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After Jeremy Corbyn’s stunning general election vindication, he must now show real leadership by reaching out to all parts of the Labour party, argues Joff Wild

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The_Taxman

FIRST UNLIKE LABOUR WHO LOST THE ELECTION!

MarqueeMark

FPT: Richard_Tyndall said:

"I see Chris Leslie has attacked Corbyn again today as well. The idea that all is well in the Labour Party is simply fantasy."

We've just had another election where Labour is still out of power, for x years, where x could be 5 until the next election. That's another tranche of their existing MPs heading towards the end of their careers.

The "one more heave" brigade will say they didn't offer enough sweeties, is all. I still reckon half the Parliamentary party will be deeply worried that will be enough to push their credibility over the edge. And there is no-one left to hoover up. If they want power, they have to persuade Tories of the delights of red-in-tooth-and-claw socialism. Good luck with that.

The alternative, to attract Tories, is that there has to be a degree of realism on what can be offered in the next Manifesto. But that would mean taking away some of the sweeties from those who just came out to vote for them. Tricky balancing act....

MyBurningEars

FPT

AlastairMeeks said:

MyBurningEars said:

MarqueeMark said:

Post of the week/year/millennium is already bagged by Mr Herdson......

That, and the reaction to it, was one of the greatest PB moments of all time.

For drama and tension it was beaten by BJO's heart-rending posts from a Tunisian hotel being attacked by terrorists.

But for political shock value (that you could have made a lot of money on had you followed it!) nothing could beat it!

Between that, @RochdalePioneers' precise predictions and the YouGov model we had all the clues we needed. I just didn't follow the right ones.

Actually although DH was very close to the correct result, it would probably still have been a mistake to read too much into - his instinct was spot on but the data was weakened by how small the sample was. I recall MarqueeMark had a surprisingly good doorstep session for the Tories at the same time - which also turned out to be accurate, though for his seat! And indeed, David had a better session later, which turned out to be the more misleading one.

Both David and RochdalePioneers were obviously very well-informed about their parties' operations in key seats.

But the YouGov model should have been the focus of a really serious bout of analysis. It was obvious to most posters that its basic principles seemed correct. If people didn't believe the results, and yet the idea of the model seemed solid, it should have provoked extremely intense curiosity, particularly given the betting opportunities if it was even half-right.

(If it is the future, it might be time to learn some Python or R, or at least serious Excel wizardry...)

The_Taxman

Commentators have said that Labour did well and improved their vote, seats and achieved a better platform for the next General Election. One has to wonder though, how much of a drag was Corbyn in reality? Labour might have done even better with another leader, maybe even getting to the largest party status. Corbyn only looks to have done well because the bench mark was so low.

FrankBooth

I was ready to be suspicious of the polls but the real reason that I thought the Tories would get a substantial majority was the sense of dread amongst Labour MPs. Many clearly expected to lose their seats. Now there wasn't much marginals polling done so why was that? Why weren't they able to see that the situation for them was much better than it seemed? Did they just ignore the young voters who they assumed couldn't be relied upon.

AndyJS

FrankBooth said:

I was ready to be suspicious of the polls but the real reason that I thought the Tories would get a substantial majority was the sense of dread amongst Labour MPs. Many clearly expected to lose their seats. Now there wasn't much marginals polling done so why was that? Why weren't they able to see that the situation for them was much better than it seemed? Did they just ignore the young voters who they assumed couldn't be relied upon.

Turnout was only up by 2.6%. Was that enough to generate the huge youth turnout? Perhaps, if turnout was down amongst some other groups.

TheScreamingEagles

https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/873642944934367232

MarqueeMark

MyBurningEars said:

FPT

AlastairMeeks said:

MyBurningEars said:

MarqueeMark said:

Post of the week/year/millennium is already bagged by Mr Herdson......

That, and the reaction to it, was one of the greatest PB moments of all time.

For drama and tension it was beaten by BJO's heart-rending posts from a Tunisian hotel being attacked by terrorists.

But for political shock value (that you could have made a lot of money on had you followed it!) nothing could beat it!

Between that, @RochdalePioneers' precise predictions and the YouGov model we had all the clues we needed. I just didn't follow the right ones.

Actually although DH was very close to the correct result, it would probably still have been a mistake to read too much into - his instinct was spot on but the data was weakened by how small the sample was. I recall MarqueeMark had a surprisingly good doorstep session for the Tories at the same time - which also turned out to be accurate, though for his seat! And indeed, David had a better session later, which turned out to be the more misleading one.

Both David and RochdalePioneers were obviously very well-informed about their parties' operations in key seats.

But the YouGov model should have been the focus of a really serious bout of analysis. It was obvious to most posters that its basic principles seemed correct. If people didn't believe the results, and yet the idea of the model seemed solid, it should have provoked extremely intense curiosity, particularly given the betting opportunities if it was even half-right.

(If it is the future, it might be time to learn some Python or R, or at least serious Excel wizardry...)

Our Torbay result was really very good, my reporting of it very accurate - and wasn't remotely representative! (I learnt today that the Conservatives won every council ward - and only lost two polling stations across the whole seat....)

Some lessons for other MPs to learn from the way Kevin Foster worked his seat these past two years, perhaps? And even more impressive when you consider the LibDems had been pouring poison out to the voters about his supposed "dodgy expenses".

TheScreamingEagles

https://twitter.com/joncstone/status/873638345733222400

MyBurningEars

The last two years have seen Labour in a state of almost permanent civil war. A ceasefire was declared six weeks ago and look what happened. After showing all of us what a great campaigner he is, Jeremy Corbyn must now turn his hand to real leadership – something that he has struggled with up to now. Since he took charge, policy creation has been ad hoc, often contradictory and almost totally opaque – generally confined to a small group of close Corbyn advisers, many of whom hail from the Marxist left and have no strong affection for the wider Labour family. This needs to change.

This is an interesting and very balanced piece Southam. Corbyn actually mirrors some of the problems of May - the coterie of advisers out of touch with the party being one of them, but in his case I'm not even sure the advisers are in the "right" party.

But that's because they are trying to reshape the party. As is Corbyn himself.

Labour would be a far more effective force if it all pulled together. That would involve reconnecting the leadership cabal (which seems to be, ultimately, what it is) with the wider PLP. Reports, indeed recordings, of PLP meetings suggest a state more akin to isolation, even war.

Corbyn talks about getting politics out of a box. But if you look at how his office operate, Corbyn has built a box around himself. The effect, insulating himself from the PLP, is surely deliberate. Asking him to tear down the walls he has built around him is akin to asking him to abandon his transformational project at the moment his hand is the strongest. He'd be a fool to do that, given all the attempts to depose him, without clear guarantees - assurances not being enough - on such key points as succession and greater power for the membership.

Typo

The_Taxman said:

Commentators have said that Labour did well and improved their vote, seats and achieved a better platform for the next General Election. One has to wonder though, how much of a drag was Corbyn in reality? Labour might have done even better with another leader, maybe even getting to the largest party status. Corbyn only looks to have done well because the bench mark was so low.

I think they would have done worse without him actually.

Corbyn's Labour presented a very clear alternative to May's Conservatives at just the right time to make election gains. I'm not sure somebody from the mainstream of the party could have caught the imagination of so many people in quite the same way.

Scott_P

@annemcelvoy: Theresa May's court via King Lear: "What need you five and twenty, ten, or five.."
The execution of aides is same as end of the sovereign.

Scott_P

@ShippersUnbound: Five cabinet ministers have urged Boris to oust May. See Sunday Times

@ShippersUnbound: Boris has decided to prop up May but his allies believe there will be a contest this year. Selling him as a liberal, popular, Brexiteer

Scott_P

https://twitter.com/mshelicat/status/873645928816803840

Scott_P

https://twitter.com/shippersunbound/status/873646050233417732

TheScreamingEagles

https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/873646050233417732

Scott_P

https://twitter.com/mshelicat/status/873646296355274752

Paristonda

FPT:

ParistondaParistonda Posts: 1,218
11:00PM
Winstanley said:
» show previous quotes
I disagree, Brown and May showed that new leaders get honeymoons - as May's experience up to two days ago shows. Smartest thing would be to continue, take all the flack personally, and give way to somebody untainted who will then call an election.


Would May want to? The temptation to do a Cameron must be enormous. Who wants to limp through as a humiliated zombie PM through horrible brexit negotiations, chained in by her own subordinates, only to be given the boot as thanks at the end of it so that her hated rival can take all the credit and swan to victory. That is exactly what Cameron thought, and I'm sure May will come to think the same thing. She is 60, with diabetes, she has already achieved the pinnacle of her political career, she has zero allies left in the party and they hate her now.

I don't think she will be challenged, I think she will step down of her own accord.

TheScreamingEagles

Get in

https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/873646511292391424

MyBurningEars

MarqueeMark said:

Our Torbay result was really very good, my reporting of it very accurate - and wasn't remotely representative! (I learnt today that the Conservatives won every council ward - and only lost two polling stations across the whole seat....)

Some lessons for other MPs to learn from the way Kevin Foster worked his seat these past two years, perhaps? And even more impressive when you consider the LibDems had been pouring poison out to the voters about his supposed "dodgy expenses".

I found your anecdotal reportage very useful. You were absolutely vindicated by your result.

But you could have had an unluckily unrepresentative sample in the particular parts of the constituency you worked.

Or a representative sample of a part of the constituency that turned out to be unrepresentative of the seat as a whole,

Or as you did, a representative sample of a representative part of the constituency that was, on the national scale, unrepresentative!

Ultimately polling data surely contains more information than anecdata. But the more quantitatively minded gamblers on here must be wishing they could apply their own custom weighting and turnout filters to the samples provided!

Scott_P

https://twitter.com/mshelicat/status/873646869930553348

TheScreamingEagles

YouGov finds for the first time, Corbyn has drawn level with Mrs May on who would make the best Prime Minister

williamglenn

TheScreamingEagles said:

Get in

https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/873646511292391424

Brussels is acing this negotiation. They don't even need to open their mouths.

tlg86

TheScreamingEagles said:

YouGov finds for the first time, Corbyn has drawn level with Mrs May on who would make the best Prime Minister

He really is crap if he's not ahead now!

Winstanley

The thing is - he reached out the second he was elected. He stuffed his Shadow Cabinet full of his critics and gave them a higher degree of autonomy than Blair or Brown ever did. But they chose to walk about en masse at a critical moment not only for the Labour Party but for the country as a whole, in line with an anti-Corbyn policy settled before he even won the leadership the first time (there were articles about how they would get rid of him before he even won).

Labour only dipped below Miliband's percentage in the polls after the coup-attempt. They caused months of constant bad press for the party, expelled thousands of activists on the most spurious grounds (the vast majority of which were soon invited to come back and set up new direct debits to the party by HQ...), changed the rules to ensure thousands more couldn't vote by putting an arbitrary nine month cut-off date on which members could vote (January to the election in September) when previously it had never been more than four weeks before the day the results would be announced (for Blair, Miliband, Corbyn's first time).

It would be folly to trust any of these people with positions which they could use to damage Labour again, now they've remembered they're supposed to be officers in the army rather than observer-critics - the day after the battle.

AlastairMeeks

I suspect the next shadow Cabinet reshufffle will be much quicker than previous iterations.

Indeed, the current Cabinet reshuffle is strikingly slow. The lack of comment about that is also striking.

HaroldO

My local Momentum group is applying pressure to Chris Leslie to stop talking about Saint Jez in public, the civil war rumbles on unabated.

DanSmith

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/joncstone/status/873638345733222400

This is very likely isn't it? Especially when the polling companies take out their corrections which dampen the Labour score.

Scott_P

"No, no, that was yesterday...."

@michaelsavage: On Boris, as I understand it, senior Tories were sounding him out about a leadership as bad results came in. Allies say he's not manoeuvring

MarqueeMark

MyBurningEars said:

MarqueeMark said:

Our Torbay result was really very good, my reporting of it very accurate - and wasn't remotely representative! (I learnt today that the Conservatives won every council ward - and only lost two polling stations across the whole seat....)

Some lessons for other MPs to learn from the way Kevin Foster worked his seat these past two years, perhaps? And even more impressive when you consider the LibDems had been pouring poison out to the voters about his supposed "dodgy expenses".

I found your anecdotal reportage very useful. You were absolutely vindicated by your result.

But you could have had an unluckily unrepresentative sample in the particular parts of the constituency you worked.

Or a representative sample of a part of the constituency that turned out to be unrepresentative of the seat as a whole,

Or as you did, a representative sample of a representative part of the constituency that was, on the national scale, unrepresentative!

Ultimately polling data surely contains more information than anecdata. But the more quantitatively minded gamblers on here must be wishing they could apply their own custom weighting and turnout filters to the samples provided!

Thank you!

Scott_P

@jessphillips: I'm watching Pitch Perfect. Where a controlling group leader says they will enter the competition playing same old tired songs.

Omnium

FrankBooth said:

I was ready to be suspicious of the polls but the real reason that I thought the Tories would get a substantial majority was the sense of dread amongst Labour MPs. Many clearly expected to lose their seats. Now there wasn't much marginals polling done so why was that? Why weren't they able to see that the situation for them was much better than it seemed? Did they just ignore the young voters who they assumed couldn't be relied upon.

Corbyn, like Trump, wishes to challenge the accepted wisdom of things. There's a lot to said for that. I like the general concept. However Corbyn fancies himself able to translate this idea into discussions with the bank manager, and the accountants. He's an idiot.

Scott_P

https://twitter.com/samcoatestimes/status/873647477026631682

TheScreamingEagles

DanSmith said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/joncstone/status/873638345733222400

This is very likely isn't it? Especially when the polling companies take out their corrections which dampen the Labour score.

Yup

Scott_P

https://twitter.com/telepolitics/status/873647917134823424

WhisperingOracle

Winstanley said:

The thing is - he reached out the second he was elected. He stuffed his Shadow Cabinet full of his critics and gave them a higher degree of autonomy than Blair or Brown ever did. But they chose to walk about en masse at a critical moment not only for the Labour Party but for the country as a whole, in line with an anti-Corbyn policy settled before he even won the leadership the first time (there were articles about how they would get rid of him before he even won).

Labour only dipped below Miliband's percentage in the polls after the coup-attempt. They caused months of constant bad press for the party, expelled thousands of activists on the most spurious grounds (the vast majority of which were soon invited to come back and set up new direct debits to the party by HQ...), changed the rules to ensure thousands more couldn't vote by putting an arbitrary nine month cut-off date on which members could vote (January to the election in September) when previously it had never been more than four weeks before the day the results would be announced (for Blair, Miliband, Corbyn's first time).

It would be folly to trust any of these people with positions which they could use to damage Labour again, now they've remembered they're supposed to be officers in the army rather than observer-critics - the day after the battle.

The points about the attempted coup from the right of the party, counteracted by what has sometimes appeared like a takeover-like approach from Corbyn's team, are well taken. If the right of the party want him to reach out, there'll somehow have to be much more cast-iron guarantees and obligations built in, and they'll have to work mutually, in both directions.

dr_spyn

I had wondered when this rails were removed.

https://twitter.com/MsHelicat/status/873648092322684929/photo/1

A stop Boris piece?

Winstanley

Winstanley said:

The thing is - he reached out the second he was elected. He stuffed his Shadow Cabinet full of his critics and gave them a higher degree of autonomy than Blair or Brown ever did. But they chose to walk about en masse at a critical moment not only for the Labour Party but for the country as a whole, in line with an anti-Corbyn policy settled before he even won the leadership the first time (there were articles about how they would get rid of him before he even won).

Labour only dipped below Miliband's percentage in the polls after the coup-attempt. They caused months of constant bad press for the party, expelled thousands of activists on the most spurious grounds (the vast majority of which were soon invited to come back and set up new direct debits to the party by HQ...), changed the rules to ensure thousands more couldn't vote by putting an arbitrary nine month cut-off date on which members could vote (January to the election in September) when previously it had never been more than four weeks before the day the results would be announced (for Blair, Miliband, Corbyn's first time).

It would be folly to trust any of these people with positions which they could use to damage Labour again, now they've remembered they're supposed to be officers in the army rather than observer-critics - the day after the battle.

And let's not forget - Labour only dipped below Miliband's percentage after the coup attempt, but even those polls will have been subject to this over-correction. He was probably beating Miliband's score more substantially than the polls showed until the coup.

GeoffM

TheScreamingEagles said:

Get in

https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/873646511292391424

Not sure of his point, as a solid Brexit will be good for jobs and the economy.

williamglenn

AlastairMeeks said:

I suspect the next shadow Cabinet reshufffle will be much quicker than previous iterations.

Indeed, the current Cabinet reshuffle is strikingly slow. The lack of comment about that is also striking.

Talk of bringing Labour into the Brexit team is fanciful if May is having trouble persuading Tories to work for her.

AlastairMeeks

For once, the Star might have a story that has an impact on the undeclared Tory leadership race:

https://twitter.com/mshelicat/status/873648092322684929

DanSmith

GeoffM said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Get in

https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/873646511292391424

Not sure of his point, as a solid Brexit will be good for jobs and the economy.

We all know what this is code for. Restricting immigration is at the back of the queue.

JohnO

If my recollection of Conservative procedure is correct, then if a Leader suffers a no confidence vote from Tory MPs (like IDS), then he/she is ineligible to stand for re-election. So talk of a stalking horse running would not apply. What I'm not sure is how often an incumbent leader must seek re-election: I have a feeling it might be at the start of the Parliament, in which case Mrs May could be in serious trouble.

AndyJS

My favourite essayist responds to the election result:

"Britain’s Election Disaster
Theresa May’s political incompetence carries a high price.
Theodore Dalrymple"

https://www.city-journal.org/html/britains-election-disaster-15247.html

"It did not help that she had the charisma of a carrot and the sparkle of a spade. As she presented herself to the public, no one would have wanted her as a dinner guest, except under the deepest social obligation. Technically, she won the election, in the sense that she received more votes than anyone else, but few voted for her with enthusiasm rather than from fear of the alternative."

HaroldO

AndyJS said:

FrankBooth said:

I was ready to be suspicious of the polls but the real reason that I thought the Tories would get a substantial majority was the sense of dread amongst Labour MPs. Many clearly expected to lose their seats. Now there wasn't much marginals polling done so why was that? Why weren't they able to see that the situation for them was much better than it seemed? Did they just ignore the young voters who they assumed couldn't be relied upon.

Turnout was only up by 2.6%. Was that enough to generate the huge youth turnout? Perhaps, if turnout was down amongst some other groups.

I was about the post that, the youth vote did surge but other groups fell back.

dr_spyn

Scott_P said:

@jessphillips: I'm watching Pitch Perfect. Where a controlling group leader says they will enter the competition playing same old tired songs.

I guess she is not referring to The Prime Minister.

MyBurningEars

Winstanley said:

The thing is - he reached out the second he was elected. He stuffed his Shadow Cabinet full of his critics and gave them a higher degree of autonomy than Blair or Brown ever did. But they chose to walk about en masse at a critical moment not only for the Labour Party but for the country as a whole, in line with an anti-Corbyn policy settled before he even won the leadership the first time (there were articles about how they would get rid of him before he even won).

Labour only dipped below Miliband's percentage in the polls after the coup-attempt. They caused months of constant bad press for the party, expelled thousands of activists on the most spurious grounds (the vast majority of which were soon invited to come back and set up new direct debits to the party by HQ...), changed the rules to ensure thousands more couldn't vote by putting an arbitrary nine month cut-off date on which members could vote (January to the election in September) when previously it had never been more than four weeks before the day the results would be announced (for Blair, Miliband, Corbyn's first time).

It would be folly to trust any of these people with positions which they could use to damage Labour again, now they've remembered they're supposed to be officers in the army rather than observer-critics - the day after the battle.

He would be their hostage to a walk-out over (among other things) policy positions. On past form he would just weather the storm, let them go, replace them, and rely on the membership to see him through if it came to another vote. But that doesn't work in the run-up to an election, so with the possibility of another one now constantly in the air, this would be a particularly bad time to render oneself a hostage.

Scott_P

https://twitter.com/samcoatestimes/status/873649379676213252

Paristonda

I feel sorry for May. There, I said it. She fucked up big time and she knows it, but I can't help but pity her and do not envy her position now. When people start feeling sorry for you it is time to call it a day.

FattyBolger

Thank you for everyone's excellent, informative and entertaining contributions over recent months and events. Most appreciated

I will now be taking an extended break from PB and other political sites and restricting my political news fixes and analysis simply to what I pick up in passing from radio and tv news and general conversation. These things can become to rather all-subsuming and obsessive with the details and I am going to disengage and step back. Its healthier.

Best wishes all

FattyB

MyBurningEars

MarqueeMark said:

MyBurningEars said:

MarqueeMark said:

Our Torbay result was really very good, my reporting of it very accurate - and wasn't remotely representative! (I learnt today that the Conservatives won every council ward - and only lost two polling stations across the whole seat....)

Some lessons for other MPs to learn from the way Kevin Foster worked his seat these past two years, perhaps? And even more impressive when you consider the LibDems had been pouring poison out to the voters about his supposed "dodgy expenses".

I found your anecdotal reportage very useful. You were absolutely vindicated by your result.

But you could have had an unluckily unrepresentative sample in the particular parts of the constituency you worked.

Or a representative sample of a part of the constituency that turned out to be unrepresentative of the seat as a whole,

Or as you did, a representative sample of a representative part of the constituency that was, on the national scale, unrepresentative!

Ultimately polling data surely contains more information than anecdata. But the more quantitatively minded gamblers on here must be wishing they could apply their own custom weighting and turnout filters to the samples provided!

Thank you!

You called it absolutely as you saw it - we can't ask for anything more than that, but that the figures backed your observations up is a bonus!

AlastairMeeks

FattyBolger said:

Thank you for everyone's excellent, informative and entertaining contributions over recent months and events. Most appreciated

I will now be taking an extended break from PB and other political sites and restricting my political news fixes and analysis simply to what I pick up in passing from radio and tv news and general conversation. These things can become to rather all-subsuming and obsessive with the details and I am going to disengage and step back. Its healthier.

Best wishes all

FattyB

We'll look forward to your return. Everyone always comes back... eventually.

TheScreamingEagles

JohnO said:

If my recollection of Conservative procedure is correct, then if a Leader suffers a no confidence vote from Tory MPs (like IDS), then he/she is ineligible to stand for re-election. So talk of a stalking horse running would not apply. What I'm not sure is how often an incumbent leader must seek re-election: I have a feeling it might be at the start of the Parliament, in which case Mrs May could be in serious trouble.

Nah, that was the old rules, which said a Tory leader could be challenged within 28 days of a Queen's speech, which saw Thatcher toppled/challenged in Nov 1989/1990.

Today there are only two triggers for a Tory leadership contest

1) 15% of Tory MPs write a letter to the Chair of the 1922 asking for a VONC

2) The Leader resigns

Winstanley

WhisperingOracle said:

Winstanley said:

The thing is - he reached out the second he was elected. He stuffed his Shadow Cabinet full of his critics and gave them a higher degree of autonomy than Blair or Brown ever did. But they chose to walk about en masse at a critical moment not only for the Labour Party but for the country as a whole, in line with an anti-Corbyn policy settled before he even won the leadership the first time (there were articles about how they would get rid of him before he even won).

Labour only dipped below Miliband's percentage in the polls after the coup-attempt. They caused months of constant bad press for the party, expelled thousands of activists on the most spurious grounds (the vast majority of which were soon invited to come back and set up new direct debits to the party by HQ...), changed the rules to ensure thousands more couldn't vote by putting an arbitrary nine month cut-off date on which members could vote (January to the election in September) when previously it had never been more than four weeks before the day the results would be announced (for Blair, Miliband, Corbyn's first time).

It would be folly to trust any of these people with positions which they could use to damage Labour again, now they've remembered they're supposed to be officers in the army rather than observer-critics - the day after the battle.

The points about the attempted coup from the right of the party, counteracted by what has sometimes appeared like a takeover-like approach from Corbyn's team, are well taken. If the right of the party want him to reach out, there'll somehow have to be much more cast-iron guarantees and obligations built in, and they'll have to work mutually, in both directions.

To be honest, I don't think it's in Corbyn's gift to bring these people back into the fold. It's the members they have to win back and that will be more difficult.

MyBurningEars

FattyBolger said:

Thank you for everyone's excellent, informative and entertaining contributions over recent months and events. Most appreciated

I will now be taking an extended break from PB and other political sites and restricting my political news fixes and analysis simply to what I pick up in passing from radio and tv news and general conversation. These things can become to rather all-subsuming and obsessive with the details and I am going to disengage and step back. Its healthier.

Best wishes all

FattyB

I sometimes wonder if when it comes to elections and the mood of the nation, cutting out all the political-obsessive gossip and listening to the same stuff as all the normal folk is actually the better position to be betting from!

(Far harder in these social media and "personalised" web days, though.)

Benpointer

Typo said:

The_Taxman said:

Commentators have said that Labour did well and improved their vote, seats and achieved a better platform for the next General Election. One has to wonder though, how much of a drag was Corbyn in reality? Labour might have done even better with another leader, maybe even getting to the largest party status. Corbyn only looks to have done well because the bench mark was so low.

I think they would have done worse without him actually.

Corbyn's Labour presented a very clear alternative to May's Conservatives at just the right time to make election gains. I'm not sure somebody from the mainstream of the party could have caught the imagination of so many people in quite the same way.

I agree. I started the election despairing of Corbyn but I found the campaign he has led inspiring, the manifesto was refreshing and he's won me over. Imagine if Miliband had started 20% behind...

JohnO

TheScreamingEagles said:

JohnO said:

If my recollection of Conservative procedure is correct, then if a Leader suffers a no confidence vote from Tory MPs (like IDS), then he/she is ineligible to stand for re-election. So talk of a stalking horse running would not apply. What I'm not sure is how often an incumbent leader must seek re-election: I have a feeling it might be at the start of the Parliament, in which case Mrs May could be in serious trouble.

Nah, that was the old rules, which said a Tory leader could be challenged within 28 days of a Queen's speech, which saw Thatcher toppled/challenged in Nov 1989/1990.

Today there are only two triggers for a Tory leadership contest

1) 15% of Tory MPs write a letter to the Chair of the 1922 asking for a VONC

2) The Leader resigns

OK, so that confirms that there can be no stalking horses.

DanSmith

Labour party dynamics have permanently changed now. Corbyn has proved that he isn't going to destroy the Labour party, in fact there are plenty of Labour MPs who have historically unheard of safe seats because of him. He will easily be able to put together a strong shadow cabinet now. The danger of walkouts is minimal, everyone now knows it is impossible to topple him.

TheScreamingEagles

JohnO said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

JohnO said:

If my recollection of Conservative procedure is correct, then if a Leader suffers a no confidence vote from Tory MPs (like IDS), then he/she is ineligible to stand for re-election. So talk of a stalking horse running would not apply. What I'm not sure is how often an incumbent leader must seek re-election: I have a feeling it might be at the start of the Parliament, in which case Mrs May could be in serious trouble.

Nah, that was the old rules, which said a Tory leader could be challenged within 28 days of a Queen's speech, which saw Thatcher toppled/challenged in Nov 1989/1990.

Today there are only two triggers for a Tory leadership contest

1) 15% of Tory MPs write a letter to the Chair of the 1922 asking for a VONC

2) The Leader resigns

OK, but that confirms that there can be no stalking horses.

Yup, no more Sir Anthony Meyers

kjohnw

is there a sort brexit option which allows single market/freedom of labour (not right to live) and also allows us to negotiate our own trade deals around the world ?

GeoffM

DanSmith said:

GeoffM said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Get in

https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/873646511292391424

Not sure of his point, as a solid Brexit will be good for jobs and the economy.

We all know what this is code for. Restricting immigration is at the back of the queue.

Code? Maybe that's the right word, yes, because I don't even understand what your second sentence means in English.

Sunil_Prasannan

Even the socially conservative DUP have a female leader! When will the so-called "progressives" in Labour elect a woman as their leader?

NickPalmer

Interesting and fair piece, Joff - thanks.

FF43

Paristonda said:

I feel sorry for May. There, I said it. She fucked up big time and she knows it, but I can't help but pity her and do not envy her position now. When people start feeling sorry for you it is time to call it a day.

Yes. Successful politicians need a huge level of vanity, which means you are unaware of the limitations of your competence. I don't think Theresa May is that kind of politician. She clearly isn't happy in the job. Brexit was a chore for her. She never engaged with it in a serious way and always found displacement activity while the narrative and the agenda were being set by others. I think she will go soon.

JohnO

TheScreamingEagles said:

JohnO said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

JohnO said:

If my recollection of Conservative procedure is correct, then if a Leader suffers a no confidence vote from Tory MPs (like IDS), then he/she is ineligible to stand for re-election. So talk of a stalking horse running would not apply. What I'm not sure is how often an incumbent leader must seek re-election: I have a feeling it might be at the start of the Parliament, in which case Mrs May could be in serious trouble.

Nah, that was the old rules, which said a Tory leader could be challenged within 28 days of a Queen's speech, which saw Thatcher toppled/challenged in Nov 1989/1990.

Today there are only two triggers for a Tory leadership contest

1) 15% of Tory MPs write a letter to the Chair of the 1922 asking for a VONC

2) The Leader resigns

OK, but that confirms that there can be no stalking horses.

Yup, no more Sir Anthony Meyers

You would think Sunday Times political reporters would know that, wouldn't you? Perhaps not.

WhisperingOracle

Winstanley said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Winstanley said:

The thing is - he reached out the second he was elected. He stuffed his Shadow Cabinet full of his critics and gave them a higher degree of autonomy than Blair or Brown ever did. But they chose to walk about en masse at a critical moment not only for the Labour Party but for the country as a whole, in line with an anti-Corbyn policy settled before he even won the leadership the first time (there were articles about how they would get rid of him before he even won).

Labour only dipped below Miliband's percentage in the polls after the coup-attempt. They caused months of constant bad press for the party, expelled thousands of activists on the most spurious grounds (the vast majority of which were soon invited to come back and set up new direct debits to the party by HQ...), changed the rules to ensure thousands more couldn't vote by putting an arbitrary nine month cut-off date on which members could vote (January to the election in September) when previously it had never been more than four weeks before the day the results would be announced (for Blair, Miliband, Corbyn's first time).

It would be folly to trust any of these people with positions which they could use to damage Labour again, now they've remembered they're supposed to be officers in the army rather than observer-critics - the day after the battle.

The points about the attempted coup from the right of the party, counteracted by what has sometimes appeared like a takeover-like approach from Corbyn's team, are well taken. If the right of the party want him to reach out, there'll somehow have to be much more cast-iron guarantees and obligations built in, and they'll have to work mutually, in both directions.

To be honest, I don't think it's in Corbyn's gift to bring these people back into the fold. It's the members they have to win back and that will be more difficult.

This is where I agree with Southam, though. He needs to find new kinds of interpersonal skills to interact with his critics *in parliament*, which I'm sure isn't beyond him, as he's shown a huge improvement in public performance, during the campaign - otherwise he won't be able to form a properly functioning government and fulfil the potential he has summoned up pretty much all by himself. That doesn't mean some of his critics on the right of the party are at all free of some of the blame.

Scott_P

https://twitter.com/labourleft/status/873635844896288769

Winstanley

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Even the socially conservative DUP have a female leader! When will the so-called "progressives" in Labour elect a woman as their leader?

If you're going to copy/paste spam comments, try better ones than that. I'll repeat my point you didn't reply to while you're just repeating this - Labour members will happily vote for a woman leader, but the particular women who have put themselves forward recently (Cooper, Kendall, Eagle) ran rubbish campaigns.

EPG

Not enough credit to Diane Abbott here. She made sure everyone knew Labour wanted to spend more money on police.

TheScreamingEagles

JohnO said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

JohnO said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

JohnO said:

If my recollection of Conservative procedure is correct, then if a Leader suffers a no confidence vote from Tory MPs (like IDS), then he/she is ineligible to stand for re-election. So talk of a stalking horse running would not apply. What I'm not sure is how often an incumbent leader must seek re-election: I have a feeling it might be at the start of the Parliament, in which case Mrs May could be in serious trouble.

Nah, that was the old rules, which said a Tory leader could be challenged within 28 days of a Queen's speech, which saw Thatcher toppled/challenged in Nov 1989/1990.

Today there are only two triggers for a Tory leadership contest

1) 15% of Tory MPs write a letter to the Chair of the 1922 asking for a VONC

2) The Leader resigns

OK, but that confirms that there can be no stalking horses.

Yup, no more Sir Anthony Meyers

You would think Sunday Times political reporters would know that, wouldn't you? Perhaps not.

Yup

MonikerDiCanio

Corbyn should use this happy moment to deepen and widen the purge of Blairite/New Labour wreckers and backsliders.

Sunil_Prasannan

Scott_P said:

https://twitter.com/labourleft/status/873635844896288769

But Labour have 50 fewer seats than the Tories!

LucyJones

MyBurningEars said:

FattyBolger said:

Thank you for everyone's excellent, informative and entertaining contributions over recent months and events. Most appreciated

I will now be taking an extended break from PB and other political sites and restricting my political news fixes and analysis simply to what I pick up in passing from radio and tv news and general conversation. These things can become to rather all-subsuming and obsessive with the details and I am going to disengage and step back. Its healthier.

Best wishes all

FattyB

I sometimes wonder if when it comes to elections and the mood of the nation, cutting out all the political-obsessive gossip and listening to the same stuff as all the normal folk is actually the better position to be betting from!

(Far harder in these social media and "personalised" web days, though.)

Quite probably. Certainly, pb.com is guilty about obsessing over what impact some tiny detail in a speech, say, might have on the electorate where the actual answer is "none at all", because no one other than political obsessives will know anything about it.

another_richard

AlastairMeeks said:

FattyBolger said:

Thank you for everyone's excellent, informative and entertaining contributions over recent months and events. Most appreciated

I will now be taking an extended break from PB and other political sites and restricting my political news fixes and analysis simply to what I pick up in passing from radio and tv news and general conversation. These things can become to rather all-subsuming and obsessive with the details and I am going to disengage and step back. Its healthier.

Best wishes all

FattyB

We'll look forward to your return. Everyone always comes back... eventually.

I was hoping I could get away from PB after the election so my plans have been ruined.

Thanks for all the articles you have written.

Sunil_Prasannan

JohnO said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

JohnO said:

If my recollection of Conservative procedure is correct, then if a Leader suffers a no confidence vote from Tory MPs (like IDS), then he/she is ineligible to stand for re-election. So talk of a stalking horse running would not apply. What I'm not sure is how often an incumbent leader must seek re-election: I have a feeling it might be at the start of the Parliament, in which case Mrs May could be in serious trouble.

Nah, that was the old rules, which said a Tory leader could be challenged within 28 days of a Queen's speech, which saw Thatcher toppled/challenged in Nov 1989/1990.

Today there are only two triggers for a Tory leadership contest

1) 15% of Tory MPs write a letter to the Chair of the 1922 asking for a VONC

2) The Leader resigns

OK, so that confirms that there can be no stalking horses.

Hoarse stalker?

NickPalmer

HaroldO said:

My local Momentum group is applying pressure to Chris Leslie to stop talking about Saint Jez in public, the civil war rumbles on unabated.

I don't think I'd call it civil war - constructive pieces like Joff's are what's needed now from the centre. I think it's reasonable to ask Chris to restrain himself for a few months while we see how things work out.

TheScreamingEagles

Winstanley said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Even the socially conservative DUP have a female leader! When will the so-called "progressives" in Labour elect a woman as their leader?

If you're going to copy/paste spam comments, try better ones than that. I'll repeat my point you didn't reply to while you're just repeating this - Labour members will happily vote for a woman leader, but the particular women who have put themselves forward recently (Cooper, Kendall, Eagle) ran rubbish campaigns.

Plus Tory members have never elected a woman leader.

FF43

kjohnw said:

is there a sort brexit option which allows single market/freedom of labour (not right to live) and also allows us to negotiate our own trade deals around the world ?

The EEA allows both those things. If we are in a Customs Union with the EU (not necessary for the EEA) , we can still negotiate trade deals with third party countries but the tariffs would have to be the same as the EU ones. Being in a Customs Union makes trade with the EU both easier and cheaper.

Benpointer

MonikerDiCanio said:

Corbyn should use this happy moment to deepen and widen the purge of Blairite/New Labour wreckers and backsliders.

Has there been a purge of any sort? I thought they had all tended to self-purge themselves from the shadow cabinet (if you'll pardon the expression).

viewcode

AndyJS said:

My favourite essayist...Theodore Dalrymple...

Seriously?

Right young man, you are getting the collected works of Clive James for Xmas and you are not coming out of your room until you've finished. And then we get on to Hunter S. Thompson and George Orwell...

MikeL

JohnO said:

If my recollection of Conservative procedure is correct, then if a Leader suffers a no confidence vote from Tory MPs (like IDS), then he/she is ineligible to stand for re-election. So talk of a stalking horse running would not apply. What I'm not sure is how often an incumbent leader must seek re-election: I have a feeling it might be at the start of the Parliament, in which case Mrs May could be in serious trouble.

You are right - except incumbent doesn't have to seek re-election.

It's just a question of 15% of MPs requesting a vote on the incumbent.

Whenever that happens, there is a vote - on whether current leader survives. There are no challengers at that point.

The above can happen at any time.

As you say, if leader loses, they can't stand in the resulting election for a new leader.

Winstanley

WhisperingOracle said:

This is where I agree with Southam, though. He needs to find new kinds of interpersonal skills to interact with his critics *in parliament*, which I'm sure isn't beyond him, as he's shown a huge improvement in public performance, during the campaign - otherwise he won't be able to form a properly functioning government and fulfil the potential he has summoned up pretty much all by himself. That doesn't mean some of his critics on the right of the party are at all free of some of the blame.

I think you underestimate how many of the MPs on the right are truly irreconcilable, and just how much many members dislike their MPs - even while campaigning for them heavily in this election for the good of the wider party. The reputation of the right-wing MPs within the party as a whole is very low indeed. They are not as talented or irreplaceable as they think they are and the members know it.

Members dislike them. The public doesn't know who they are. They are not the important political characters the kinds of Westminster-watchers we are might think them.

Sunil_Prasannan

AndyJS said:

FrankBooth said:

I was ready to be suspicious of the polls but the real reason that I thought the Tories would get a substantial majority was the sense of dread amongst Labour MPs. Many clearly expected to lose their seats. Now there wasn't much marginals polling done so why was that? Why weren't they able to see that the situation for them was much better than it seemed? Did they just ignore the young voters who they assumed couldn't be relied upon.

Turnout was only up by 2.6%. Was that enough to generate the huge youth turnout? Perhaps, if turnout was down amongst some other groups.

Turnout varied by region/nation, for example Scotland was down.

bigjohnowls

On topic SO tells Corbyns critics to lay off for the good of the party.

Wonder if SO will vote Lab under Corbyn next time for the best opportunity to get rid of the Tories?

FrancisUrquhart

HaroldO said:

AndyJS said:

FrankBooth said:

I was ready to be suspicious of the polls but the real reason that I thought the Tories would get a substantial majority was the sense of dread amongst Labour MPs. Many clearly expected to lose their seats. Now there wasn't much marginals polling done so why was that? Why weren't they able to see that the situation for them was much better than it seemed? Did they just ignore the young voters who they assumed couldn't be relied upon.

Turnout was only up by 2.6%. Was that enough to generate the huge youth turnout? Perhaps, if turnout was down amongst some other groups.

I was about the post that, the youth vote did surge but other groups fell back.

I will be interested to note if YouGov? last poll vote which showed by age, and the Tories were only winning with the oldies was the case.

Did some oldies sit it out, middle aged did vote more for Labour than Tories, or it was student surge.

state_go_away

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Scott_P said:

https://twitter.com/labourleft/status/873635844896288769

But Labour have 50 fewer seats than the Tories!

Corbyn may think he can defy economic theory but even he cannot think he can change maths

viewcode

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Even the socially conservative DUP have a female leader! When will the so-called "progressives" in Labour elect a woman as their leader?

Yes, but the DUP can only tell the difference between men and women by the texture of the sash

Benpointer

Scott_P said:

https://twitter.com/labourleft/status/873635844896288769

Mmmm - not sure how he plans to do that... I doubt even the Jezziah has been able convert enough tory MPs to help him vote down the Queen's speech!

perdix

EPG said:

Not enough credit to Diane Abbott here. She made sure everyone knew Labour wanted to spend more money on police.

A recent "policy" in total reversal to Labour's past policy.

another_richard

AndyJS said:

FrankBooth said:

I was ready to be suspicious of the polls but the real reason that I thought the Tories would get a substantial majority was the sense of dread amongst Labour MPs. Many clearly expected to lose their seats. Now there wasn't much marginals polling done so why was that? Why weren't they able to see that the situation for them was much better than it seemed? Did they just ignore the young voters who they assumed couldn't be relied upon.

Turnout was only up by 2.6%. Was that enough to generate the huge youth turnout? Perhaps, if turnout was down amongst some other groups.

It seems to have been up about 5% in the London constituencies.

I do suspect that turnout was down among older voters.

state_go_away

EPG said:

Not enough credit to Diane Abbott here. She made sure everyone knew Labour wanted to spend more money on police.

yes 300K!

junius

As a vicar's daughter - Theresa May will no doubt be familiar with this quotation....
“I Beseech You, in the Bowels of Christ, Think it Possible You May Be Mistaken”

Typo

Fact time:

In 7 years the Liberal Democrats have gone from a 45.2% share in Redcar to 6.7%!

bigjohnowls

Ronan Burtenshaw‏ @ronanburtenshaw 2h2 hours ago

Hearing that Labour's membership has surged to 800,000. On course to be a million-member party for the first time since the 1950s.

Its the place to be fancy rejoining SO?

Sunil_Prasannan

TheScreamingEagles said:

Winstanley said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Even the socially conservative DUP have a female leader! When will the so-called "progressives" in Labour elect a woman as their leader?

If you're going to copy/paste spam comments, try better ones than that. I'll repeat my point you didn't reply to while you're just repeating this - Labour members will happily vote for a woman leader, but the particular women who have put themselves forward recently (Cooper, Kendall, Eagle) ran rubbish campaigns.

Plus Tory members have never elected a woman leader.

And yet the Tories have had two woman PMs.

MyBurningEars

TheScreamingEagles said:

MyBurningEars said:

But the YouGov model should have been the focus of a really serious bout of analysis. It was obvious to most posters that its basic principles seemed correct. If people didn't believe the results, and yet the idea of the model seemed solid, it should have provoked extremely intense curiosity, particularly given the betting opportunities if it was even half-right.

(If it is the future, it might be time to learn some Python or R, or at least serious Excel wizardry...)

I can use pivot tables, does that count as serious excel wizardry?

Never knock your skills.

People pay me for training on pivot tables, even conditional formatting. Very effective tools with many uses. If you know how to use them, you've got a valuable skill.

(The older versions of Excel didn't come with pivot tables built in, so if I wanted one I had to custom-make one in Basic. Complete PITA. But Excel has lots of goodies so many people don't use - form controls are pretty nifty too.)

another_richard

Winstanley said:

Winstanley said:

The thing is - he reached out the second he was elected. He stuffed his Shadow Cabinet full of his critics and gave them a higher degree of autonomy than Blair or Brown ever did. But they chose to walk about en masse at a critical moment not only for the Labour Party but for the country as a whole, in line with an anti-Corbyn policy settled before he even won the leadership the first time (there were articles about how they would get rid of him before he even won).

Labour only dipped below Miliband's percentage in the polls after the coup-attempt. They caused months of constant bad press for the party, expelled thousands of activists on the most spurious grounds (the vast majority of which were soon invited to come back and set up new direct debits to the party by HQ...), changed the rules to ensure thousands more couldn't vote by putting an arbitrary nine month cut-off date on which members could vote (January to the election in September) when previously it had never been more than four weeks before the day the results would be announced (for Blair, Miliband, Corbyn's first time).

It would be folly to trust any of these people with positions which they could use to damage Labour again, now they've remembered they're supposed to be officers in the army rather than observer-critics - the day after the battle.

And let's not forget - Labour only dipped below Miliband's percentage after the coup attempt, but even those polls will have been subject to this over-correction. He was probably beating Miliband's score more substantially than the polls showed until the coup.

Its worth remembering that Corbyn beat Cameron in the 2016 local elections:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_local_elections,_2016

MyBurningEars

FrancisUrquhart said:

HaroldO said:

AndyJS said:

FrankBooth said:

I was ready to be suspicious of the polls but the real reason that I thought the Tories would get a substantial majority was the sense of dread amongst Labour MPs. Many clearly expected to lose their seats. Now there wasn't much marginals polling done so why was that? Why weren't they able to see that the situation for them was much better than it seemed? Did they just ignore the young voters who they assumed couldn't be relied upon.

Turnout was only up by 2.6%. Was that enough to generate the huge youth turnout? Perhaps, if turnout was down amongst some other groups.

I was about the post that, the youth vote did surge but other groups fell back.

I will be interested to note if YouGov? last poll vote which showed by age, and the Tories were only winning with the oldies was the case.

Did some oldies sit it out, middle aged did vote more for Labour than Tories, or it was student surge.

Would particularly be interesting to know whether the middle-aged Labour majority was due to a lot of late Labour-Tory switching in that demographic, or because (as I suspect happened with older folk) people who would have tempted Tory were so untempted by what was on offer that they didn't show up...

IanB2

On topic, surely it is the rest of the party that should be reaching out to him!

Foxes can rejoice.

Meanwhile, writing the next Labour manifesto will be an interesting challenge.

foxinsoxuk

Winstanley said:

WhisperingOracle said:

This is where I agree with Southam, though. He needs to find new kinds of interpersonal skills to interact with his critics *in parliament*, which I'm sure isn't beyond him, as he's shown a huge improvement in public performance, during the campaign - otherwise he won't be able to form a properly functioning government and fulfil the potential he has summoned up pretty much all by himself. That doesn't mean some of his critics on the right of the party are at all free of some of the blame.

I think you underestimate how many of the MPs on the right are truly irreconcilable, and just how much many members dislike their MPs - even while campaigning for them heavily in this election for the good of the wider party. The reputation of the right-wing MPs within the party as a whole is very low indeed. They are not as talented or irreplaceable as they think they are and the members know it.

Members dislike them. The public doesn't know who they are. They are not the important political characters the kinds of Westminster-watchers we are might think them.

I don't think that is always true. Liz Kendall had lots of youngsters canvassing and seems genuinely popular. I think both ends of political spectrum within the party can see some merit in the other end. The Labour Party is a broad church as even McDonnell said in an interview yesterday.

One thing Jezza has got right, and by belief, is to not interfere in local parties, to move away from central control. He genuinely believes in localism, even when it disagrees with him.