This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Conservatopia]

Yes I loled at the idea of a gigantic "vaccine boost".  For thr record we are expecting to be destroyed in the election, vaccine or no vaccine.  But I think local independenys may benefit more than Labour from a Tory collapse.

That said I wouldn't be surprised if we somehow outpeform but I doubt it would be because of a "vaccine boost".

[Conservatopia]

Saying the Tories will be "destroyed" does also suggest a bit of pre-emptive spin tbph

I have no reason to 'spin' though.  I genuinely think we will be walloped.

Compare polling now to when the last time these seats were up for election.

[Conservatopia]

Saying the Tories will be "destroyed" does also suggest a bit of pre-emptive spin tbph

I have no reason to 'spin' though.  I genuinely think we will be walloped.

Compare polling now to when the last time these seats were up for election.

That certainly applies to the seats last fought in 2017, but with those from a year earlier a bit less.

Yes I suppose you are right.  Plus of course the #trends that have happened since then.  For example BathNES is very different politically now compared to then.

[Conservatopia]

Obvious caveat that as a rightwinger I am no expert on the "once great movement of yours" but I genuinely think Starmer is doing as good a job as can be expected.

Yes Starmer's team has made a couple of unforced errors but have any of them really cut through to the electorate?  Plus it's not like the Tories are the Wizards of Politics either - just look at all the famous U-turns!  Furthermore I think that unlike Labour's the Tories' flubs have actually cut through.

My next point is that with the election so far away it doesn't really matter if Labour isn't "20 points ahead" right now.  Over the next 3 years the Conservatives are bound to make some ludicrous mistakes (it's kinda our thing) and Labour will inevitably take the lead at some point.

Starmer is accused of being "boring" and not sitting on the fence on issues.  Now this is definitely true.  But so what?  The public don't really mind "boring" politicians.  Furthermore on the "culture war" issues the public tends to favour the right's point of view so sitting on the fence is probably better than doubling down on an unpopular opinion.  This is especially the case for issues such as the while trans thing - the average person are way more transphobic/sensible (delete as appropriate) than they would admit.  This also applies to the recent policing saga.  Polling actually showed that the public supported the actions of the police towards the protesting women!!  The same goes for the Bill (of Kill the Bill fame).  The public support it so the best poor Keir can do is triangulate.  It's the least bad option for him so I don't think he should be blamed for taking it.

An aside to the above but I think Keir's "progressive patriotism" is something that could be quite popular if Labour can convince people that it is sincere.

Lastly oppositions don't tend to pull ahead in the polls within a year of electoral defeat.  Granted we are actually in the second year but the pandemic has kind of screwed the model somewhat.

That was long and I imagine I'm probably preaching to the converted but I really, honestly and truly think that Starmer is doing just fine and doesn't really need to change anything.  Screw the Times.

[Conservatopia]

Timms is, and always has been, an outspoken Christian.  Why is it surprising or wrong that he would think this way?

[Conservatopia]

Yes, but mainly because of the media. Most actual Labour people aren't like that at all.

True.  Most lefties are decent chaps and this HuffPost article is the height of naffness.

But there does seem to be a large segment of the wider left that viscerally hates the Tories and sees every Tory politician as evil or "cruel".  And then by extension, sees every Tory voter as evil.

It isn't really like that on the right.  For instance I'm far-right but that doesn't mean I hate Labour voters.  I would never vote Labour but I do have a large fondness for the party.  There are definitely many others who feel the same as me.  You don't typically see rightwingers going on TV telling people that Labour is wicked and has "deliberately killed 200,000 people with their economic policies" do you?

The closest it gets is rightwingers seeing Labour voters as stupid or ignorant - but never evil.

[Conservatopia]

This is a weird reshuffle; which just sees Dodds, Reeves & Rayner switch places. Dodds getting sacked would be the leading story if it wasn't for the dust up between Starmer & Rayner...

I assume the junior positions are staying the same. If they are then it's barely a reshuffle, and seems quite similar to the botched & weird one that Ed M had to do in 2011 after Alan Johnson left.

Also I just realised the fabled return of Hillary Benn & Yvette Cooper hasn't happened...

Apparently the Times specifically requested that Cooper and Benn be left out otherwise they would have nothing to write about on Sunday mornings.

[Conservatopia]

This is one of those good tests of seeing how far certain people are willing to go to defend their faction...

And who will turn it into a usual concern troll about Labour, while sharing a spiked online article about how Labour are hypocrites, and criticising Labour, which is all some self-proclaimed (ex-)Labour progressives seem to care about. This thread is evidence itself that Clegg was right : when you get a bunch of Labour people into a room or forum, they only talk about the internal workings of the faction. When you get Tories in a room, they talk about power and maintaining it.

And when you get LibDems in a room they share weird graphs, joke about who's broken the most promises and tell each other that they're "winning here".

[Conservatopia]

Came here to post that

Starmer has given an interview to the new entity which is called Progressive Britain.  It's boring and full of cliché.

Also Burnham has an interview in the Observer this am which is mildly interesting although he says nothing in particular that we didn't know already.

[Conservatopia]

Came here to post that

Starmer has given an interview to the new entity which is called Progressive Britain.  It's boring and full of cliché.

Also Burnham has an interview in the Observer this am which is mildly interesting although he says nothing in particular that we didn't know already.

I thought it was relatively newsworthy as he very heavily hints towards running for a Westminster seat in 2023/2034- as much as I like Andy (I voted for him in 2015) it does smell of fighting the last battle to pick him after we lose an election!

Yup, that seems about the right time frame for the run up to the next Labour turn in office ...

That's still a couple of hundred years earlier than the 1000-year Tory Reich that some are predicting...

[Conservatopia]

Reports a "fly on the wall" documentary about Starmer's leadership could be in the offing.

Well......what could possibly go wrong?

Keir Starmer is Peter Mannion.

[Conservatopia]

I wonder if there could be a (symbolic) confidence vote called rather than a full blown election?  That is the route the anti-Corbyn plotters went down.

[Conservatopia]

It would be nice if right wing outriders like Ben Bradshaw would just shut up, though - Starmer isn't going to use a narrow Labour hold to wreak vengeance on his "disloyal enemies" and nor should he. Instead, he should use this reprieve to practice proper "big tent" internal politics.

Ben Bradshaw is a tool, albeit not the sharpest one in the box.

[Conservatopia]

Rosie Duffield is rapidly becoming my favourite Labour MP.

[Conservatopia]

Good to see the Observer got their rubbish in on time.

All we are waiting for now is the weekly Sunday Times hot-take article and then we should be all set.

[Conservatopia]

Apparently there are more Tories in Unite than the voter turnout.

Not that that's particularly surprising when you think about it.

[Conservatopia]

Reports in the Mirror that the trigger ballot rules for Labour MPs are set to be made harder to well trigger.

Proposals to make a leadership challenge against Starmer more difficult - the bar was lowered to 22% of MPs under Corbyn - and diluting the trigger ballot process for MPs' reselections, may be on the agenda, but are not yet ironed out.

Ironically both these changes would hurt the Progress part of the Labour Right.

They will one day want to trigger a leadership challenge but only have at best 30 MPs. Equally the best chances to deselect MPs will be the 2019 intake who weren't selected by the membership & in some cases are not exactly suited for their seats.

I think making the bar 50% of branches is sensible- but honestly why not just make it members at large rather than branches?

I know it's heresy to say but I'm surprised there isn't more of a stink about affiliates having any power in trigger ballots- in some cases the affiliates are literal sock puppets of either the sitting MP, or the parent organisation.

Much like the hilarious leadership nomination rules the current system is a confusing compromise that will one day cause a lot of tears.

Just count your blessings that your membership has some measure of power.

[Conservatopia]

The only things I liked about the article were its analysis of 2001 (which we don't hear enough about) and the fact that it largely avoided going too far down the "wrong brother" rabbit hole.

Apart from that it seemed like it was just saying "ackshully Labour lost power because it was TOO good in government."

[Conservatopia]

To state the obvious - had David won we would have called him the wrong brother too.

[Conservatopia]

It always annoys me that no-one mentions Welsh Labour- it’s the most effective part of the party, with broadly the strongest performing MPs and a leader who was popular enough to feature on leaflets.

Tbf this is due in no small part to the hilarious Taff Tory Party.  I've seen it close up and believe me a turnout machine it is not.  The only half decent campaign I've seen from them was 2015 in Gower but of course they didn't even try retain that seat in '17.  Total jokers.

Not saying that Llafur isn't a canny party - it is.  But the Tories there being a disaster doesn't hurt.

[Conservatopia]

The hypothesis fits the information that we have and nothing else does.

I might be missing something, but isn't it a fallacy to base an argument about turnout off of the number of dead voters?

I don't mean to be rude, but I think you've not thought this argument through. Turnout drops in the UK in the 90s occurred across age cohorts; even the *living* 65+ y/o voters showed up less after 1992. Also, declines in turnout occurred during the 90s and 00s almost everywhere: in the US, UK, Canada, NZ, France (started in the 80s, actually), and even Australia (it was, like, 1 point, but still). If your theory of generational replacement were true - and we're talking about voter age cohort proportions and not turnout because, again, dead people don't vote no matter what the GOP says - then you'd see proportional drops in each country depending on life expectancy and age/population distribution.*

For the hell of it, as an alternative theory based on a modicum of statistical data, perhaps it's the *other* side of the generational span that's the culprit? Starting after the Cold War young people didn't become first time voters the way preceding generations did. That's born out by age-bracketed turnout data in the UK and Canada, but admittedly a lot more analysis would be needed to offer a serious argument.

As for Corbyn, he was clearly closer to the 'right answer' (whatever that's supposed to mean) to the question posed by the collapse of late 20th/early 21st century neoliberalism than the Labour right or the Lib Dems or the Greens or even the pre-UKIP-absorption Tories were able to offer - he did get 40% of the vote, after all. If the pearl clutching centrists of 2015-2017 had had the humility to stop looking down their noses at him, they might have had a chance to use Corbyn to preserve the world they built - and have subsequently lost.

*Also, your subsequent attribution of the pre-baby boom generation's high turnout to formative experiences instilling hostility to 'populism' seems more like wishful thinking (or is it projection?)

This is a certified Labour Left moment. "the collapse of neoliberalism!" as Britons enjoy prosperity and wealth, "Corbyn got 40%," ignoring his 33% 2 years later. 

I do think this is a missing factor out of a lot of analaysis. Who were these 7% of voters who backed Corbyn in 2017 but left in 2020. In terms of seat Labour primarly shed working-class red wall seats but in popular conception it seems like most voters who left were pro-EU or middle-class voters disastifed with the parties ambigious brexit poistion.

From what I recall, Labour lost about equal parts of its 2017 vote to the Lib Dems and the Tories, but the biggest fall came from non-voters, i.e. 2017 Labour voters who just didn't turn up at all.

This is correct.  The Tories captured a lot of the fabled Red Wall seats without really increasing their raw votes much.  Rather, a drop in Labour turnout delivered those seats to the blue column.

[Conservatopia]

Owen Jones did recently quote a Labour MP "close to Starmer" who said some in the party apparatus were set on a mass, and permanent, expulsion of the entire left from the party. 

Well if Owen Jones said it then it must be true.

[Conservatopia]

What is THIGMOO?

I'm sure one of our resident Labourites would explain it better than this nasty Tory could but it means "This Great Movement of Ours" and refers to the wider labour/trades union movement.  I suspect Al is using it semi ironically to refer to the infighting and factionism that sadly plagues the Labour Party and has been a tradition nearly from the start.

[Conservatopia]

The Labour benches do seem to be somewhat lacking in character and "big names" - mostly as a result of being out of government for so long rather than through any fault of the party.

I wasn't alive in '94 but was the situation similar back then or were there some well-known, popular people on the benches?

[Conservatopia]

How necessary is a deputy leadership position anyway though?

Obviously you don't want to go full Tory with practically no internal democracy but might the left actually have been onto something when they wanted to abolish the deputy?

Sorry - whisky thoughts from me.