If PVA is part of a local history group applying to research the history of ribbon weaving in Coventry
Starmer wasn’t the left candidate, he was the soft left candidate (that’s why he won). He could remove any left MPs from cabinet because they kept giving him ammunition and generally not being good at their job. There’s a serious shortage of quality on the left and a serious lack of seriousness. The fact the SCG takes turns at leadership elections, the refusal to engage with the electorate or moderate where they differ. It means the game is lost well before elections, even internal.
I fundamentally don’t believe you can’t make a popular left wing policy platform or front it with a charismatic (or even just boring but effective) leader. There’s only so much you can blame the right and the media and the chemtrails before looking in the mirror ultimately. I voted Corbyn in, he said a lot of good stuff and the truest mental foreign policy stuff wasn’t out the bag yet. But it became clear he just couldn’t handle the job. The snarling at the press, the refusal to not get sucked into trap after trap. Etc. Etc.
Starmer was up against Long-Bailey who is frankly crap. I mean say what you like about Starmer, Cooper, Kendall, Nandy, Burnham, but they do the basics well and understand the game. That’s where the left is failing. And if they didn’t you wouldn’t have it believe that a soft left MP isn’t just telling you what you want to hear because you’ll have a credible left wing candidate to vote for.
"Soft left" or not mate, there were a set of policies Starmer agreed to take forward that he then dropped almost immediately after being elected.
You asked who is there on the left as a plausible candidate, and the most plausible person at that time who supported left-ish policies was Starmer. I think we agree on that.
Where we seem to disagree is that you think that his shift to the right is acceptable, whereas I don't.
You seem to saying now that no matter who fronts up the Labour party, left-ish policies won't get you elected.
Again, on that I would politely differ - the evidence seems to suggest that a lot of the policies that Starmer has ditched would be popular with voters. It would also offer a point of difference to the Tories.
Now that Labour have taken on Tory economic orthodoxy (the maxed-out credit card analogy) they've constrained themselves to centre-right austerity-driven policies. It doesn't have to be this way.
Why is Labour still using the self-defeating, discredited ‘maxed out credit card’ analogy? | Yanis Varoufakis
It is one thing to U-turn on a modest green transition programme. It is another to do so using mendacious Tory economic paradigms, says the economist Yanis Varoufakiswww.theguardian.com
You're just jealous that despite your support he passed you overJust voted for Bone’s replacement… it wasn’t for his mistress I assure you….
Is Starmer really soft left? In his younger dats he was ultra-hard left:
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The only thing we really know about his principles is that they are very flexible, as he bends with the breeze trying to appeal to whatever audience he is addressing at the time.
He was left wing when he held a senior shadow cabinet position under Corbyn, held to that line when appealing to the party membership in the leadership election and has since moved to the right as he seeks the votes of the British public. In doing so he has done U-turn after after U-turn.
He is a man of no principles, who is only interested in promoting his own interests. I will never vote for Labour while he is the leader.
Almost every politician including Michael Gove was hard left in their youth.
Wasn't Tony Blair a member of CND?Almost every politician including Michael Gove was hard left in their youth.
Wasn't Tony Blair a member of CND?
Wasn’t Truss too? In between shouting Maggie Maggie Maggie, out out out.Wasn't Tony Blair a member of CND?
Wasn't Tony Blair a member of CND?
Surprised at that.I oddly never was - at 19 / 20 I was in Nottingham as the union rep for my course. There was some old shite about collecting money for striking miners - I suggested a collection for the police - and was met with a typical response from tbe snarking mob
Surprised at that.
Town full of scabs weren't it?
Might still be now. Wouldn't know.
He definitely plays to whoever he's trying to get the vote from"Soft left" or not mate, there were a set of policies Starmer agreed to take forward that he then dropped almost immediately after being elected.
You asked who is there on the left as a plausible candidate, and the most plausible person at that time who supported left-ish policies was Starmer. I think we agree on that.
Where we seem to disagree is that you think that his shift to the right is acceptable, whereas I don't.
You seem to saying now that no matter who fronts up the Labour party, left-ish policies won't get you elected.
Again, on that I would politely differ - the evidence seems to suggest that a lot of the policies that Starmer has ditched would be popular with voters. It would also offer a point of difference to the Tories.
Now that Labour have taken on Tory economic orthodoxy (the maxed-out credit card analogy) they've constrained themselves to centre-right austerity-driven policies. It doesn't have to be this way.
Why is Labour still using the self-defeating, discredited ‘maxed out credit card’ analogy? | Yanis Varoufakis
It is one thing to U-turn on a modest green transition programme. It is another to do so using mendacious Tory economic paradigms, says the economist Yanis Varoufakiswww.theguardian.com
In both cases, if Starmer and Labour were THAT popular, wouldn't you expect to see more people turning up to vote for them at a by-election? It's not all about percentages and swings, and if Labour DON'T get more actual people showing up next time round, they might get a shock!
in Wellingborough where the swing was 28.5% - the second highest swing from Conservative to Labour in any post-war by-election.
Sure, but my point is that the actual Labour vote didn't swing anywhere - it was simply the collapse of the Tory vote. Sure, if the same thing happens at the GE this year, it will be a pasting, but will the inevitably larger GE turnout all vote to the same pattern as yesterday, or are all the Tories just waiting in the wings?It definitely is all about percentages and swings!
It's an absolute pasting.
And clearly no one is suggesting this is actually going to happen, but it's a good representation of how big the swing was:
So the Tories took a kicking in both by-elections yesterday, with enormous swings to Labour.
However ... as has been the case in many of the recent by-elections in this Parliament, the result is not as stunning for Starmer as they are suggesting, in my view: In Wellingborough, the number of votes cast for the (winning) Labour candidate yesterday (I would, by the way!!) were pretty much identical, give or take a couple of hundred, to those cast for the (losing) Labour candidate at the 2019 GE. The difference was that the Tory voters didn't show (32,277 in 2019 to 7,408 yesterday).
That is a consequence of the turnout (65% in 2019 vs 38% yesterday), which is often the case for "mid-term" by-elections.
The Tories were batshit crazy to nominate that dickhead Bone's partner as their candidate in the same bloody constituency he got recalled in - she was part of his toxic legacy.
In Kingswood, the number of people who voted for the winning Labour candidate was 5,000 FEWER than for the loser in 2019 (turnout 37% and 71%, respectively.
In both cases, if Starmer and Labour were THAT popular, wouldn't you expect to see more people turning up to vote for them at a by-election? It's not all about percentages and swings, and if Labour DON'T get more actual people showing up next time round, they might get a shock!
Sure, but my point is that the actual Labour vote didn't swing anywhere - it was simply the collapse of the Tory vote. Sure, if the same thing happens at the GE this year, it will be a pasting, but will the inevitably larger GE turnout all vote to the same pattern as yesterday, or are all the Tories just waiting in the wings?
That was sort of the point i was trying to make. Trust an academic expert in election statistics to put it better than a tired biosafety specialist!!From John Curtice, the BBC's chosen expert...
"However, these were by-elections where voters' discontent with the Conservatives was seemingly not matched in equal measure by its enthusiasm for Labour.
In both Kingswood and Wellingborough, the increase in Labour's share of the vote was half the fall in Conservative support, underlining how many discontented Tories are going elsewhere.
Labour's ten-point majority in Kingswood is less than it enjoyed in the seat at each of the 1997, 2001, and 2005 elections, though in Wellingborough the party was on a par with what it achieved when it won the seat in 1997 and 2001."
I think this supports the idea that voters are sick of the Conservatives, but it is also hardly a ringing endorsement for Labour.
Basically, it seems to me that people have got something to vote against, the Tories, but Labour aren't offering much to vote for.
Almost every politician including Michael Gove was hard left in their youth.
What a strange comparison, presume I should vote for Gove's party then.
Isn’t that your plan anyway?
The adverts suggest that their core audience is old, white, people
Thanks for the intel agent duffer.On a slightly unrelated topic, I found myself switching over to GB News this morning. Call it morbid interest, or maybe an attempt to avoid the leftie woke echo chamber of government-funded or billionaire-owned news channels.
Anyhow... some observations:
The presenters are astonishingly young and incompetent, and it's so, so cheap. Regardless...
They were raging, and I mean much more overtly angry than you'd see on the BBC, about the obscene profits of the utility companies, and the vast salaries of their senior executives.
It was, way, way beyond what anyone in the current Labour party would say, that's for sure.
There's something here that I can't quite put my finger on.
The people that watch this stuff see exactly the same issue here that exercises lefties like me, and yet vote for parties who will certainly do nothing about it.
They also clearly don't believe that Labour will do much either.
It was a genuinely interesting watch for twenty minutes or so. The adverts suggest that their core audience is old, white, people who mostly want a cheap caravan somewhere for their holidays. My folks, as was, basically!
Thanks for the intel agent duffer.
Have you fully decontaminated yet?
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