United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019

[CumbrianLefty]

https://twitter.com/danbloom1/status/1206146416793526273?s=19

I love you John. You're a fking hero.

Honestly, as someone who never liked the guy (even back when I liked Corbyn), massive respect. It takes real guts to apologize so thoroughly.

Yeah, it seems pretty clear that McDonnell & Corbyn are trying to very publicly soak up as much of the blame as possible, so that when they leave front-bench politics, the party can start up again with a clean slate. And that's a very f**king admirable & mature strategy.

Whatever their other failings, they recognise that the party (and movement) is bigger than any one person. The contrast with a certain leadership aspirant who used "I/me" some two dozen times in a newspaper piece this morning is I think pretty obvious

[CumbrianLefty]

2015 is not a good baseline though, since it had abysmal turnout to begin with.

66% compared to 67.5% last week, not a vast difference (and 2017 was 69%, in the same ballpark)

[CumbrianLefty]

2001 and 2005 were the real comedy bad GE turnouts.

[CumbrianLefty]

Question to British posters: Is it a reasonable assumption that Labour will have a better chance of regaining lost ground in the North than in the Midlands and South Yorkshire?

Actually I'm a bit counter-intuitive about this - many of Labour's almost hilariously bad Midlands results have the strong flavour of a Brexit protest vote, whereas *some* of the northern losses are actually much more about long term demographic change (and the main surprise about at least a few of them is that they weren't tempted by the Tories considerably sooner)

[CumbrianLefty]

Examples of now Tory seats which are at least partly driven by long term demographic change include Bishop Auckland, the S Yorkshire "Valley" seats, and of course the much mythologised Bolsover.

(and this sort of thing is not new - when George Brown lost Belper in 1970, his comment that "its not the Belper I knew anymore" was more than just the sentimentality that he was prone to indulge in)

[CumbrianLefty]

And if you want an example of such movement in the *opposite* direction (especially since you wouldn't think such places existed going on much media coverage) have a look at what Worthing is doing.

[CumbrianLefty]

This supports the theory that many Labour leavers didn't actually bother voting rather than voting for the Conservatives/Brexit Party.

The turnout figures in many of the lost/newly marginal Labour seats makes that pretty obvious.

[CumbrianLefty]

Worth remembering that Labour's targeting was also out in 2017, but in the opposite direction. Also that during this campaign, Tories even in the closing days pursued a mainly "defensive" strategy - spending most time and resources in their own marginals and the most vulnerable Labour targets.

Being wise after the event is always easy.

[CumbrianLefty]

Labour did achieve some limited movement in the polls, however, and possibly gambled a bit that they would be out like they were in 2017. As it turns out, there are some indicators of a late pro-Tory swing - if so, that couldn't really be dealt with effectively in the short time available (even were that course of action practically possible at all)

[CumbrianLefty]

From what I am seeing in other websites, the Corbynistas haven't learned anything at all. It's ninety percent blaming the media, as if it weren't going to be there next time and ten percent joking about how Tony Blair still hasn't been sent to the Hague, after his critical remarks. I fully expect another big Tory win in 2024, which is heartbreaking.

There have been plenty of interesting and frank Labour left analyses of the defeat, if you care to look for them rather than just have your prejudices confirmed by zoomers on social media.

And one could be equally selectively unflattering about the reaction of confirmed Corbyn critics to the defeat, there's often precious little insight or honest analysis to be found there either.

("muh muh THREE ELECTIONS muh", though even that is less moronic than those actually calling for literally everybody who voted for Corbyn to be expelled en masse - which yes I have actually seen)

[CumbrianLefty]

Any presumption that the Tories have already won in 2024 has to be suspect - not least because once they have "got Brexit done" just weeks from now, what are they actually going to *do* for the next four years? Whatever it is, there is a chance much of it won't be as popular........

[CumbrianLefty]

Then of course there's at least a chance Brexit is a disaster and the economy goes under and suddenly the size of the majority becomes rather academic.

(Which is why Labour's choice of leader needs to be right one and why Long-Bailey being inevitable is so depressing, but that's another discussion)

Take it from me, she's not.

(Which isn't a prediction she *won't* win btw, but it certainly isn't set in stone)

[CumbrianLefty]

What happened in 2001? Turnout went down by a lot and has never recovered since

A feeling (correctly) that the result was a foregone conclusion, allied to a more general depoliticisation after Blair's huge 1997 win (local election turnouts also tumbled in the following few years)

This GE ended the upward trend since then, though that may *partly* be down to when it was held.

[CumbrianLefty]

What the two almost identical outcomes in the bottom corner?

[CumbrianLefty]

What the two almost identical outcomes in the bottom corner?

1951 & 1959.

So where's 1955?

[CumbrianLefty]

Sun readers often "trend" to the Daily Mail when older, so Merseyside is mostly spared that as well.

[CumbrianLefty]

Not just the changed politics since then, but it was somewhat demographically different as well.

[CumbrianLefty]

Worth noting that we actually did pretty well in the Medway towns in 2017, it's just that the Tories did extremely well. We did terribly in 2019, of course, so we're further behind than ever there now.

True of quite a few other places, of course.

Of course, the question of *why* we did much better in 2017 (both locally and nationally) is a question that should have been asked rather more than it has been. Certain people have a vested interest in that not being the case, though.

[CumbrianLefty]

There are distinctions between different BAME groups - black Caribbean voters are very strongly Labour; black African voters a little less strong; South Asian Muslim voters usually strong for Labour (in general elections, at least, and in practice taking them as a group is often unhelpful); the Conservatives have recently become competitive amongst Hindus (although this is also quite correlated with social class); Sikhs are somewhere in the middle.

The extent to which our performance improved with these various demographics varied quite a lot in 2017, but in 2019 we seem to have fallen back with them fairly uniformly and at very similar rates to their white neighbours (sometimes, as in Leicester East, individual candidates seem to have made a difference, but in the Black Country is just seems like everybody hated us). So yes, race matters, but more in terms of the starting point than the trajectory of the change at the last election.

I would be genuinely interested in a proper analysis of why Labour bombed so utterly there this time.

[CumbrianLefty]

It appears that both Austin and John Woodcock have been nominated for peerages by the Tories after their services to them during the election campaign and indeed previously.

(though thinking about it, the latter's intervention doesn't seem to have had the same effect in Barrow - yes I know the Tories won and everything, but.....)

[CumbrianLefty]

Austin is a horrible man, but one mastered in the black arts.

[CumbrianLefty]

They evidently had "leftovers" seats in those days too

[CumbrianLefty]

Wasn't the old (pre-1983) Goole constituency split between no fewer than four new seats?!

(and all formed a significant part too, no slivers as is sometimes the case)

[CumbrianLefty]

What is the longest Labour voting area and vice versa?

Of constituencies which voted Labour in 1906, I think Ince (now Makerfield), Leeds East (South East in 1931) and West Ham South (Plaistow in 1931, now West Ham) have areas which have been always Labour since.  Also, Chester-le-Street (now North Durham) was Independent Labour in 1906 then Labour in 1910 then Labour.

Didn't WHS also vote Labour/Lib-Lab before then, so can be said to hold the "record"?

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, but Keir Hardie won it as Lib-Lab in 1892 - which is what I was thinking of.

Do any of the other areas listed have a similar history?