UK General Discussion: 2017 and onwards, Mayhem

[Leftbehind]

..and they've just lost their former leader. 

[Leftbehind]

The 2017 Locals were before May was finally exposed as the Empress with no clothes though... and even then, whilst the Labour result was bad, it was a lot less bad than the national polls at the time were predicting in the general. I remember thinking at the time that, even allowing for the differences between local and national elections, the result showed that the Tory position was far less unassailable than many people assumed.

I guess I just don't believe voters only ever change their mind once, so May and Tories might become popular again, and whisper it, hero V.I. Corbyn might not win? I am old enough to remember pro-husky pro-sweatshirt hero David Cameron, rubbish at campaigning anti-Greggs Cameron, surprise majority pro-bacon anti-Salmon tactical wizard Cameron, and Brexit loser Cameron.

Who exactly is disputing the above? It seems like it's you and Miles who have came closer in surety of the next GE outcome, because HE SHOULD BE LEADING BY MILES apparently because muh liberalism and of course your time-served knowledge stretches back a whole ten years.

How unnecessarily personally rude! As I have made clear, I don't believe Labour would be winning by miles now under any feasible leadership. First, the Conservatives are too competent and their agenda is intrinsically popular; unpopular policies are pre-empted by their minority. Second, Brexit keeps most Leave voters Conservative. Third, long-term, Labour is only an occasional party of government, winning when disgust with the Conservatives reaches a certain level. Even limiting ourselves to the post-war, the tally is 43 years of Tory government, 17 Labour, 13 damnatio memoriae kulaks. By the way, you lost the last election by 55 seats, so egg on your face.

You decided to characterise those discussing matters in this thread as zealots who wouldn't hear the possibility of a Labour loss - don't cry to me if you now dislike the tone you helped create (look at that last remark! ). I don't actually disagree with the central point that large leads for either are a thing of the past in this polarisation. But I do think you're over egging the Tories' electoral dominance - 58:42 duration post-war, and that's with the help of the 1951 'win', a Labour splinter hurting Labour's prospects for a decade and for the past decade reliance on coalitions to keep them in power. BTW at no point did I have egg over my face for Labour's narrow loss (2.4%) at the last election - it was almost guaranteed by the situation in Scotland.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

If anybody wants to ever amuse themselves, type "UKIP councillor" into Google News. They've lost their 17 strong branch in Thurrock, they've spectacularly cocked up Thanet and seem to be in a state of collapse in every the councils covering every other target seat they had.

I suspect the independent UKIP faction in Thanet is awaiting on the launch of NewKip by Farage.

[EPG]

BTW at no point did I have egg over my face for Labour's narrow loss (2.4%) at the last election - it was almost guaranteed by the situation in Scotland.

  I'm afraid I don't understand this point? I hear it a lot, but as long as the Conservatives won about 7 seats in Scotland they would have formed the current government, I think. Most SCON seats were won quite well versus the SNP. If you mean that Labour requires a 40:1 margin over Conservatives a la Blair then I would begin looking for easier routes to power...

[Leftbehind]

BTW at no point did I have egg over my face for Labour's narrow loss (2.4%) at the last election - it was almost guaranteed by the situation in Scotland.

  I'm afraid I don't understand this point? I hear it a lot, but as long as the Conservatives won about 7 seats in Scotland they would have formed the current government, I think. Most SCON seats were won quite well versus the SNP. If you mean that Labour requires a 40:1 margin over Conservatives a la Blair then I would begin looking for easier routes to power...

I don't understand how I'd have egg on my face regarding the loss if I never believed Labour could win until the Scottish question had been resolved? In the wake of the 2015 loss, John Curtice made the prescient point that unless Labour reversed the Scottish swing to the SNP, to replace those seats lost in Scotland, on a uniform swing Labour would need somewhere around a 12-point lead over the Tories nationally to gain enough seats elsewhere to form a majority - very improbable. Coupled with a poisoned chalice that is Brexit to deliver, there was really no better time for a civil war and/or purges. There still is little sign Scots are embracing SLab in the manner they did throughout the post-war period (and actually gone further - delivered an almost pre-Thatcher result to the Tories) however the DUP-deal and the spectre of Hard Brexit has opened up the path for a future Lab/SNP coalition so everything's back in play.

[EPG]

BTW at no point did I have egg over my face for Labour's narrow loss (2.4%) at the last election - it was almost guaranteed by the situation in Scotland.

  I'm afraid I don't understand this point? I hear it a lot, but as long as the Conservatives won about 7 seats in Scotland they would have formed the current government, I think. Most SCON seats were won quite well versus the SNP. If you mean that Labour requires a 40:1 margin over Conservatives a la Blair then I would begin looking for easier routes to power...

I don't understand how I'd have egg on my face regarding the loss if I never believed Labour could win until the Scottish question had been resolved? In the wake of the 2015 loss, John Curtice made the prescient point that unless Labour reversed the Scottish swing to the SNP, to replace those seats lost in Scotland, on a uniform swing Labour would need somewhere around a 12-point lead over the Tories nationally to gain enough seats elsewhere to form a majority - very improbable. Coupled with a poisoned chalice that is Brexit to deliver, there was really no better time for a civil war and/or purges. There still is little sign Scots are embracing SLab in the manner they did throughout the post-war period (and actually gone further - delivered an almost pre-Thatcher result to the Tories) however the DUP-deal and the spectre of Hard Brexit has opened up the path for a future Lab/SNP coalition so everything's back in play.

Good thing swings aren't ever uniform. I just meant that it seems to me that a Lab-SNP pact could exist today, but still have fewer seats than the Conservative-DUP pact. Thus, Labour's position in Scotland is not why the Conservatives are in government, unless the problem is literally that Labour requires a 40-seat margin there, in which case I think Labour can find much a easier route to power elsewhere. You could replace 30 SNP seats with 30 Labour seats and still May is PM.

[Blair]

It's not the numbers, but more so the fact that the route to a majority without Scotland has to run through insanely Tory Seats (including 10-20 that Labour lost in 2005)

[IceAgeComing]

If England and Wales voted as they did in 2005 while Scotland voted as it did in 2015; Labour would have been something like ten seats short of a majority - I can't do the calculations at the moment.  When you factor in that most of the seats that they lost are seats that without the SNP would be incredibly safe and have been since the decline of the working class Protestant Tory vote in the 50s and early 60s then it makes perfect sense that the route for Labour to form government needs to involve Scotland in some form.  Unless you see places in and around Glasgow as a no hope prospect for Labour...

I don't think that Scottish Labour will ever get back to their post-1997 level again; indeed it could be argued that the formation of the Scottish Parliament meant that the decline of SLab became more certain, especially at the Holyrood level.  The question that they have is what sort of party Scottish Labour needs to be in order to better defeat on one hand the SNP and on the other the Tories and I don't think that anyone has figured that out yet.  My wish is that they don't go down the hardcore unionist route: that doesn't work for them because the Tories do that better and because younger people, who've gone strongly towards Labour in the last few UK elections, tended to be more likely to support independence and even those that didn't is less likely to be convinced by the Unionist rhetoric.  I could be wrong though; I certainly didn't see the Tory success in the last General Election coming...

[EPG]

It's not the numbers, but more so the fact that the route to a majority without Scotland has to run through insanely Tory Seats (including 10-20 that Labour lost in 2005)

Sure, this is why Labour have mainly been in opposition, because there is usually very strong support for the Conservative Party in the UK, even vis-a-vis a very bad Conservative campaign as in 2017.

Lab + SNP through time:
2005 360
2010 264
2015 290
2017 297
So Labour's "Scottish road to 10 Downing Street" through the SNP would be marginally useful, like the Tories in 2017, but it won't deliver a government with the SNP, let alone a Labour majority, without plenty of further gains in England and Wales, including many of those difficult 10-20. (Not that the 2005 losses will all be difficult; I think you guys can take Putney.)

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Scotland is nowadays a land of marginal seats; I think it is premature to write off any area from the SNP or Labour (Orkney aside).

[Hnv1]

It's not the numbers, but more so the fact that the route to a majority without Scotland has to run through insanely Tory Seats (including 10-20 that Labour lost in 2005)

Sure, this is why Labour have mainly been in opposition, because there is usually very strong support for the Conservative Party in the UK, even vis-a-vis a very bad Conservative campaign as in 2017.

Lab + SNP through time:
2005 360
2010 264
2015 290
2017 297
So Labour's "Scottish road to 10 Downing Street" through the SNP would be marginally useful, like the Tories in 2017, but it won't deliver a government with the SNP, let alone a Labour majority, without plenty of further gains in England and Wales, including many of those difficult 10-20. (Not that the 2005 losses will all be difficult; I think you guys can take Putney.)

What’s really left to gain in Wales? At most 1 additional seat

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Aberconwy, the Vale of Glamorgan, Preseli Pembrokeshire and Arfon are all fairly marginal that would fall in a minor swing towards Labour; and even then there are more potential gains (remember in the 1997 blowouts the Tories lost every single seat in Wales)

[Hnv1]

Aberconwy, the Vale of Glamorgan, Preseli Pembrokeshire and Arfon are all fairly marginal that would fall in a minor swing towards Labour; and even then there are more potential gains (remember in the 1997 blowouts the Tories lost every single seat in Wales)

But then the Liberals were still a force in Wales, 2017 was the first time they hadn't won a seat there since well parties formed.
But I guess there's enough to work with in North Wales and West of Swansea

[Blair]

Aberconwy, the Vale of Glamorgan, Preseli Pembrokeshire and Arfon are all fairly marginal that would fall in a minor swing towards Labour; and even then there are more potential gains (remember in the 1997 blowouts the Tories lost every single seat in Wales)

But then the Liberals were still a force in Wales, 2017 was the first time they hadn't won a seat there since well parties formed.
But I guess there's enough to work with in North Wales and West of Swansea

This is me being lazy and not basing it on any actual data but I think some of the welsh liberal seats are never going to return to the Liberal Democrat’s (at least in the next 10 years) Cardiff Central had a 3,000 majority in 2015 and now a has a 12,000 one.

I came on here to post how useless Vince Cable is, I just saw a video on my news feed where’s he’s talking about Roy Jenkins and god even I was falling asleep! Apparently there press office is failing apart, and the locals will be interesting for them.

There’s essentially a vast chunk of urban seats (ex lib lab) marginals that now have 10k plus marginals, they’ve lost most of their MPs who can claim to have a personal vote (Mulholland,Clegg,Hughes) I think the best they can do is nibble away at Tory seats

[Leftbehind]

BTW at no point did I have egg over my face for Labour's narrow loss (2.4%) at the last election - it was almost guaranteed by the situation in Scotland.

  I'm afraid I don't understand this point? I hear it a lot, but as long as the Conservatives won about 7 seats in Scotland they would have formed the current government, I think. Most SCON seats were won quite well versus the SNP. If you mean that Labour requires a 40:1 margin over Conservatives a la Blair then I would begin looking for easier routes to power...

I don't understand how I'd have egg on my face regarding the loss if I never believed Labour could win until the Scottish question had been resolved? In the wake of the 2015 loss, John Curtice made the prescient point that unless Labour reversed the Scottish swing to the SNP, to replace those seats lost in Scotland, on a uniform swing Labour would need somewhere around a 12-point lead over the Tories nationally to gain enough seats elsewhere to form a majority - very improbable. Coupled with a poisoned chalice that is Brexit to deliver, there was really no better time for a civil war and/or purges. There still is little sign Scots are embracing SLab in the manner they did throughout the post-war period (and actually gone further - delivered an almost pre-Thatcher result to the Tories) however the DUP-deal and the spectre of Hard Brexit has opened up the path for a future Lab/SNP coalition so everything's back in play.

Good thing swings aren't ever uniform. I just meant that it seems to me that a Lab-SNP pact could exist today, but still have fewer seats than the Conservative-DUP pact. Thus, Labour's position in Scotland is not why the Conservatives are in government, unless the problem is literally that Labour requires a 40-seat margin there, in which case I think Labour can find much a easier route to power elsewhere. You could replace 30 SNP seats with 30 Labour seats and still May is PM.

Well they don't need to be uniform to understand that if you need somewhere around a 12-point national lead it's highly improbable they'll gain them. Labour could rely on a great number of seats in Scotland for the entirity of the post-war period - and that area holds the most marginal seats today. To say that the situation in Scotland wasn't the cause of the current government is laughable: if the 2015 situation had remained (ie SNP hadn't gone backwards) there would be no coalition possible for the Tories. If the SNP hadn't thrown out Labour in 2015, Labour could still rely (to some extent) on tactical Tory voters giving them a greater number of seats than their vote deserved. Finally if Labour could rely on Scotland, they could target the seats where the 1% swing they'd need to allow them to swap positions with the Tories. Put simply Lab + Scottish seats, or rather Lab + SNP = competitive.

[Leftbehind]

It's not the numbers, but more so the fact that the route to a majority without Scotland has to run through insanely Tory Seats (including 10-20 that Labour lost in 2005)

Sure, this is why Labour have mainly been in opposition, because there is usually very strong support for the Conservative Party in the UK, even vis-a-vis a very bad Conservative campaign as in 2017.

Lab + SNP through time:
2005 360
2010 264
2015 290
2017 297
So Labour's "Scottish road to 10 Downing Street" through the SNP would be marginally useful, like the Tories in 2017, but it won't deliver a government with the SNP, let alone a Labour majority, without plenty of further gains in England and Wales, including many of those difficult 10-20. (Not that the 2005 losses will all be difficult; I think you guys can take Putney.)

As I replied elsewhere:

The biggest obstacle for Labour is Scotland - where Labour have went from a reliable mid-forty bloc to half a dozen. If they still won those seats Labour would have 300 to Conservatives 317.  A 1% swing to Labour from 2017 would see the reverse.

Not a majority - but certainly government (the remaining Green & Nationalists in parliament would certainly give them further support). Regarding that very strong support: the Tories had been languishing in the thirties since the 90's until May delivered them 42.3% (largely through Brexit).

[GoTfan]

If anybody wants to ever amuse themselves, type "UKIP councillor" into Google News. They've lost their 17 strong branch in Thurrock, they've spectacularly cocked up Thanet and seem to be in a state of collapse in every the councils covering every other target seat they had.

I've been saying it for years; UKIP is a single-issue party. What are they other than anti-Europe? Just radical Tories, essentially.

[Leftbehind]

If anybody wants to ever amuse themselves, type "UKIP councillor" into Google News. They've lost their 17 strong branch in Thurrock, they've spectacularly cocked up Thanet and seem to be in a state of collapse in every the councils covering every other target seat they had.

I've been saying it for years; UKIP is a single-issue party. What are they other than anti-Europe? Just radical Tories, essentially.

I'd say they are better characterised by their xenophobia than being ardent Thatcherites (at the grassroots level at least; their leaders are uniformly the latter and are normally found in relationships or hiring Europeans).

[Leftbehind]

Czechmate, Conservatives.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWzya44XkAI8tVF.jpg 

[Ronnie]

By no means am I someone who closely follows UK politics, but I just stumbled on the following article, and I have to say that it's the single dumbest thing I've ever read in my life:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5634712/jeremy-corbyn-is-donald-trump-in-disguise/

It's almost painful to read.  It just takes the stylistic similarities that you may be able to vaguely detect if you squint hard enough, and amplifies them by a thousand, while ignoring all the substantive differences.  How embarrassing.

[YE]

By no means am I someone who closely follows UK politics, but I just stumbled on the following article, and I have to say that it's the single dumbest thing I've ever read in my life:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5634712/jeremy-corbyn-is-donald-trump-in-disguise/

It's almost painful to read.  It just takes the stylistic similarities that you may be able to vaguely detect if you squint hard enough, and amplifies them by a thousand, while ignoring all the substantive differences.

I've seen far worse smears in terms of use of emotion but usually a good sign of one is few facts, and usually stuff like "X did Y, and U did V, so both did W" is common.

[Blair]

The only interesting comparison is how Labour 'Moderates' in the PLP, and Republican lawmakers act with a leader who they frankly never wanted to get nominated.

Although ofc Corbyn's excesses are in his policies, whilst Trump's is in his absolute lack of suitability for high office. The only people on the left who are even close to Trumpian type behaviour would be someone like Gorgeous George Galloway

[parochial boy]

There's a certain irony in it being the Sun who are printing an article like this

[Babeuf]

So who are the frontrunners to replace McNicol as General Secretary of Labour, and what are their factional backgrounds?

[Blair]

So who are the frontrunners to replace McNicol as General Secretary of Labour, and what are their factional backgrounds?

The tabloids are printing fantastical stories (which may or may not have basis to them) fear-mongering about ANDREW MURRAY (lol) or Momentum's Sam Tarry taking the role, but all serious sources indicate that the leadership is backing Unite Political Director Jenny Formby, who - fun fact! - is the mother of Len McCluskey's child.

At this rate everyone in the leadership is either related to each other, or has slept with each other.

Seriously though-the biggest story to take away is UNITE are now extremely dominant in labour. People keep talking about a Corbyn ‘take over’ but at it stands it’s basically a UNITE/CWU ran project.

I’m relatively agnostic about McNicol- I liked him and trusted him but the general secretary needs to support the leadership wholeheartley and can’t be seen as a drag on every decision. This was bound to happen after June 8th.