for us?" "What's in it for us?

"What have Labour ever done for us?"

They have done a lot and they have to do more and they have to explain what it will be and why it will be good for us. Tory-lite is nowhere near good enough, Blair is a joke and was only kept in power because he went to war and pleased the millionaires so the press mocked the Tories.

People are not born right wing, they are right wing because they don't believe that the left offers a good enough alternative. They didn't believe Ed Miliband would be better than Cameron for the economy. That is because Ed was just Tory-lite or as the Scottish people rightly said "Red Tories". A left wing radical solution that offered hope and a plan and that "would do something for us" would expose the hollowness of the Tory alternative to let the markets sort things out if they get round to it.

And why Labour need a Bob Crow and not a human spin machine is because Bob Crow didn't spin, he said it like it was, he took them on on Question Time, he made us laugh, he took it to them, he gave us hope, just like Farage.

'They should campaign for compulsory voting as its their potential voters who don't come out.'

This is what they will probably one day try to do. Thiis is always the socialist solution - to force voters to the polls whom they think will vote for them. But they may find that those voters vote for UKIP instead of them.

But if they try to use compulsion, UKIP will oppose them and the Tories will too and the people will too. We don't trust our political classes and we certainly don't want them to force us and tell us what to do.

They have to respect he people and our liberties and our wishes. The rise of UKIP is because they ignored us, lectured us, hectored us, spun us and disrespected us.

I voted Balir in 1997, but never again after that because unlike all the Blairites are saying on TV now, that Blair understood aspiration, he did no such thing, all he did was please his millionaire mates, he didn't do "anything for us". It was under Blair that Lord Prescott was up to his stuff

"SPY in the sky cameras could be used to slap higher council tax bills on householders who make home improvements."

and it was under Blair that they wanted to strip our civil liberties and give us biometric ID cards and DNA databases for "our own good".

Blair did nothing for us, he did everything for his mates and now he travels the world doing stuff for leaders across the globe.

So Labour will go back to Blairism, but this time they have UKIP to contend with, and we will defeat them no matter how many Murdochs help them.