This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Polls for the latest by-election aren't looking good even as the national polls improve.

https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1389458290170634244

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I think labour needs to cut ties with the Union, they don't realy make sense given the present economic structure. Gig workers, Professionals and Free Lancers don't really benefit from the Gig Economy.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I also forget to make a glib point about Liverpool not always being a socialist city- it was iirc ran by the Conservatives at a local level until the 1970s?

Wasn't it also run after the whole Militant diaster by the lib dems until around 2010 ? Labour local rule seems to be the exception rather than the norm.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

People have been doing the same ad nauseam with Boris Johnson and he isn't as universally reviled as Corbyn. I think it's because has some redeeming features - humourous, intelligent, annoys the right people - which Corbyn didn't have.

I mean Corbyn always seemed empathetic and caring even the polls showed that his ratings on that metric were higher than Boris's. A lot of people forget his empathetic response to Grenfell Tower fire compared to May's percived robotic response was the moment momentum in the 2017 campagin shifted.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

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.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

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. 

Typically incisive contribution from you

The primary cause of the Corbyn insurgency was that "prosperity and wealth" in the UK is skewed.

Again this militant rhetoric isn't helpful "insurgency" and other such terms make you look like a radical loon. Labour can't win an election without winning moderate voters.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Why can't the labour party just be a normal party ? why does it insisit on shoving all it's dirty laundry in public ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Rather pointed statment by Starmer: "He said he came into politics "to go into government to change millions of lives", not "lose and then tweet about it".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58718835.amp

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Is Zara sultana actually a week candidat or is that just media hype ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Interesting, I looked up the constituency results and it seems to have been a very narrowly remaining area. What exactly constitutes the labour party membership in places like that? How hard is it to trigger a reselection ?.

She's one of the few labour MP's I'm familiar with, but I do get a distinct impression of her aiming to be british AOC in terms of profile which just strikes me as silly.

Also this might be a little bit of a side question but exactly what state is the local labour party is in in ultra-Brexit constituencies like Walsall Nort, Stock-on-Tent and others ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

An open question to the Labour hivemind- has anyone noticed a big turnout drop in CLP activity?

I can't work out if it's a covid-related hangover or just a result of losing 100,000 members- but we've seen a branch meetings drop by about 25% with posts unfilled & our CLP turnout has dropped.

Other than the great fog horn that went out for the Batley & Spen by-election it also seems that they're struggling to get teams out across the country in the numbers we once could.

What do CLP's generally do in this lul period with few elections external/internal or other political events?

Do they mainly become social clubs or something ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

My CLP is still doing meetings via Zoom, which makes the situation worse than it would otherwise be.

Those sound like torture to me.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

My CLP is still doing meetings via Zoom, which makes the situation worse than it would otherwise be.

Those sound like torture to me.

So you're familiar with CLP meetings, then?

Online political meetings are generally torturous everywhere.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Out of curiosity what is it specificaly about trotskists that make them the biggest entryists into the labour party and why is Trot kinda generic insult against leftists in the UK ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

In fact the Militant "takeover" of Liverpool (and even at their absolute peak, they were a clear minority there - which gives some indications of how they exercised their control) can best be seen as a mix of far leftism and a kind of Scouse nationalism, which was quite intoxicating to many for a short while.

If militant never controlled the labour council, how did they manage to become so unpopular that Kinnock had to denounce them ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Online political meetings are generally torturous everywhere.

Oh offline CLP meetings are equally unpleasant.

I think that's fairly universal with regards to all political meetings with nominal allies. I don't think anyone sane actively enjoyed them

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

How good of a source is this video documentary ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIgiV8yn3xU&t=191s

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

An amusing amount of rubbish from Mr Tony in the Times today.

I wonder if the leaving out of his surname is rather delibrate.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Britain's most prominent - and certainly most successful - Dengist.

Well Dengism was inspired from Singapore, so I would quite like more details.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

In terms of leadership, is the Shadow chancellor nor the deputy leader generaly considerd the better office for those with leadership ambitions ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1470822969010184192
Might take some of the wind out of the sails of his fans given how extreme their support of anti-covid measures havve become.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/AaronBastani/status/1466033275462467584?s=19
Why did this person have a media role ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/labour-is-training-up-a-new-generation-of-competent-and-normal-future-mps
Hillarious headline, but hopefuly it works out well. Already attracted factional controversy though.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

What makes it hard to attract quality people to run for office ? being an MP seems like a nice and cushy job ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

SNIP

This seems to be a flaw of FPTP given the duality of the role, thought PR systems aren't exactly much better in terms of quality of parlimenterains. Generally speaking, are the Liberal democrats more flexible in terms of the qualifications of candidates than labour? and is it true that the conservative then to have a more central vetting system