I agree, that's what we need to be doing, taking the Tory votes - but right now we aren't. And I haven't quite seen a strategy for doing that yet.
So far Starmer has been very effective at taking the Lib Dem vote - but the Tory vote has not been touched much at all.
Waiting/hoping Brexit will fail and these voters will come back seems foolish. He needs to work out how to appeal to these voters, what do they want.
Indeed. Basically all that's changed relative to the 2019 election result is that the Lib Dem balloon has shrivelled back up again as the radical Remain gas has leaked from it, leaving them as they were in 2015 and 2017. The supporters who baulked at Labour's triangulation over Europe as masterminded by Starmer have, ironically, gone back to Labour now Starmer is in charge. Apart from that it's as you were.
Getting large numbers of votes from the Tories is going to be a real challenge, and I would venture to suggest that the old adage about Governments losing elections rather than Oppositions winning them is particularly pertinent here. What Starmer really needs to do is concentrate on getting his own house in order (of which more later,) and on using the ideological space created by the crisis and by the Government's abandonment of austerity to attack it from the left on economics: criticising Sunak for not going far enough with the furlough scheme is a good start, but eventually he'll have to start outlining a Labour approach to levelling up and rebuilding the economy that sounds coherent, deliverable and more attractive than whatever the Tories come up with. He needs to put Labour in a position where it is capable of capitalising on the Government's mistakes, rather than remaining becalmed in its wake.
It's become fashionable recently to describe the new centre of British (or, at any rate, English and Welsh politics) as a bit to the right on social issues and a bit to the left on economics. I was thinking about this myself again earlier today and I offer a modification to this formula: the centre of public opinion is, I would venture, small-c conservative and cakeist. People detest criminals and anti-social behaviour, they want controlled immigration, they are by and large proud of the country and want to see its traditions respected. But they're also in the mood to reject austerity and have generous spending on public services and infrastructure projects - provided that the necessary bills aren't presented to them personally. Borrowing will do for now, but when the national credit card is maxed out then it will be time to soak the rich, generally defined as (a) big corporations, (b) billionaires and (c) people who earn at least £1 more per year than they do. Starmer can move his social positions closer to those of the Tories, but he can never outflank them because his party's not into hanging and flogging, so the primary attack must come from the left on public services and spending. If he can convince modestly off voters that we could afford more police officers and nurses if only the nasty Tories weren't shielding their wealthy friends then he might start to get somewhere.
Now, if Johnson can make a decent fist of getting us out of both Covid and Brexit then he might be able to shore up his support in the Red Wall and Starmer would struggle to make enough progress, but if he screws up - and one has to assume that the chances of this are quite high - then Starmer has the opportunity to get swing voters to take another look at his party, and he can get right back into the game.
However, if Starmer wants to capture the change agenda for Labour then he first needs to show that Labour itself has changed, and that brings us back to the party getting its own house in order. The apology to the Jewish community and the recent court settlements are a satisfactory start, but they don't go far enough, they're not high profile enough, they're too much of a Westminster bubble story. What he requires to draw a line under the past is his own Clause 4 moment.
I think that, when the time is right (most likely as part of his response to the EHRC report) he should withdraw the whip from Corbyn.
When was this decision over Spain taken? Any chance it was taken just before Johnson's 100 days interviews and was kept on hold until tonight.
Maybe I am a cynic, but why else announce it just after 1000s have travelled at start of weekend of start of school holidays?
To be honest I have no idea but I think it is unlikely
Indeed this has been done across the UK with Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster on board
Boris cannot win in this pandemic, either he is too slow or too fast
Who would want his job
Well, unless I am very much mistaken, he did, and spent many years disposing of his rivals to achieve his ambition.
But the question is valid. Who wants to be a political leader during a once-in-a-century plague?
Even the leaders who were getting plaudits for their clever handling of the virus, early on, are now getting a ton of ordure on their heads as the virus returns, inexorable and implacable.
See Israel, Australia, Catalunya, et al. The virus doesn't give a fuck. It is remorseless in its aggressive logic of infection, illness and death. It the Alien in Alien
I know fans of the Union don't need more piddling on their chips, but I fear I must report that the more gamey end of Scottish Unionism is now looking to George Galloway as their saviour.
Anyone who has taken a foreign holiday knew that there was a chance of quarantine being reimposed. Suck it up.
Meanwhile someone gave us a present today: gift wrapped homemade face masks. The new normal.
Quarantine's a joke anyway. I've had two house guests from South America since it was imposed, and noone has checked up on either of them. I made them both get tested and they were both negative so it was pointless anyway.
It would be much more effective if we tested people at the border. I know tests aren't perfect, but they are much more effective than a quarantine we don't bother to enforce.
I know fans of the Union don't need more piddling on their chips, but I fear I must report that the more gamey end of Scottish Unionism is now looking to George Galloway as their saviour.
I know fans of the Union don't need more piddling on their chips, but I fear I must report that the more gamey end of Scottish Unionism is now looking to George Galloway as their saviour.
I know fans of the Union don't need more piddling on their chips, but I fear I must report that the more gamey end of Scottish Unionism is now looking to George Galloway as their saviour.
I don't understand why the Green vote is so high, it normally drops a bit in elections so Labour probably has 1 or 2 points there but their voters must know they're only causing another Tory Government
Labour supporters have been complaining since the time of the dinosaurs about the Lib Dems and their predecessors, the Greens, and the Scots and Welsh Nats breaking up the left vote and letting the Tories in.
There may be some truth in this (albeit that it's somewhat presumptuous to assume that all the supporters of those parties would immediately gravitate to Labour if they were to magically vanish,) but whingeing about it has never, ever worked. It's a waste of energy.
Besides, if Labour could strip enough support from the Tories then it could win handily without having to worry about Green voters at all (whereas if it goes charging into ecosocialism to try to strip away Green votes, then it risks bleeding away more support from the centre than it gains on the left.)
Starmer's not an idiot. Now more than ever, with Scottish Labour a busted flush, his party's route to power lies directly through dozens and dozens of Tory-held seats in England and Wales. He won't be worrying about the Green vote at all. It's not worth the bother. He'll be focussed completely on how to win support from the Conservatives. That's the only game in town.
Well good point Black_Rook.
I agree, that's what we need to be doing, taking the Tory votes - but right now we aren't. And I haven't quite seen a strategy for doing that yet.
So far Starmer has been very effective at taking the Lib Dem vote - but the Tory vote has not been touched much at all.
Waiting/hoping Brexit will fail and these voters will come back seems foolish. He needs to work out how to appeal to these voters, what do they want.
Christ, patience. Starmer doesn’t have to do anything but look vaguely competent ( tick ), not be a loony left headbanger ( tick , thanks RLB for giving the chance to sack you), till at least spring next year when he can trot out some local govt stuff and a bit of Welsh and ( half heated Scottish ‘cos he knows it’s a lost cause really) stuff
The next election ain’t happening till 2024 at the least. He’ll have to define himself on Europe, Scotland, and tax/the economy gradually through 2022/3/4. There’s no point yet, it just gives reasons to piss people off when as LOTO all he has to do at the moment is exude reasonableness.
Chill.
Predix:
Sturgeon will win easily next May. She might even get a majority of the votes, let alone seats. There will be intense pressure for indyref2.
But of course Bojo will say no. The more the polls point to a possible win for Yes, the less reason he has to yield. He doesn't want to be the PM that lost the union, no one does. So he will say No until 2024, for sure. The SNP will huff and puff and put grievance fuel on the Nat fire, but they won't be able to do anything. The Tories will say Well if Scotland is probably lost, who cares if it is lost even more dramatically, let's wait and hope for a miracle
This gives Starmer an opportunity: he could come in as the Devomax prime minister, willing to solve this terrible constitutional crisis with a new Federal Settlement, undoing the awful damage done by Blair's deliberately botched, warped, unfair Devolution Agreement.
That may be just enough for Starmer to get afew Scottish seats (if SLAB can get a decent leader), AND head off the charge that he will be hijacked by the Nats in a minority government.
Starmer is boring but he is clever. I bet he will do something like this. Whether it works is a different matter. The UK is headed for a massive constitutional crisis in about 2025.
This will only work with a similar level of devolution to all four nations, including England - and that's always been the obstacle to federalism. Firstly because Unionists are frightened that the English First Minister will end up overshadowing the UK Prime Minister, and make the Union look irrelevant; secondly, and more importantly, because it works against the interest of the two major parties. Notably, it comes up against what I call the Big Train Set problem. The Tory or Labour leaders don't want to effectively cleave the office of Prime Minister in two by creating a separate English Government. It's not what they're in the game for. They want to play with the big train set, not be made to give half of it away.
I suppose that Starmer might take that revolutionary step if he reaches the conclusion that it's the best available weapon to blunt Tory power - the Conservatives have, after all, governed the UK for most of the period since 1945, they currently hold an enormous majority of Commons seats in England, and if the UK is left unreformed and Scotland simply falls off it then the left's position becomes even more difficult. Bringing in an English Parliament is a perfect excuse to adopt the Scottish PR voting system for it, which is likely to mean au revoir to Tory landslides and more frequent changes of Government, even if the price to pay for all of that is that Labour itself will have to govern in coalition in future.
But it's a very big step, parties don't like sharing power if they can help it, and PR could mean redundancy for some sitting Labour MPs, even if they will have both the English Parliament and a smaller Commons, sitting as the federal legislature, to stand for. So, let's just say that I'll believe it when I see it.
Any other alternative solution, e.g. unilateral devomax for Scotland, only makes the WLQ problem even worse. Having fully empowered Scottish MPs still sitting in the Commons will then make the asymmetric devolution of power even more unjust; trying to mitigate the problem by means other than full federalism, such as stripping Scottish MPs of some of their voting rights or greatly reducing their numbers, would still fail to fix WLQ completely *and* reduce the Scots representatives (and, by extension, their voters) to second class status to boot.
The last Labour Government has certainly left the current Labour Opposition with one immense mess to clean up.
It's become fashionable recently to describe the new centre of British (or, at any rate, English and Welsh politics) as a bit to the right on social issues and a bit to the left on economics. I was thinking about this myself again earlier today and I offer a modification to this formula: the centre of public opinion is, I would venture, small-c conservative and cakeist. People detest criminals and anti-social behaviour, they want controlled immigration, they are by and large proud of the country and want to see its traditions respected. But they're also in the mood to reject austerity and have generous spending on public services and infrastructure projects - provided that the necessary bills aren't presented to them personally. Borrowing will do for now, but when the national credit card is maxed out then it will be time to soak the rich, generally defined as (a) big corporations, (b) billionaires and (c) people who earn at least £1 more per year than they do. Starmer can move his social positions closer to those of the Tories, but he can never outflank them because his party's not into hanging and flogging, so the primary attack must come from the left on public services and spending. If he can convince modestly off voters that we could afford more police officers and nurses if only the nasty Tories weren't shielding their wealthy friends then he might start to get somewhere.
Now, if Johnson can make a decent fist of getting us out of both Covid and Brexit then he might be able to shore up his support in the Red Wall and Starmer would struggle to make enough progress, but if he screws up - and one has to assume that the chances of this are quite high - then Starmer has the opportunity to get swing voters to take another look at his party, and he can get right back into the game.
However, if Starmer wants to capture the change agenda for Labour then he first needs to show that Labour itself has changed, and that brings us back to the party getting its own house in order. The apology to the Jewish community and the recent court settlements are a satisfactory start, but they don't go far enough, they're not high profile enough, they're too much of a Westminster bubble story. What he requires to draw a line under the past is his own Clause 4 moment.
I think that, when the time is right (most likely as part of his response to the EHRC report) he should withdraw the whip from Corbyn.
A large percentage of the electorate have always favoured higher spending as long as taxes are only raised on people better off than themselves.
Is this just some George Galloway egotrip? Because what Scotland really needs is a fourth unionist party?
Scottish politics is following the fissiparous tendencies of other PR jurisdictions. Some ex-SNP folk on the opposite side of the argument are apparently wanting to set up another nationalist party as well.
The stated aim is to game the regional list element of the voting system - by encouraging voters who back the SNP at individual constituency level to pick their party instead for the top-up lists, in an effort to create a nationalist supermajority -although I think they might also believe that the SNP is no longer radical enough about independence and needs to have its feet held to the fire.
I've no idea whether Galloway plans to do something similar and just contest the list seats, or if he has no particular plans at all and is just doing this, as you suggest, as a publicity stunt.
Good news! Now the Jeremy can keep saying what he thinks and the cult can keep funding his legal defences and libel payouts. True Socialism in action
Can they just fuck off and join the SWP.
I supported Corbyn until he lost an election, it is not sane for anyone to be supporting him now.
He lost two elections. No sane person could support him after he lost the first.
Very much a nonsequitur in the context of having increased Labour's GB vote share from 31.8% to 41%. I have never been a Corbynite , but the logic of that is that Kinnock should have stepped down in 1987, likewise Wilson in 1970, Heath in 1966, Gaitskell in 1959, and Churchill in both 1945 and 1950.
Good news! Now the Jeremy can keep saying what he thinks and the cult can keep funding his legal defences and libel payouts. True Socialism in action
Can they just fuck off and join the SWP.
I supported Corbyn until he lost an election, it is not sane for anyone to be supporting him now.
He lost two elections. No sane person could support him after he lost the first.
Very much a nonsequitur in the context of having increased Labour's GB vote share from 31.8% to 41%. I have never been a Corbynite , but the logic of that is that Kinnock should have stepped down in 1987, likewise Wilson in 1970, Heath in 1966, Gaitskell in 1959, and Churchill in both 1945 and 1950.
Wilson and earlier was another era (and Churchill very special circumstances) but don't you think that if Kinnock had stood down in 1987 that maybe Labour would have had more of a shot in 1992?
Have you seen Midsommar? I ask because it has a rare cinematic portrayal of a bloodeagle in what I think is a hen house. Which might be of interest to a lady newt-painter.
The best part of Midsommar was "Boris" Johnson's cameo appearance.
Good news! Now the Jeremy can keep saying what he thinks and the cult can keep funding his legal defences and libel payouts. True Socialism in action
Can they just fuck off and join the SWP.
I supported Corbyn until he lost an election, it is not sane for anyone to be supporting him now.
He lost two elections. No sane person could support him after he lost the first.
Very much a nonsequitur in the context of having increased Labour's GB vote share from 31.8% to 41%. I have never been a Corbynite , but the logic of that is that Kinnock should have stepped down in 1987, likewise Wilson in 1970, Heath in 1966, Gaitskell in 1959, and Churchill in both 1945 and 1950.
Corbyn was a loser. He was given an undeserved chance to be a serial loser.
Good news! Now the Jeremy can keep saying what he thinks and the cult can keep funding his legal defences and libel payouts. True Socialism in action
Can they just fuck off and join the SWP.
I supported Corbyn until he lost an election, it is not sane for anyone to be supporting him now.
He lost two elections. No sane person could support him after he lost the first.
Very much a nonsequitur in the context of having increased Labour's GB vote share from 31.8% to 41%. I have never been a Corbynite , but the logic of that is that Kinnock should have stepped down in 1987, likewise Wilson in 1970, Heath in 1966, Gaitskell in 1959, and Churchill in both 1945 and 1950.
Corbyn was a loser. He was given an undeserved chance to be a serial loser.
Good news! Now the Jeremy can keep saying what he thinks and the cult can keep funding his legal defences and libel payouts. True Socialism in action
Can they just fuck off and join the SWP.
I supported Corbyn until he lost an election, it is not sane for anyone to be supporting him now.
He lost two elections. No sane person could support him after he lost the first.
Very much a nonsequitur in the context of having increased Labour's GB vote share from 31.8% to 41%. I have never been a Corbynite , but the logic of that is that Kinnock should have stepped down in 1987, likewise Wilson in 1970, Heath in 1966, Gaitskell in 1959, and Churchill in both 1945 and 1950.
Wilson and earlier was another era (and Churchill very special circumstances) but don't you think that if Kinnock had stood down in 1987 that maybe Labour would have had more of a shot in 1992?
Kinnock himself could have prevented a majority Tory Government in 1992 had he not lost control of himself at Sheffield a week before Polling Day .The Tory vote share lead was 7.6% - had it been restricted to just 6.5% Major would have had to lead a minority Government from the outset of the 1992 Parliament. Beyond that, had Thatcher remained Tory leader Labour probably would have won at least 20 additional seats that year.
Good news! Now the Jeremy can keep saying what he thinks and the cult can keep funding his legal defences and libel payouts. True Socialism in action
Can they just fuck off and join the SWP.
I supported Corbyn until he lost an election, it is not sane for anyone to be supporting him now.
He lost two elections. No sane person could support him after he lost the first.
Very much a nonsequitur in the context of having increased Labour's GB vote share from 31.8% to 41%. I have never been a Corbynite , but the logic of that is that Kinnock should have stepped down in 1987, likewise Wilson in 1970, Heath in 1966, Gaitskell in 1959, and Churchill in both 1945 and 1950.
Wilson and earlier was another era (and Churchill very special circumstances) but don't you think that if Kinnock had stood down in 1987 that maybe Labour would have had more of a shot in 1992?
Kinnock himself could have prevented a majority Tory Government in 1992 had he not lost control of himself at Sheffield a week before Polling Day .The Tory vote share lead was 7.6% - had it been restricted to just 6.5% Major would have had to lead a minority Government from the outset of the 1992 Parliament. Beyond that, had Thatcher remained Tory leader Labour probably would have won at least 20 additional seats that year.
I don't think that's true. Realistically, the Conservatives would have needed to have won 13 fewer seats to be deprived of their majority. (Once Sinn Fein and the Speaker are taken into account.)
The 13th narrowest Conservative majority over Labour was just under 2,000 votes. And I really don't think Neil Kinnock in Sheffield really cost the party 2,000 votes per seat.
Christ, patience. Starmer doesn’t have to do anything but look vaguely competent ( tick ), not be a loony left headbanger ( tick , thanks RLB for giving the chance to sack you), till at least spring next year when he can trot out some local govt stuff and a bit of Welsh and ( half heated Scottish ‘cos he knows it’s a lost cause really) stuff
The next election ain’t happening till 2024 at the least. He’ll have to define himself on Europe, Scotland, and tax/the economy gradually through 2022/3/4. There’s no point yet, it just gives reasons to piss people off when as LOTO all he has to do at the moment is exude reasonableness.
Chill.
I think that's right for now. Quite apart from the election date, people are just not in the mood to think about regular politics (which is also why it's a silly time for the Tories to be going for massive local government reorganisation - it feels like an odd distraction), and if Starmer suddenly endorsed a Universal Basic Income or a wealth tax or whatever, it would seem oddly off topic. Covid and to a lesser extent Brexit are the only games in town at the moment. He'll need to say something about policies at the virtual conference end-September, but not before.
Good news! Now the Jeremy can keep saying what he thinks and the cult can keep funding his legal defences and libel payouts. True Socialism in action
Can they just fuck off and join the SWP.
I supported Corbyn until he lost an election, it is not sane for anyone to be supporting him now.
He lost two elections. No sane person could support him after he lost the first.
Very much a nonsequitur in the context of having increased Labour's GB vote share from 31.8% to 41%. I have never been a Corbynite , but the logic of that is that Kinnock should have stepped down in 1987, likewise Wilson in 1970, Heath in 1966, Gaitskell in 1959, and Churchill in both 1945 and 1950.
Wilson and earlier was another era (and Churchill very special circumstances) but don't you think that if Kinnock had stood down in 1987 that maybe Labour would have had more of a shot in 1992?
Kinnock himself could have prevented a majority Tory Government in 1992 had he not lost control of himself at Sheffield a week before Polling Day .The Tory vote share lead was 7.6% - had it been restricted to just 6.5% Major would have had to lead a minority Government from the outset of the 1992 Parliament. Beyond that, had Thatcher remained Tory leader Labour probably would have won at least 20 additional seats that year.
I don't think that's true. Realistically, the Conservatives would have needed to have won 13 fewer seats to be deprived of their majority. (Once Sinn Fein and the Speaker are taken into account.)
The 13th narrowest Conservative majority over Labour was just under 2,000 votes. And I really don't think Neil Kinnock in Sheffield really cost the party 2,000 votes per seat.
Sinn Feinn had no MPs in 1992 - Gerry Adams actually lost his seat to the SDLP!
Good news! Now the Jeremy can keep saying what he thinks and the cult can keep funding his legal defences and libel payouts. True Socialism in action
Can they just fuck off and join the SWP.
I supported Corbyn until he lost an election, it is not sane for anyone to be supporting him now.
He lost two elections. No sane person could support him after he lost the first.
Very much a nonsequitur in the context of having increased Labour's GB vote share from 31.8% to 41%. I have never been a Corbynite , but the logic of that is that Kinnock should have stepped down in 1987, likewise Wilson in 1970, Heath in 1966, Gaitskell in 1959, and Churchill in both 1945 and 1950.
Wilson and earlier was another era (and Churchill very special circumstances) but don't you think that if Kinnock had stood down in 1987 that maybe Labour would have had more of a shot in 1992?
Kinnock himself could have prevented a majority Tory Government in 1992 had he not lost control of himself at Sheffield a week before Polling Day .The Tory vote share lead was 7.6% - had it been restricted to just 6.5% Major would have had to lead a minority Government from the outset of the 1992 Parliament. Beyond that, had Thatcher remained Tory leader Labour probably would have won at least 20 additional seats that year.
I don't think that's true. Realistically, the Conservatives would have needed to have won 13 fewer seats to be deprived of their majority. (Once Sinn Fein and the Speaker are taken into account.)
The 13th narrowest Conservative majority over Labour was just under 2,000 votes. And I really don't think Neil Kinnock in Sheffield really cost the party 2,000 votes per seat.
Re - 1992 - May I direct your attention to - Vale of Glamorgan - Bristol NW - Hayes & Harlington - Ayr - Norwich North - Corby - Slough - Tynemouth - Southampton Test - Luton South - Stirling - Leicestershire NW -Bolton NE - Dover - Bury North . All had majorities well below 1000.
Good news! Now the Jeremy can keep saying what he thinks and the cult can keep funding his legal defences and libel payouts. True Socialism in action
Can they just fuck off and join the SWP.
I supported Corbyn until he lost an election, it is not sane for anyone to be supporting him now.
He lost two elections. No sane person could support him after he lost the first.
Very much a nonsequitur in the context of having increased Labour's GB vote share from 31.8% to 41%. I have never been a Corbynite , but the logic of that is that Kinnock should have stepped down in 1987, likewise Wilson in 1970, Heath in 1966, Gaitskell in 1959, and Churchill in both 1945 and 1950.
Wilson and earlier was another era (and Churchill very special circumstances) but don't you think that if Kinnock had stood down in 1987 that maybe Labour would have had more of a shot in 1992?
Kinnock himself could have prevented a majority Tory Government in 1992 had he not lost control of himself at Sheffield a week before Polling Day .The Tory vote share lead was 7.6% - had it been restricted to just 6.5% Major would have had to lead a minority Government from the outset of the 1992 Parliament. Beyond that, had Thatcher remained Tory leader Labour probably would have won at least 20 additional seats that year.
I don't think that's true. Realistically, the Conservatives would have needed to have won 13 fewer seats to be deprived of their majority. (Once Sinn Fein and the Speaker are taken into account.)
The 13th narrowest Conservative majority over Labour was just under 2,000 votes. And I really don't think Neil Kinnock in Sheffield really cost the party 2,000 votes per seat.
Re - 1992 - May I direct your attention to - Vale of Glamorgan - Bristol NW - Hayes & Harlington - Ayr - Norwich North - Corby - Slough - Tynemouth - Southampton Test - Luton South - Stirling - Leicestershire NW -Bolton NE - Dover - Bury North . All had majorities well below 1000.
And also if you assume a direct swing from Con to Lab, it halves the number of voters who would have needed to change their minds for the seat to change hands. Majority of 500 needs 251 voters to switch from Con to Lab for the seat to fall.
Good news! Now the Jeremy can keep saying what he thinks and the cult can keep funding his legal defences and libel payouts. True Socialism in action
Can they just fuck off and join the SWP.
I supported Corbyn until he lost an election, it is not sane for anyone to be supporting him now.
He lost two elections. No sane person could support him after he lost the first.
Very much a nonsequitur in the context of having increased Labour's GB vote share from 31.8% to 41%. I have never been a Corbynite , but the logic of that is that Kinnock should have stepped down in 1987, likewise Wilson in 1970, Heath in 1966, Gaitskell in 1959, and Churchill in both 1945 and 1950.
Wilson and earlier was another era (and Churchill very special circumstances) but don't you think that if Kinnock had stood down in 1987 that maybe Labour would have had more of a shot in 1992?
Kinnock himself could have prevented a majority Tory Government in 1992 had he not lost control of himself at Sheffield a week before Polling Day .The Tory vote share lead was 7.6% - had it been restricted to just 6.5% Major would have had to lead a minority Government from the outset of the 1992 Parliament. Beyond that, had Thatcher remained Tory leader Labour probably would have won at least 20 additional seats that year.
I don't think that's true. Realistically, the Conservatives would have needed to have won 13 fewer seats to be deprived of their majority. (Once Sinn Fein and the Speaker are taken into account.)
The 13th narrowest Conservative majority over Labour was just under 2,000 votes. And I really don't think Neil Kinnock in Sheffield really cost the party 2,000 votes per seat.
Re - 1992 - May I direct your attention to - Vale of Glamorgan - Bristol NW - Hayes & Harlington - Ayr - Norwich North - Corby - Slough - Tynemouth - Southampton Test - Luton South - Stirling - Leicestershire NW -Bolton NE - Dover - Bury North . All had majorities well below 1000.
And also if you assume a direct swing from Con to Lab, it halves the number of voters who would have needed to change their minds for the seat to change hands. Majority of 500 needs 251 voters to switch from Con to Lab for the seat to fall.
Good news! Now the Jeremy can keep saying what he thinks and the cult can keep funding his legal defences and libel payouts. True Socialism in action
Can they just fuck off and join the SWP.
I supported Corbyn until he lost an election, it is not sane for anyone to be supporting him now.
He lost two elections. No sane person could support him after he lost the first.
Very much a nonsequitur in the context of having increased Labour's GB vote share from 31.8% to 41%. I have never been a Corbynite , but the logic of that is that Kinnock should have stepped down in 1987, likewise Wilson in 1970, Heath in 1966, Gaitskell in 1959, and Churchill in both 1945 and 1950.
Wilson and earlier was another era (and Churchill very special circumstances) but don't you think that if Kinnock had stood down in 1987 that maybe Labour would have had more of a shot in 1992?
Kinnock himself could have prevented a majority Tory Government in 1992 had he not lost control of himself at Sheffield a week before Polling Day .The Tory vote share lead was 7.6% - had it been restricted to just 6.5% Major would have had to lead a minority Government from the outset of the 1992 Parliament. Beyond that, had Thatcher remained Tory leader Labour probably would have won at least 20 additional seats that year.
I don't think that's true. Realistically, the Conservatives would have needed to have won 13 fewer seats to be deprived of their majority. (Once Sinn Fein and the Speaker are taken into account.)
The 13th narrowest Conservative majority over Labour was just under 2,000 votes. And I really don't think Neil Kinnock in Sheffield really cost the party 2,000 votes per seat.
Re - 1992 - May I direct your attention to - Vale of Glamorgan - Bristol NW - Hayes & Harlington - Ayr - Norwich North - Corby - Slough - Tynemouth - Southampton Test - Luton South - Stirling - Leicestershire NW -Bolton NE - Dover - Bury North . All had majorities well below 1000.
Labour were very unlucky in both 1992 and 2017. In both of those years a tiny shift in their favour would have produced a result that would probably have made an anti-Tory coalition possible. Around 1,000 votes out of 33 million.
Labour were very unlucky in both 1992 and 2017. In both of those years a tiny shift in their favour would have produced a result that would probably have made an anti-Tory coalition possible. Around 1,000 votes out of 35 million cast.
Yes and No in respect of 1992. Labour was fewer than 100 votes short in four seats , but,on the other hand, the Tories could feel miffed that a lead of 7.6% in the GB popular vote only yielded a majority of 21.In 1979 Thatcher had obtained a majority of 43 with a lead of 7.1%. Wilson in 1966 had a majority of 97 with a 7.3% lead. Later - in 2005 - Blair still had a 65 majority with a mere 3% lead.
Good news! Now the Jeremy can keep saying what he thinks and the cult can keep funding his legal defences and libel payouts. True Socialism in action
Can they just fuck off and join the SWP.
I supported Corbyn until he lost an election, it is not sane for anyone to be supporting him now.
He lost two elections. No sane person could support him after he lost the first.
Very much a nonsequitur in the context of having increased Labour's GB vote share from 31.8% to 41%. I have never been a Corbynite , but the logic of that is that Kinnock should have stepped down in 1987, likewise Wilson in 1970, Heath in 1966, Gaitskell in 1959, and Churchill in both 1945 and 1950.
Wilson and earlier was another era (and Churchill very special circumstances) but don't you think that if Kinnock had stood down in 1987 that maybe Labour would have had more of a shot in 1992?
Kinnock himself could have prevented a majority Tory Government in 1992 had he not lost control of himself at Sheffield a week before Polling Day .The Tory vote share lead was 7.6% - had it been restricted to just 6.5% Major would have had to lead a minority Government from the outset of the 1992 Parliament. Beyond that, had Thatcher remained Tory leader Labour probably would have won at least 20 additional seats that year.
I don't think that's true. Realistically, the Conservatives would have needed to have won 13 fewer seats to be deprived of their majority. (Once Sinn Fein and the Speaker are taken into account.)
The 13th narrowest Conservative majority over Labour was just under 2,000 votes. And I really don't think Neil Kinnock in Sheffield really cost the party 2,000 votes per seat.
Re - 1992 - May I direct your attention to - Vale of Glamorgan - Bristol NW - Hayes & Harlington - Ayr - Norwich North - Corby - Slough - Tynemouth - Southampton Test - Luton South - Stirling - Leicestershire NW -Bolton NE - Dover - Bury North . All had majorities well below 1000.
I apologise - I just assumed that we'd see a similar degree of closeness in 1992 and 2019 and extrapolated.
Comments
Getting large numbers of votes from the Tories is going to be a real challenge, and I would venture to suggest that the old adage about Governments losing elections rather than Oppositions winning them is particularly pertinent here. What Starmer really needs to do is concentrate on getting his own house in order (of which more later,) and on using the ideological space created by the crisis and by the Government's abandonment of austerity to attack it from the left on economics: criticising Sunak for not going far enough with the furlough scheme is a good start, but eventually he'll have to start outlining a Labour approach to levelling up and rebuilding the economy that sounds coherent, deliverable and more attractive than whatever the Tories come up with. He needs to put Labour in a position where it is capable of capitalising on the Government's mistakes, rather than remaining becalmed in its wake.
(TBC)
It's become fashionable recently to describe the new centre of British (or, at any rate, English and Welsh politics) as a bit to the right on social issues and a bit to the left on economics. I was thinking about this myself again earlier today and I offer a modification to this formula: the centre of public opinion is, I would venture, small-c conservative and cakeist. People detest criminals and anti-social behaviour, they want controlled immigration, they are by and large proud of the country and want to see its traditions respected. But they're also in the mood to reject austerity and have generous spending on public services and infrastructure projects - provided that the necessary bills aren't presented to them personally. Borrowing will do for now, but when the national credit card is maxed out then it will be time to soak the rich, generally defined as (a) big corporations, (b) billionaires and (c) people who earn at least £1 more per year than they do. Starmer can move his social positions closer to those of the Tories, but he can never outflank them because his party's not into hanging and flogging, so the primary attack must come from the left on public services and spending. If he can convince modestly off voters that we could afford more police officers and nurses if only the nasty Tories weren't shielding their wealthy friends then he might start to get somewhere.
Now, if Johnson can make a decent fist of getting us out of both Covid and Brexit then he might be able to shore up his support in the Red Wall and Starmer would struggle to make enough progress, but if he screws up - and one has to assume that the chances of this are quite high - then Starmer has the opportunity to get swing voters to take another look at his party, and he can get right back into the game.
However, if Starmer wants to capture the change agenda for Labour then he first needs to show that Labour itself has changed, and that brings us back to the party getting its own house in order. The apology to the Jewish community and the recent court settlements are a satisfactory start, but they don't go far enough, they're not high profile enough, they're too much of a Westminster bubble story. What he requires to draw a line under the past is his own Clause 4 moment.
I think that, when the time is right (most likely as part of his response to the EHRC report) he should withdraw the whip from Corbyn.
Even the leaders who were getting plaudits for their clever handling of the virus, early on, are now getting a ton of ordure on their heads as the virus returns, inexorable and implacable.
See Israel, Australia, Catalunya, et al. The virus doesn't give a fuck. It is remorseless in its aggressive logic of infection, illness and death. It the Alien in Alien
https://twitter.com/tom71266902/status/1287042700966080512?s=20
It would be much more effective if we tested people at the border. I know tests aren't perfect, but they are much more effective than a quarantine we don't bother to enforce.
I suppose that Starmer might take that revolutionary step if he reaches the conclusion that it's the best available weapon to blunt Tory power - the Conservatives have, after all, governed the UK for most of the period since 1945, they currently hold an enormous majority of Commons seats in England, and if the UK is left unreformed and Scotland simply falls off it then the left's position becomes even more difficult. Bringing in an English Parliament is a perfect excuse to adopt the Scottish PR voting system for it, which is likely to mean au revoir to Tory landslides and more frequent changes of Government, even if the price to pay for all of that is that Labour itself will have to govern in coalition in future.
But it's a very big step, parties don't like sharing power if they can help it, and PR could mean redundancy for some sitting Labour MPs, even if they will have both the English Parliament and a smaller Commons, sitting as the federal legislature, to stand for. So, let's just say that I'll believe it when I see it.
Any other alternative solution, e.g. unilateral devomax for Scotland, only makes the WLQ problem even worse. Having fully empowered Scottish MPs still sitting in the Commons will then make the asymmetric devolution of power even more unjust; trying to mitigate the problem by means other than full federalism, such as stripping Scottish MPs of some of their voting rights or greatly reducing their numbers, would still fail to fix WLQ completely *and* reduce the Scots representatives (and, by extension, their voters) to second class status to boot.
The last Labour Government has certainly left the current Labour Opposition with one immense mess to clean up.
Is this just some George Galloway egotrip? Because what Scotland really needs is a fourth unionist party?
The stated aim is to game the regional list element of the voting system - by encouraging voters who back the SNP at individual constituency level to pick their party instead for the top-up lists, in an effort to create a nationalist supermajority -although I think they might also believe that the SNP is no longer radical enough about independence and needs to have its feet held to the fire.
I've no idea whether Galloway plans to do something similar and just contest the list seats, or if he has no particular plans at all and is just doing this, as you suggest, as a publicity stunt.
Beyond that, had Thatcher remained Tory leader Labour probably would have won at least 20 additional seats that year.
The 13th narrowest Conservative majority over Labour was just under 2,000 votes. And I really don't think Neil Kinnock in Sheffield really cost the party 2,000 votes per seat.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/