New Labour Leader

[TheGunnShow 6,027]

I generally think there's a lot to be said when you have a local council of the same stripe as the national government. Bolton's been going downhill for years with the Tories in charge of the country as it was largely a Labour council (albeit a pretty inept one). We now have no overall control but the Tories have the edge in the number of councillors. Bit more money's coming in now.

No doubt the two main parties will disagree, but they do finance their own seats more than those of the other party, so it would make sense that the Tories push and invest a lot in these seats where they've just about got them for the first time in a long time.

[Fen Canary 876]

9 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

True for the most part, I mean, paying for the furlough might as well have been the "Magic money tree" some of them said Corbyn was going to need. Not that I'm complaining, they've paid me close to ten grand via the SEISS scheme and I've still managed to save most of it during the lockdowns.

If they go down the austerity path again, they could shoot themselves in the foot though. There's no doubt a more primitive, unrepresentative electoral model suits them though (FPTP always does favour monoliths).

I think austerity is dead for the foreseeable future, almost every major country is printing money like crazy. You’re also right about FPTP helping the established parties, and it’s probably wise for Labour to realise their limits currently and attempt some election pact with the minor parties as has been mentioned previously. They simply don’t have broad enough support to beat the Tories on their own currently 

[Van wink 2,994]

2 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

I generally think there's a lot to be said when you have a local council of the same stripe as the national government. Bolton's been going downhill for years with the Tories in charge of the country as it was largely a Labour council (albeit a pretty inept one). We now have no overall control but the Tories have the edge in the number of councillors. Bit more money's coming in now.

No doubt the two main parties will disagree, but they do finance their own seats more than those of the other party, so it would make sense that the Tories push and invest a lot in these seats where they've just about got them for the first time in a long time.

Yes of course, you will find funding formulae for Central Government money going to Local Government are always engineered to ensure political advantage at a local level, the Labour Government did it and the Tories do to. There may me flexibility around some areas of particularly high need such as the Capital program for housing but generally the politicians will favour their own.

[Van wink 2,994]

2 minutes ago, Fen Canary said:

I think austerity is dead for the foreseeable future, almost every major country is printing money like crazy. You’re also right about FPTP helping the established parties, and it’s probably wise for Labour to realise their limits currently and attempt some election pact with the minor parties as has been mentioned previously. They simply don’t have broad enough support to beat the Tories on their own currently 

Oooh are we talking Lib Lab pact, those were the days 👍

[Fen Canary 876]

11 minutes ago, horsefly said:

Accepted that there would certainly be problems with thinking one could simply transfer Khan's approach elsewhere in the country. My objection was to the overly simplistic psephology you employed in your claims, for example, comparing the number of pro-brexit votes to the number of pro-Khan votes. As I pointed out, if you did the same for numbers of pro-remain votes compared to pro-Tory votes in council elections the Tories would lose out every time. Sadly, that sort of comparison probably tells us more about how dreadfully alienated the general public are from local politics than anything else.

Also if you want to suggest that Khan's "vastly improved PR budget" played a part in his election result, perhaps you would also like to comment on the amount of tax-payer's money funnelled into specific northern constintuencies that just by chance happened to be ones that were either Tory marginals or Tory target marginals (I suggest you avoid Nadine Dorries' claims about Tory job creation in Hartlepool).

It was more tongue in cheek suggesting that’s the reason he won in London, as you point out it’s fairly standard politics to throw money at areas you’re targeting. However to an outsider looking in he remains popular there despite failing in his housing targets and the spiralling knife crime, and I’ll admit I simply don’t understand the appeal

[horsefly 4,318]

1 minute ago, Fen Canary said:

It was more tongue in cheek suggesting that’s the reason he won in London, as you point out it’s fairly standard politics to throw money at areas you’re targeting. However to an outsider looking in he remains popular there despite failing in his housing targets and the spiralling knife crime, and I’ll admit I simply don’t understand the appeal

Ditto! for Boris Johnson's time as mayor (just add in the millions wasted on garden bridges, airport schemes, and water canons)

[Van wink 2,994]

1 minute ago, horsefly said:

Ditto! for Boris Johnson's time as mayor (just add in the millions wasted on garden bridges, airport schemes, and water canons)

Ken’s bendy buses were a cracker

[horsefly 4,318]

2 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Ken’s bendy buses were a cracker

Guess it's going to be a long thread if we list all the mayoral screw-ups of the various mayors of both parties. But thank God Boris used his expert knowledge on buses in this case.

 

[Herman 9,841]

2 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Ken’s bendy buses were a cracker

Terrible idea. What were they thinking. Although Ken's bike hire has been a brilliant scheme.👍

[Herman 9,841]

2 minutes ago, horsefly said:

Guess it's going to be a long thread if we list all the mayoral screw-ups of the various mayors of both parties. But thank God Boris used his expert knowledge on buses in this case.

 

 

[horsefly 4,318]

9 minutes ago, Herman said:

 

Brilliant! I love The Room Next Door stuff. "Vase of wa*nk" is probably the best description of Johnson yet (I'm assuming it's a Lulu Lytle vase or Carrie wouldn't be interested).

[Herman 9,841]

 

[Fen Canary 876]

https://unherd.com/2021/05/labour-isnt-working/
A fairly accurate summary of where labour currently finds itself

[Herman 9,841]

This is bloody depressing. Sorry.

 

[PurpleCanary 5,587]

1 hour ago, Herman said:

This is bloody depressing. Sorry.

 

And a lousy hospital in Hartlepool is also somehow Labour's fault. The irony being that the last time Labour was in power the Blair government, although it made mistakes with various reform plans, did manage to get waiting times down, after years of deliberate Tory neglect of the NHS. And now more than a decade of Tory rule again.

I don't blame some posters here for being predictably triumphalist, but if I were them I would be worried on two counts. The less important is that if a week is a long time in politics then three years (to the next elction) is an eternity.

What should worry them more in the longer run is that people plainly were not just voting against Labour but voting for the Tories, and specifically for Johnson. Because by any normal standards of political decency and competence, Johnson should (like Trump) be completely unelectable.

There is no need again to list his multiple failings and failures, because they are so well-known. Or how entirely sham is his cultivated image of a really smart posh kid whose actually is a good bloke. That an incompetent charlatan (whose much-trumpeted genius 'renegotiation' of the Brexit deal gave the EU what they'd wanted all along on the Irish border) is not seen as such doesn't strike me as a good sign for a democracy.

 

[kick it off 1,956]

2 hours ago, Herman said:

This is bloody depressing. Sorry.

 

And that's why I posted yesterday about the electorate being thick as mince. No hope when the average IQ seems to be rapidly trending downwards. 

Not saying Labour are great btw - I outlined my own frustration and loss of faith in them as a party yesterday, but the electoral illiteracy in understanding how the system works is incredible and this guy is not an anomaly.

[horsefly 4,318]

2 hours ago, Herman said:

This is bloody depressing. Sorry.

 

I've heard exactly the same sort of thing in countless other interviews. I'm afraid this level of ignorance is indeed widespread and Labour will need to develop a strategy to combat the Tory's ability to convince such voters that it is a Labour MP and not 10 years of Tory government misrule that is cause of their woes.

Edited May 9, 2021 by horsefly

[Herman 9,841]

👍👍👍

It doesn't matter how much chin strokin and soul searching that Labour do. They are up against a government and media that have successfully  persuaded the people that the last year didn't happen and also the last decade didn't happen. They need to find a better way to combat this, not sure how though.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

At least the people of Norwich haven't deserted Labour. And an MP as well. Its just those Saga Holidaymakers surrounding Norwich that turn blue.

And those thickos in Hartlepool could hardly be brainwashed, they don't appear to have one. Mind you, it might have been that bloke's ancestor was the one that hung the monkey.

[sonyc 5,541]

1 hour ago, PurpleCanary said:

And a lousy hospital in Hartlepool is also somehow Labour's fault. The irony being that the last time Labour was in power the Blair government, although it made mistakes with various reform plans, did manage to get waiting times down, after years of deliberate Tory neglect of the NHS. And now more than a decade of Tory rule again.

I don't blame some posters here for being predictably triumphalist, but if I were them I would be worried on two counts. The less important is that if a week is a long time in politics then three years (to the next elction) is an eternity.

What should worry them more in the longer run is that people plainly were not just voting against Labour but voting for the Tories, and specifically for Johnson. Because by any normal standards of political decency and competence, Johnson should (like Trump) be completely unelectable.

There is no need again to list his multiple failings and failures, because they are so well-known. Or how entirely sham is his cultivated image of a really smart posh kid whose actually is a good bloke. That an incompetent charlatan (whose much-trumpeted genius 'renegotiation' of the Brexit deal gave the EU what they'd wanted all along on the Irish border) is not seen as such doesn't strike me as a good sign for a democracy.

 

Agree with a lot of this PC. Yet, on the longevity in politics point I have a sense that there is some mileage in the recent Times article about Johnson possibly having a long stretch ahead in power (rather than the other place which many might prefer). 10 years has been forecast.

I have a friend from Hartlepool. He has an extremely and starkly honest view of the place, having grown up there and having "escaped"  - moving away as a young man (from a family with a long line of poverty - generational poverty). Austerity added to the long term decline in the Teeside area as a whole (you've possibly seen the series Redcar?). Coalitions, Labour, Tory or whoever has been in power in his view have barely made much of a difference in decades. Economic miracles offered are in their view, simply laughable (you may have seen the level of anger in that famous Hartlepool Question Time just before Brexit). Certainly, many people are not looking forward to a dignified retirement. Yet, Johnson (or rather, his advisors) does know what makes a large number of people tick - and such talk of "getting rid of foreigners" (like eastern european brickies and plasters for example) will do for many according to him. Johnson with his carefully chosen xenophobic comments about letterboxes etc has spoken to many (even when spoken in a foreign accent - Etonian). The left, ergo Labour, have had no answer or any kind of understandable economic model. Trickledown has never worked in such an area suffering from decades of structural decline. The Blair years stemmed some of the issues but were a poor sticking plaster and never solved the issues. The whole purpose of the place had gone.

My area (the Bradford district) is similar structurally having had a wool industry decline from the 1960's but the population make up is different and politics is more aligned culturally. Locally, Labour councillors are very active in their communities, living and working in charities and channelling public services towards areas that suffer inequality. As a result there is much more solid support for Labour. I think many parts of Wales are the same.

It is a great shame there is support for such a populist figure but somehow he is appearing more 'British'' and 'blokey' and that counts. It will be interesting to see how far 'levelling up' money goes, now that we are reading much of it will be siphoned off for the NHS (which surely is needed post pandemic). I would confident in predicting the Hartlepool population will not see structural decline reversed. No levelling up. We need a proper national industrial strategy. Perhaps we could yet see this emerge. Yet...in my view we need people to come forward who can articulate a vision for the country that is not like the current 'sound bite' politics. 

Edited May 9, 2021 by sonyc

[PurpleCanary 5,587]

1 hour ago, Herman said:

👍👍👍

It doesn't matter how much chin strokin and soul searching that Labour do. They are up against a government and media that have successfully  persuaded the people that the last year didn't happen and also the last decade didn't happen. They need to find a better way to combat this, not sure how though.

Just to add, most voters, even those who follow politics, don't decide on the detail of policies but on general feelings and to an extent on personalities. And Labour has benefited from this in the past just as the Tories have done. As with Blair winning because the public decided the Tories were mired in sleaze and had been in power too long.

This now is not that. A few years back a frequent liar with a record of staggering incompetence (arguably the worst foreign secretary since world war one and a buffoon of a mayor of London) would not have been tolerated by their own party, let alone the electorate. Yet, as Herman says, with the help of jingoistic media, Johnson has somehow pulled of a trick of illusion and misdirection a magician would be proud of. Black is white and bad is good.

It helps (and this was also the case with Trump) if you have absolutely no shame and regard morality as something only suckers and losers - the little people - care about.

[Mello Yello 2,306]

So from the early sixties those Hartlepudlian's who consistently and loyally voted Labour would supposedly be candidates for Mensa......Now that they've voted Conservative, they're just a retarded gaggle of thicktards?.....

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

When Blair lied about Iraq, it was Labour Party members that condemned him outright. We were outraged and wanted his head. A sitting PM on a wanted poster by his own members.

Tories always have accepted that lies and sleaze is part of politics and their supporters do not judge them about it, certainly not in public.

The number of seats, the being in power, the dominance is their only priority. The end is justified by the means.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

5 minutes ago, Mello Yello said:

So from the early sixties those Hartlepudlian's who consistently and loyally voted Labour would supposedly be candidates for Mensa......Now that they've voted Conservative, they're just a retarded gaggle of thicktards?.....

What part of Hartlepool are you from?

[Mello Yello 2,306]

Just now, keelansgrandad said:

What part of Hartlepool are you from?

Calm down Denzil.....Jethro feels your pain....."Goin up Camborne Hill....Comin' down"....

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

3 minutes ago, Mello Yello said:

Calm down Denzil.....Jethro feels your pain....."Goin up Camborne Hill....Comin' down"....

Haway ya fooker

[Mello Yello 2,306]

Just now, keelansgrandad said:

Haway ya fooker

You first.....You've gorn Bodmin.......

[Jools 584]

9 hours ago, Herman said:

Laurence Fox's brand of right-wing identity politics failed spectacularly. At least Londoners saw through that horse****.

Laurence Fox, Rightwing? He's not...

Then again you still believe the BBC is pro-conservative 🤪

 

[A Load of Squit 5,224]

It looks like Tracey Brabin is about to be elected as West Yorkshire Mayor which means a by election in Batley & Spen, Labour defending a 3 and a half thousand majority.

 

[Jools 584]

Labour's arrogance knows no bounds: