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.

fascile .... re your "A successful Tory campaign, then. You responded to one of the Tory's key pieces of propaganda."

How was it propaganda if every poll was saying that in a Westminster that needs around 326 seats to have a majority; Labour estimated to have had around 280 seats, the SNP over 56 seats or more, and as that was the only permutation that would produce over 326 seats - they needed each other to form a government, never mind pass legislation.

Or was 'the propaganda' in your view, that a dream team of Labour and the SNP with their records of running a balanced UK economy, would have put us back on the 2010 path to an unsustainable economy?

Isitmebut It was propaganda because the Tory party sought to instil fear into voters about a hypothetical Labour/SNP relationship, if Labour were in a government forming position.

Were you not aware of the poster campaign - Alex Salmond with a miniature Ed Miliband in his pocket; Nicola Sturgeon controlling an Ed Miliband string puppet? What about David Cameron's letter writing in the run up to the election? Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP, received a letter from Cameron telling him it was a 'huge risk' to vote for the Liberal Democrats in his constituency and urged him to vote Conservative instead, in order to avoid the 'troubling reality' of a Labour government controlled by the SNP:

www.libdemvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/David-Cameron-Letter.jpg

fascicle .... political 'propaganda' is when one party makes speech after speech that another will destroy the NHS, or irresponsibly telling voters for electoral gain that cutting a (2010) £157 billion annual government budget deficit/overspend, is "austerity".

If you don't want to look at the pre election polls parliamentary seat math ENSURING that both Labour & the SNP had to work together, or that the SNP had no cares if the Conservatives were democratically elected in England as the largest party as they would not work with them under any circumstances to 'freeze' them out of parliament;

In Scotland until the last election, who has been the common enemy for decades, where over egged horror stories of the Thatcher Poll Tax are still told to Scottish voters, despite the huge rise in the Council Tax alternative under Labour, when NO ONE marched, or even mentioned it?

Tell me, take away Trident and the Scottish Independence recent history, what would the two left of centre, less cuts, more spending/debt, and higher taxes Labour and SNP Westminster parliamentary parties actually DISAGREE on, apart from where the idjuts sit???

Miliband had no alternative other than to spurn Sturgeon's loose coalition offer of marriage to save his English seats; but whether you you look at their hatred of Conservatives, shared ideologies, or the pre election 336+ Westminster seats expectations (when 326 was a majority) - it was a shotgun wedding waiting to happen and to deny it or call it propaganda, is factually rather lame.

"Labour needs to embrace a ‘huge cut’ in the welfare bill and severe restrictions on the free movement of European migrants, a senior MP has said.

John Mann, who is on the right of the party, said Labour had lost the election because it was led by an out-of-touch metropolitan elite who saw Britain through a ‘London eyeglass’.

In a manifesto of ideas for the new leader, the Bassetlaw MP said the party had to be more pro-business and needed to ensure that the family became its ‘central focus’.

He said Labour must be less ‘statist’ and must give people more individual freedom, saying: ‘Too often, we have sought to do good things for people, rather than empower them to do it themselves.’

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3093140/Slash-welfare-stop-mass-migration-win-power-Labour-MP-releases-Blue-manifesto-leader.html

There is zero chance of any of this happening in Labour. They are far too politically correct and progressive for any of this.

Isitmebut

Oxford Dictionaries' definition of propaganda:

Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view

Which is what I meant when I said:

It was propaganda because the Tory party sought to instil fear into voters about a hypothetical Labour/SNP relationship, if Labour were in a government forming position.

it was a shotgun wedding waiting to happen and to deny it or call it propaganda, is factually rather lame.

You need to separate the (correct) definition of propaganda, and your ideas about possible outcomes and relationships that would follow the election.

There is no doubt that the negative Labour/SNP spin used by the Tories had an effect on would be Labour voters. Even though Miliband said he wouldn't work with the SNP; even though a hung parliament was the predicted prospect for either the Tories or Labour.

Who would have predicted a Conservative/Liberal coalition in 2010 and its outcome (positive for the Tories, devastating for the Lib Dems)?

Fascicle ..... you are choosing not to read my last post through e.g Miliband had no alternative other than to deny he would form a government with the pledge of the SNP to work with him, he was contesting nearly 600 seats OUTSIDE Scotland.

• The SNP said even if the Conservatives had a 40 seat over Labour, they wouldn't work with the Conservatives under any circumstances, so how could the Conservatives with the predicted 180 seats, say Lib Dem 15 seats IF agreed to work with them ever again, the DUP with say 8 seats, and a brace of UKIP seats been able to govern with that shortfall in a messy coalition - this is not propaganda, its a fact.

• Labour and SNP are very similar in left of centre detest the Conservatives politics, so I ask again, outside Trident and Scottish Independence, as they both agree on higher 'progressive' taxes, less spending cuts and more government borrowing - where are the political policy differences, so 'cost' of working together with that Westminster majority, to do whatever they wanted to do?

• The Conservatives and Lib Dems in 2010 were faced with 'broken Britain' and not one policy in place to sort it, so it was a very different scenario, they decided to work together by prioritizing 'red line' policies within their individual manifestos - which formed a Coalition Agreement.

Labour had unbalanced the UK economy over 13-years, racked up a £157 bil (and still rising) government overspend with no clue how to rebalance the economy, while the SNP having only spent money the Barnett Formula had never run an economy at all, never mind one the size of the UK and WANTED MORE OF THE 2010 SAME - so those two running the country from 2015 was a clear and present danger to our prosperity, NOT propaganda.

The “what now?” for Labour question is unlikely to be answered anytime soon, as outspoken grandees within the Labour movement still look to influence the future policies.

Unite’s Len McClusky is warning his reported favourite candidate Andy Burnham must not support policies to cut the UK budget deficit to RETAIN that support.

While John Prescott on the subject of ‘aspiration’ needs to ask; "What the hell does that mean, 'aspiration'? I hear a lot of the candidates talking about it. They've clearly got aspiration, but what the heck does it mean?"

"Lord Prescott ridicules Labour leader candidates' use of the word 'aspiration'
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11628209/Lord-Prescott-ridicules-Labour-leader-candidates-use-of-the-word-aspiration.html

And that comes from an ex Ships Bar Steward, who became the MP for Hull East, and then Deputy Prime Minister of the UK for a decade, to then go on and accept a Lordship – with not even a whiff of personal aspiration?

P-lease, what did he think it was, 'a calling'.

And that comes from an ex Ships Bar Steward, who became the MP for Hull East, and then Deputy Prime Minister of the UK for a decade, to then go on and accept a Lordship – with not even a whiff of personal aspiration?

He seems to be objecting to the repeated use of the word by Labour party representatives, without clarification of what it means for the party and the electorate. I doubt he's objecting to people being ambitious.

Re: propaganda. Your argument seems to be that because you believe it, it can't be propaganda. Another of Prescott's criticisms was the failure of the Labour party to rebuff Tory party propaganda about its economic record. (If the Labour party had, as you claim, 'unbalanced the UK economy over 13 years', why were they voted back in for second and third consecutive terms - with more seats than the Conservatives have managed since?)

As for coalition configurations. You can't argue that Labour would certainly have worked with the SNP and that it would certainly have been a disaster, any more than you could for the Tories. And it's nonsensical on the one hand to say that the outcome would have been terrible, whilst at the same time not allowing the possibility that Labour would decline to work with the SNP.

Fascicle ..... you are choosing not to read my last post through

It's quite extraordinary for you to know what I have and haven't read. I chose to comment on what I considered to be pertinent (the use of propaganda, rather than selective views on outcomes). You chose not to comment on the clear examples of propaganda I provided (Tory posters and an aburd letter from Cameron advising a Lib Dem MP to vote against himself in the election, to avoid the horrors of a Labour government, at the mercy of the SNP).

fascile .... re propaganda,

Lets try another approach, so please explain to me how a minority Conservative government would get any legislation through parliament needing 326 seats, when the Labour Party that opposed everything for 5-years and the SNP who would not work with them under any circumstances - were polled to have over 336 seats?

This is not rocket science; it is simple math and the record/statement of intent by Labour and the SNP.

Labour's 13-years started in 1997, with the best economic inheritance since god know when, during a global boom and low global interest rates yet still lost 1 million manufacturing jobs in their first 7-years/replaced with public sector jobs, spending/borrowing like a drunken sailor in a brothel which any fool of a government can do for votes.

Labour began with over a 166 seat majority in 1997, had around a 66 seat advantage in 2005, when their English boundary advantage accounted for around 20 seats and Scotland, whatever, so not so huge during the 'boom' times, especially when saying only EU 17,000 migrants might come here when the doors were open.

As to the potential Labour/SNP outcome; as the financial crash began in 2007 and the economic crash began in 2008, please tell me what Labour had done to rebalance/boost the UK economy by May 2010, as clearly that 'economic model' was the SNP's preferred strategy?

The annual UK government budget deficit/overspend was £157 bil in 2010, if nothing was done, where do you think it would be now, and would the SNP object to ever higher annual deficits/overspends?

Lets try another approach, so please explain to me how a minority Conservative government would get any legislation through parliament needing 326 seats, when the Labour Party that opposed everything for 5-years and the SNP who would not work with them under any circumstances - were polled to have over 336 seats?

Could you explain what point you're making with this hypothetical scenario? I'm not clear what you are saying, nor how it relates to propaganda.

Your "hypothetical scenario" when the Conservative's warned there would be a Labour/SNP government, whether in a tight or more likely loose coalition - was based on many polls over several months hardly moving, so to call the warning of such an event propaganda, goes beyond lame.

If as expected, the Labour and SNP parties, so similar in all but two policies as peas in a pod, would have had 336 seats, the only outcome would have been a Labour led government administration of two. End of story.

Isitmebut - we seem to be going round in circles.

Did the polls predict the outcome of the election? No, they did not. No party was predicted a majority. Would the outcome of the election have been different without Lynton Crosby's campaign for the Tories including the damning indictment of Labour's past and imagined future performances? Almost certainly.

Not only are you determined that had Labour won the election, they would have been dependent on the SNP, you are determined that the result would have been disastrous. Did you have similar concerns about a minority Tory win? The Tories being held to ransom by coalition partners they were forced to work with? You don't entertain the possibility that Labour might have stuck with their refusal to work with the SNP. Or that they could have been in the position now occupied by the Tories, with no need for reliance on partners.

Given that you think there was only one outcome for a Labour government, did you also predict the outcome of the 2010 election? Did you foresee that the Lib Dems would work with the Tories? Did you predict that it would last the full five years or did you think it would be something more temporary? Did you predict the impact of the coalition on the coalition partners and the electorate?

It's odd that thus far, your observations have been entirely along the lines of the Tory party propaganda that you don't think exists.

Fascicle ….. we are going around in circles, as like many non Conservatives, you are in total denial of the outcome, that the Conservatives won a totally unexpected by everybody parliamentary majority, without the use of some ‘nasty’ tricks.

That the problems couldn’t possibly be that the electorate woke up to Labour’s previous record in power and turned their back on the Labour Party’s badly thought out alternative 2015 offering, or problems with the polls hardly reflecting SNP fears in Labour’s vote, that haven’t been so wrong for how many years, 30 odd?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/2369731-A-Labour-Governments-1997-2010-record-in-power-lest-we-forget

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/2369139-Labour-s-2015-Manifesto-for-growth-jobs-and-a-basis-for-more-borrowing

But the SNP polls in Scotland were NOT wrong, other than at the end, when they predicted the SNP would possibly get all 59 Westminster seats, not the 56 they got.

But from the start of the election, did the polls ever go far below 50 seats, as this was key in the high likelihood of another hung parliament in 2015 – where the Conservatives with or without the Lib Dems, UKIP and DUP, was highly unlikely to get close to the 326 seats needed for the Conservatives as the largest party, to form a government.
labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/04/23/ed-could-be-pm-even-if-labour-finishes-second-and-his-coalition-partners-the-lib-dems-finish-fourth/

Next factor in the pathological hatred by both Labour and the SNP of the Conservative Party, that if you listen to some within the Labour movement, you’d think they only EXIST to keep out the Conservatives from power.

Next, which you have failed to refute for the third time, in terms of policies, apart from Trident and Scottish Independence, in taxes, cuts, spending and national debt, there was very little for Miliband and Sturgeon TO disagree about.

So turning your ‘who’d have thought a 2010 Conservative and Lib Dem coalition’ argument on its head, for heavens sake why WOULDN’T Labour and the SNP not worked together in forming a loose majority government, to both keep the Conservatives out and implement all their shared political, fiscal, spending and increased national debt ideology/policies?

The only real reason you have to assume it wouldn’t happen is ‘coz Ed said so’, who had already wrote off Scotland and was trying to protect his far greater number of seats in England.

In conclusion; unless you wish to challenge ANY of the facts I have mentioned above, the ONLY coalition propaganda during the election, BASED ON THE SNP SEAT EXPECTATIONS and who Sturgeon said she would never work with, was that there could be ever have been a right wing Conservative/UKIP led coalition.

Isitme
like many non Conservatives, you are in total denial of the outcome, that the Conservatives won a totally unexpected by everybody parliamentary majority, without the use of some ‘nasty’ tricks.

Your comment is completely unfounded. I am not in total denial of the outcome and whilst I have mentioned the effects of highly successful Tory propaganda, where have I said or implied it was 'nasty' tricks? I understand perfectly well that propaganda is par for the course in politics and is not the preserve of just one party.

Have you read the article you linked to? Do you realise that it backs up my points and contradicts yours? (Its title, Ed could be PM even if Labour finishes second and his coalition partners, the Lib Dems, finish fourth, is a bit of a clue.)

Labour and an SNP coalition
Against the stated wishes of the Labour party, you said:

for heavens sake why WOULDN’T Labour and the SNP not worked together in forming a loose majority government

I disagreed and so did the article, which said:

This simply isn’t going to happen.

both parties have ruled out formal coalition. Secondly, and more importantly, it would be electoral suicide for Labour to enter into any kind of agreement with the SNP.

In fact, as suggested by its title, the article favoured the potential stability of a minority Labour/Lib Dem based coalition. Your argument focused only on the apparent similarities between Labour and the SNP alongside mathematical ideals for forming a coalition. But two (or more) parties working together is about much more than alleged compatibility on paper. Policies aside, it's about politicians and their parties, and their willingness and ability to work together, as well as how credible such an arrangement might be.

Tory propaganda about likely Labour/SNP relationship in government
You repeatedly denied the effect of Tory propaganda on the election result because you believed the propaganda to be true.

I disagreed and interestingly the pre-election article referred to those, such as Dan Hodges believing:

the Tories’ aggressively insisting the SNP will pull the strings if Labour come to power will have a significant pro-Tory impact on English marginals as polling day approaches.

Other stuff - parties voting for/against government
Whilst you talked about Labour blocking every Tory party initiative - the Labour Party that opposed everything for 5-years - the article mentioned that:

A sizable rump of Tory rebels has consistently voted against the coalition throughout this parliament.

A good example of that would be the Same-Sex Marriage legislation (a stated source of great pride for Cameron). From whom did he meet the greatest opposition? His own party, 45% of whom voted against the bill, compared to 9% of Labour MPs and 7% of Lib Dem MPs.

fascicle …… firstly if you still think that Conservative propaganda ‘woz what won it’, despite what EVERY current potential Labour leader candidate is saying, which is effectively we (Labour) should have mirrored nearly every Conservative core ideological stance i.e. on benefits, business, no mansion taxes etc – then you ARE in denial of sorts, that Labour deserved to win the election.

What you are disputing, is the ‘known unknowns’ pre election expectations based on the polls was for a hung Westminster parliament, with both main parties winning around 280 seats each - and that an SNP with 50 seats or more, was (in your mind) no basis for Conservative warnings, or in your words, propaganda – despite the FACT Sturgeon refusing to work with Cameron WOULD (with 330 seats) numerically have locked the Conservatives out of government.

That SNP statement of anti Conservative intent, was both key in the SNP forming a Labour minority government, and not at a later date, bringing down an ideologically similar minority Labour government to LET the Conservatives back in.

However from what you have said over several posts, what you are incredibly expecting us to believe, is that with a larger Conservatives parliamentary minority party ‘locked out’ of forming a government, that Ed Miliband would rather not be a Labour Prime Minister working on ‘a supply and demand’ basis with the similar ideological SNP, than work WITH the SNP? lolololololol

So while we can continue to dance around that highly implausible situation, with you cleverly (respect) taking the time to twist my own links (stupidly using a Labour mouthpiece) contents against me, I will use the last paragraph on that same link to again state the obvious, whether based on numbers or ideology, the Conservative threat of a left wing Labour/SNP government that could well have included similar, was NOT propaganda it was the reality.

”So, when trying to think through possible election outcomes, it’s not just the numbers that matter but how the parties line up ideologically. Interestingly, as has been the case for most of the twentieth century, the majority of the UK electorate votes centre-left. The difference today is that the electoral arithmetic has shifted against the Tories because the Right has split over Europe.”

It was propaganda rhetoric that implied how terrible an snp/labour gvt would have been.
"Worst crisis since the abdication"
"Surgeon The most dangerous woman in Britain"
What B.S.

I would rather have her running things with Labour side-kick than the Tories.

It's time for P.R. And this time we mean it.

The Labour Party have never left the UK economy better than they found it since the 1930's and in 1997 had the best inheritance - it takes complete incompetence to unbalance an economy so badly PRIOR to the financial crash Brown's deregulation of banks made worse for the UK.

The SNP or anyone in Scotland have never run a debt/spending/tax economy that needs balance, and via the Barnett Forumula receiving £10,500 per Scottish head (whether we can afford it or not), £1,600 more a than England, does not make Sturgeon an economic guru - especially as she wants to go back to the higher spending, higher debt and 'progressive taxes' (which means what exactly?) that got us into the 2010 shite this country was in.

Anyone with half an economic brain should realise that the two together, carrying on where Labour left off, would have been a disaster for the UK, especially as much higher taxes for everyone was to follow to pay for extra spending/debt interest, debt reduction (one day) - which was 100% the wrong approach in the post great recession 2010 and now, as we are not out of the slump woods yet - but since 2010, far better than most other countries.

Maybe when people have a consequences clue what they are talking, the rest of us won't have to worry about what they'd 'rather' have, based on ignorant propaganda since Thatcher fixed the LAST Labour screw up.

Yep... That sort of thing.