This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Property Representative of the Harold Holt Swimming Centre]

On that subject my favourite misreading of the Labour party was when a 'senior source' compared Tom Watson versus Caroline Flint in 2015 deputy leaders race as a redux of the 1982 deputy race...

Which one was supposed to be which? Watson seems more akin to Healey in personality terms, but at that point he was more known for his attacks on the Murdoch empire and thus was relatively popular with the left of the party.

Flint is closer to Benn's views on Europe, although perhaps not in 2015.

[Geoffrey Howe]

On that subject my favourite misreading of the Labour party was when a 'senior source' compared Tom Watson versus Caroline Flint in 2015 deputy leaders race as a redux of the 1982 deputy race...

Which one was supposed to be which? Watson seems more akin to Healey in personality terms, but at that point he was more known for his attacks on the Murdoch empire and thus was relatively popular with the left of the party.

Flint is closer to Benn's views on Europe, although perhaps not in 2015.

Did Viscount Stansgate ever come to support the EU?

[CumbrianLefty]

On that subject my favourite misreading of the Labour party was when a 'senior source' compared Tom Watson versus Caroline Flint in 2015 deputy leaders race as a redux of the 1982 deputy race...

Well, not least because there wasn't an actual contest in 198*2* (as opposed to a year earlier)

[Cassius]

On that subject my favourite misreading of the Labour party was when a 'senior source' compared Tom Watson versus Caroline Flint in 2015 deputy leaders race as a redux of the 1982 deputy race...

Which one was supposed to be which? Watson seems more akin to Healey in personality terms, but at that point he was more known for his attacks on the Murdoch empire and thus was relatively popular with the left of the party.

Flint is closer to Benn's views on Europe, although perhaps not in 2015.

Did Viscount Stansgate ever come to support the EU?

Not as far as I’m aware. Benn’s chief objections to the EU (and previously the EEC) were that it wasn’t democratic and that socialism couldn’t be established in Britain whilst it was inside the bloc, neither of which changed before his death. He also had a deep appreciation for Britain’s radical political tradition and its history of parliamentary democracy (although he could be critical of the latter), and whilst that was far from a nationalistic point of view, it didn’t mesh well with being pro-EU.

[Geoffrey Howe]

That makes sense. I remember a podcast with Hilary Benn and Nick Robinson just after the referendum wherein the former said he disagreed with his father on the EU.

[CumbrianLefty]

Even some on the Labour left thought Benn Snr had a very simplistic and one dimensional approach to the EU - partly down to what they also saw as his starry eyed view of UK parliamentary democracy.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Even some on the Labour left thought Benn Snr had a very simplistic and one dimensional approach to the EU - partly down to what they also saw as his starry eyed view of UK parliamentary democracy.

Did Michael Foot have effectively the same approach to Europe?

[EastAnglianLefty]

Factionalism in the Labour Party is a lot like factionalism within the clergy of the Church of England: in both cases a big part of the problem is that new recruits are immediately introduced to factional groupings and are usually immediately indoctrinated into one of them (often for reasons that might as well be random) and then they learn everything else about the institution and life in it through the factional grouping they have become attached to. The only difference is that the factional groupings in the CofE do, at least, still map on neatly to actual disputes about fundamental matters: the current roster of Labour Party factions mostly date to the late Cold War and their alignment to each other is entirely from that period. In practice this actually adds to the unpleasantness.

All sides often talk about stuff from the 1980s as if it was last week.

Though this isn't new. After all, the reason that getting rid of Clause IV was viewed as significant was that Gaitskell had tried and failed to get rid of it.

[CumbrianLefty]

I also recall Bad Godesberg being regularly invoked until at least around that time, so this applies to some foreign stuff as well.

[gerritcole]

if not starmer who can lead labour to victory in 2024, is victory even possible w/o scotland and redrawing borders

[CumbrianLefty]

Nearly all things are "possible".

But yes, an outright Labour win at the next GE does not seem a likely prospect at present.

[Geoffrey Howe]

What are the auspices for Sir Keir if Labour loses in Hartlepool?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

What are the auspices for Sir Keir if Labour loses in Hartlepool?

Bad, but not fatal: think how Copeland and Stoke Central were awful blows to Corbyn at the time, but he muscled through to the 2017 election where he could win his own mandate.

[Geoffrey Howe]

What are the auspices for Sir Keir if Labour loses in Hartlepool?

Bad, but not fatal: think how Copeland and Stoke Central were awful blows to Corbyn at the time, but he muscled through to the 2017 election where he could win his own mandate.

True, but Copeland was four months before a GE; Hartlepool could be three years away from one.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

By-elections in general tend to matter less than journalists tend to assume when one is going on,* and this particular by-election is happening on the same day as a lot of other elections. Would tend to be wary of making predictions as to the result in this case for a bunch of reasons.

Anyway, though it was a long time ago now it is worth noting that in 1960 the Conservatives gained Brighouse and Spenborough off Labour in a by-election. Four years later they lost power and over sixty seats along the way.

_{*Though even there they do not get covered anywhere near as intensely as they used to be.}

[Geoffrey Howe]

Certainly, by-elections are not the be all and end all. One thinks of the by-elections in the Thatcher years where absurdly safe seats would be lost or very nearly lost to the Alliance at a high turnout, though she did very well in 1983 and 1987. (Interestingly, this made Mrs Thatcher very wary of appointing qualified British MPs to international institutions for fear of double-point swings.)

[beesley]

Certainly, by-elections are not the be all and end all. One thinks of the by-elections in the Thatcher years where absurdly safe seats would be lost or very nearly lost to the Alliance at a high turnout, though she did very well in 1983 and 1987. (Interestingly, this made Mrs Thatcher very wary of appointing qualified British MPs to international institutions for fear of double-point swings.)

For what it's worth the Liberal Democrats couldn't even retain one of their Tory by-election gains at the 97 General Election: Christchurch, formerly held by one of my favourite former MPs Robert Adley until his death in 1993. The Liberal Democrats benefitted from Labour not fielding a challenge in the by election but even then their 16000 majority was impressive, and they still lost it four years later. The Liberal Democrat Victor, Diana Maddock, passed away fairly recently.

[Geoffrey Howe]

74% turnout in that by-election.

[CumbrianLefty]

The only even pseudo-gain for the Tories in that entire election.

(Leicester South performed a similar role for Labour in 2005)

[LabourJersey]

Would I be wrong in thinking that the regional divide between North and South also contributes to the divisions in Labour?

Like from studying in the UK even I managed to notice the differences in attitudes and politics between students from the North vs. students from the South. I'd assume that may carry over to intra-party politics

[Geoffrey Howe]

Would I be wrong in thinking that the regional divide between North and South also contributes to the divisions in Labour?

Like from studying in the UK even I managed to notice the differences in attitudes and politics between students from the North vs. students from the South. I'd assume that may carry over to intra-party politics

Not so sure about Labour on this, but certainly the 'Red Wall' Tories are more statist/interventionist than more traditional Tories, whose base is obviously in the South. That said, Dehenna Davison of Bishop Auckland is the co-founder of the IEA-affiliated Free Market Forum.

[Blair]

Would I be wrong in thinking that the regional divide between North and South also contributes to the divisions in Labour?

Like from studying in the UK even I managed to notice the differences in attitudes and politics between students from the North vs. students from the South. I'd assume that may carry over to intra-party politics

As a Labour party member from London I'm perhaps not the best to give a good answer but my assumption is that there is a split but it doesn't fit that well into North v South. It ties into the rather complex definition of what the North is, the differences between the regions & also fundamentally the difference between urban & non-urban areas.

The biggest contribution is probably that a lot of the Labour party does not understand large parts of the country it wants to govern; Lisa Nandy had quite a good line about how people in Labour just think that we should pump loads of money into Northern cities- without focusing on the fact that most people see these cities as distant.

In terms of the leadership elections the North-West was always seen as a stronghold for the left; Corbyn did very well in the region & cleaned up in 2016 (he picked up a lot of people who voted for Andy Burnham in 2015)

The PLP (Labour MPs) tends to be a more mixed bags; those MPs in Northern seats aren't generally more left wing- some of this came from the fact that the MPs were selected back in 2005 or 2010 when you were naturally more likely to be from the Labour right than the left. Many of these MPs lost their seats in 2019 (Jenny Chapman, Phil Wilson, etc)

[CumbrianLefty]

Though conversely, most of the Labour MP intake from 2015 onwards is somewhat more left wing.

(this is true generally, but may be a bit more so in the North)

[Geoffrey Howe]

Would I be wrong in thinking that the regional divide between North and South also contributes to the divisions in Labour?

Like from studying in the UK even I managed to notice the differences in attitudes and politics between students from the North vs. students from the South. I'd assume that may carry over to intra-party politics

As a Labour party member from London I'm perhaps not the best to give a good answer but my assumption is that there is a split but it doesn't fit that well into North v South. It ties into the rather complex definition of what the North is, the differences between the regions & also fundamentally the difference between urban & non-urban areas.

The biggest contribution is probably that a lot of the Labour party does not understand large parts of the country it wants to govern; Lisa Nandy had quite a good line about how people in Labour just think that we should pump loads of money into Northern cities- without focusing on the fact that most people see these cities as distant.

In terms of the leadership elections the North-West was always seen as a stronghold for the left; Corbyn did very well in the region & cleaned up in 2016 (he picked up a lot of people who voted for Andy Burnham in 2015)

The PLP (Labour MPs) tends to be a more mixed bags; those MPs in Northern seats aren't generally more left wing- some of this came from the fact that the MPs were selected back in 2005 or 2010 when you were naturally more likely to be from the Labour right than the left. Many of these MPs lost their seats in 2019 (Jenny Chapman, Phil Wilson, etc)

Do you have any geographical results for the leadership elections?

[Blair]

Would I be wrong in thinking that the regional divide between North and South also contributes to the divisions in Labour?

Like from studying in the UK even I managed to notice the differences in attitudes and politics between students from the North vs. students from the South. I'd assume that may carry over to intra-party politics

As a Labour party member from London I'm perhaps not the best to give a good answer but my assumption is that there is a split but it doesn't fit that well into North v South. It ties into the rather complex definition of what the North is, the differences between the regions & also fundamentally the difference between urban & non-urban areas.

The biggest contribution is probably that a lot of the Labour party does not understand large parts of the country it wants to govern; Lisa Nandy had quite a good line about how people in Labour just think that we should pump loads of money into Northern cities- without focusing on the fact that most people see these cities as distant.

In terms of the leadership elections the North-West was always seen as a stronghold for the left; Corbyn did very well in the region & cleaned up in 2016 (he picked up a lot of people who voted for Andy Burnham in 2015)

The PLP (Labour MPs) tends to be a more mixed bags; those MPs in Northern seats aren't generally more left wing- some of this came from the fact that the MPs were selected back in 2005 or 2010 when you were naturally more likely to be from the Labour right than the left. Many of these MPs lost their seats in 2019 (Jenny Chapman, Phil Wilson, etc)

Do you have any geographical results for the leadership elections?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4e/CLP_Nominations_2020.png/1200px-CLP_Nominations_2020.png

The CLP nominations are actually quite a good benchmark; I don't think we have the results by region but I might be wrong.