Topic: Doesn't matter who you vote for as long as it's for the right reasons!

[Elmo!]

That's just not true mate, I have no dog in all this infighting (I'm not a member, Labour don't stand candidates where I live), I would like to see a Labour government because I believe that's what's best for me and my loved ones and most people and I want the party to get it together. However I'm seeing people like Sian get piled on for no reason, posters calling people Tories that were complaining about Red Tories when it was Corbyn, like I have said previously it's literally a mirror of when Corbyn was leader and the same people complaining about Starmer not getting a fair shake were doing the exact same thing themselves and it's just dishonest. And if anything the negativity is a lot less than it was back then, like who really is a 'Corbyn loyalist' Sian? Cpt_Reina who comes in to post a poll every so often (like people gleefully posted the worst polls under Corbyn)? I've seen a few people say he's been mediocre, well he has, that doesn't make somebody a Corbyn loyalist just because they don't think he's doing a swimmingly great job, I agree but that doesn't mean that he shouldn't be given a chance at a GE and if we are going off what a couple random loonies on twitter (that 99.9% of the voting public have 0 awareness of or will have seen) like Andy has posted, then I'm sure you could find the same at the time in regards to Corbyn.

Like seriously people gotta stop looking through the lens of Corbyn or Starmer because you are all as bad as each other, the roles have just reversed and it's not going to get anyone anywhere.

As another outsider, this is my experience as well. With a few exceptions you are all as bad as each other and until you can get over it collectively as a party, Labour and sonsequently the UK is fucked.

[west_london_red]

Ha ha. Very good.

Either way, the man is a grade-A cretin.

He is but it highlights the issues the Party faces. If a sitting MP draws and sees such lazy lines what chance of getting the electorate to see through such nonsense.

[Linudden]

edit: Seems about right for where we are, BBC election 'ifs and buts' projection.

Con: 327 (-38)
Lab: 226 (+23)
Lib Dems: 24 (+13)
Others: 73 (+2)

Aren't the Lib Dems always doing comparatively well in council elections? I'd guess most of their "pick ups" would be Tory in a GE. Labour's result seems about right the way things are right now maybe a few more in a GE at the cost of the Lib Dems.

Even so, Labour should be ahead in the polls right now for obvious reasons. In the early 10's they were quite far ahead of Cameron until it closed up right at the end and then a shock majority ensued.

[The Real Rasta]

Corbyn loyalists are those who turned against Labour from the day that their man was no longer leader. Who are a monolithic group, probably fuelled by social media, united by their regard for their man and the faction he represents. Some of their number didn't vote Labour before Corbyn, won't vote Labour after Corbyn, yet they are defended by the others too as true believers in the proper left. Because they are united by their regard for their man and the faction he represents.

I'll leave you to it mate cause I think you quite clearly have a bug bear about some people you don't agree with/like that have a different viewpoint to yourself.

[west_london_red]

As another outsider, this is my experience as well. With a few exceptions you are all as bad as each other and until you can get over it collectively as a party, Labour and sonsequently the UK is fucked.

Likewise, as a non-active member Rasta sums up the situation perfectly. It’s tiresome, childish and self destructive, no one other then the Tories win from the constant sniping at each other.

[Yorkykopite]

The point about Corbynism isn't the man himself, but what his supporters project onto him. Corbyn is just the shibboleth by which they identify themselves. I actually don't have too many problems with him the individual, moreso with his supporters.

Don't wish to sidetrack the argument into Corbyn, but this is surely wrong. Corbyn had a long and dishonourable parliamentary and extra-parliamentary record. No projection was needed. Everything was there to see. There may have been a bit of Clive Dunn projection going among his younger supporters. ("Grandad, grandad, you're lovely..") But on the whole what his fans said he was, he was.

[Sangria]

Don't wish to sidetrack the argument into Corbyn, but this is surely wrong. Corbyn had a long and dishonourable parliamentary and extra-parliamentary record. No projection was needed. Everything was there to see. There may have been a bit of Clive Dunn projection going among his younger supporters. ("Grandad, grandad, you're lovely..") But on the whole what his fans said he was, he was.

He might have been all these things, but I didn't have too much of a problem with it. Broad church and all that.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

I'll leave you to it mate cause I think you quite clearly have a bug bear about some people you don't agree with/like that have a different viewpoint to yourself.

Not sure that's true. A couple of my best mates admit freely that they are Socialist and Labour, but didn't vote for Blair and didn't vote for Milliband but did vote for Corbyn and won't vote for Starmer.

But then it all gets a bit odd because (Although I did vote for Corbyn) - they said that it was my duty to vote for Corbyn. I replied that I did, in fact, vote for Corbyn but felt that it was a bit out of order them telling other people who they must vote for when they freely admit that they withheld their own vote.

Seemed (And still seems) a bit hypocritical to me..?

[Welshred]

Your friends seem like the type of people who would vote for a Socialist Workers Party but use the Labour Party because its the closest they'd every get to power Andy. Them only voting for Corbyn out all those mentioned proves it.

[Dr. Beaker]

Good post Doc. Very astute on Johnson. Blair's never worked for me either. A bit too drippy. But he did have the capacity to make people hope for better things, which is half the trick of politics.

Big question though. Perhaps genuine passion - of the Kinnock kind say - is impossible in politics now? And perhaps we're all to blame for that. Forty of fifty years of political satire aimed at the Establishment has done for it. The British public is more liable to laugh at a passionate politician than want to follow him or her. We are all too ironic for that now maybe.

And before anyone says Corbyn showed passion....no he didn't. His mien was a bank manager's mien.  Not even that actually. He was the bloke that filed the bank manager's letters. (Nasal whine: "Mr Blenkinsopp, I've put the correspondence about Mrs Sutcliffe's overdraft in the buff folder next to her grey folder in the filing cabinet number fourteen. And you have a meeting at 2.30 with Hezbollah. Thank you.") 

Funnily enough though, if we still had Spitting Image in some meaningful form, it would surely be the end of Johnson.

And as for that last paragraph...

[StevoHimself]

The British public is more liable to laugh at a passionate politician than want to follow him or her. We are all too ironic for that now maybe.

I think most people just have total disdain for the idea of "a politician." Are there many you can really say you like or trust? People are starting to realise that the system just isn't designed to help them. "There all the same" is one of my least favourite clichés, but it's becoming harder and harder to argue with. The constant anti-Labour message from the tabloid media won't have helped Starmer but he isn't helping himself very much either. I know a few young people (Labour supporters) who are very switched on politically who chose not to vote in this election. If you're not inspiring people with your policies then you have to be likeable at the very least.

For all of Trump's faults (openly xenophobic, lack of substance, the inability to string a sentence together), people liked that he was a character. He wasn't one of those. Americans tend to like a memorable name and face. He said dozens of things that would force UK politicians to stand down, he was hated by a lot of the media (and weaponised it quite cleverly) and still managed a term as President. Frankly, I'm still shocked he lost the last election - he was very unpopular with a lot of people too, I suppose.

Basically you need someone who people are passionate enough to get behind and who can unify the majority of people, ideally someone who doesn't feel so entrenched in the system. Dennis Skinner would never have been allowed to lead the Labour Party, but I do wonder how the British public would have took to him. I know people who have met Corbyn. He's a good politician, probably a good person, but he's a bit of a bore.

[Zeb]

Aren't the Lib Dems always doing comparatively well in council elections? I'd guess most of their "pick ups" would be Tory in a GE. Labour's result seems about right the way things are right now maybe a few more in a GE at the cost of the Lib Dems.

Even so, Labour should be ahead in the polls right now for obvious reasons. In the early 10's they were quite far ahead of Cameron until it closed up right at the end and then a shock majority ensued.

Would have to check for before but since their 2015 shellacking their local results have run ahead of their GE results, yeah. They've always tended to be a 'none of the others' vote on a much smaller core vote. There's a possibility that they've been replaced by the Greens for that 'protest' vote in some areas at the moment.

Not sure about right now for a Labour lead, one of the striking things across England, Wales, and Scotland so far is that the party in national government has done well regardless of who it is. Point that Labour need/should be doing better is fair though and the whys of it not is much froth and noise.

----

edit: Emma Burnell is pretty soft left-ish. Think this gives a better idea of what is meant by reaching across to more voters than the 'can we have our racists back' jokes. Don't personally agree with everything in it but gives a sense of the change being discussed in parts of the party.

Spoiler

What is the Labour Party for? This should be a simple question for any member to answer. But I’m not sure I can today.

Labour was established to be the party of a working class that no longer exists. The industrialised classes have long since become atomised. Large organised workplaces aren’t quite obsolete, but in the private sector, they have become rarer and rarer. This has meant organised labour has shrunk significantly as a percentage of the workforce.

The response to this has not been a modernisation of unions. What happened in the 90s was a gobbling up of smaller unions into the big ones. Unite. Unison. GMB. Usdaw, NEU and Community. While smaller unions still exist these hold the lion’s share of membership and all but the NEU are affiliated to the Labour Party. As there became fewer, larger unions, their influence in the party changed. Now it was just a few men (and it was nearly always men) with huge money and thus influence to wield. Some did this well on behalf of their members but for others, it was about their own personal political ideologies and obsessions. Too much uncountered power in the hands of too few people. Not exactly the Socialist way I grew up believing in.

Internally, the unions became professionalised. More and more, union central staff were not people who had risen through the ranks from the shop floor, but people who were white-collar ideologues, wedded to the idea of unionism, but with little experience of the sharp end of need.

Need makes a difference. Need makes you practical and pragmatic. Need allows you to take the values that you live by and apply them not to a theoretical framework but to everyday life.

The ongoing demise of the unions has not made them look again at how they do things in any demonstrable way. You still have union officials playing at revolutionary politics from the comfort of their very comfortable homes. Their approach to lower membership is to try to poach each other’s members - not reach out to the new precariat or work out how to reach into small workplaces. There has been some organising of the gig economy, but nothing like enough to get real density.

This makes a difference to the Labour Party. It used to be the unions who brought in working class voters and leaders to the party. But we now don’t look to people’s knowledge or experience. We ask them to demonstrate their nostalgia instead. We measure the dedication of a Labour leader to unionism by whether they attend the Durham Miner’s Gala - not by how they think about how to innovate conditions for working people.

I started with the unions because so did the Labour Party. The party has far greater problems than its fraught relationship with the unions, but let’s start with that.

Blair could have used his considerable clout to work with the unions to find a new way of working and try to halt their decline. he chose instead to sideline them. It was on his watch that the unions went - ironically - from the centre, where they had been a hold on the party in the 1980s to the left, where they became hotbeds of anti-Blair organising. Brown did little to change this. Miliband owed his victory to the unions and first tried to court them, then following Falkirk, instigated rules meant to dilute their influence. Corbyn was then elected and while he took more interest in relationships with the top of the unions (particularly Unite) he was as uninterested as that leadership in doing things differently than they had in the 1970s.

I’ve framed this through the unions because I think this is an exemplar of what Labour’s problems are. We are stuck in an unworkable past. We believe we are appealing to a public that doesn’t exist, while our constant obsessions are turning off the voters who do.

Labour is not going to stop its personality-based infighting any time soon. Those who believe this result is a hangover from Corbynism won’t be convinced otherwise. Those who believe this is the fault of Starmer will continue to blame him. For myself, I think the problems run deeper than who is at the top. But when Corbyn had a similar result in the local elections I was excoriating. Starmer deserves no less.

The truth is Labour has been on a downward trajectory for many years and that remains unarrested by Starmer. But the buck stops with him. He has now to take significant steps to change the party not simple from the excesses and antisemitism of the Corbyn era, but also from the caution of Miliband and the excesses and hubris of the Blair era.

Labour doesn’t have a narrative about the future. It has a nostalgia for the past. We bang on about fights that were won years ago. We treat Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson as if he were Margaret Thatcher despite his considerably different economic language. None of this works. We don’t live in those days any more. We can’t keep talking as if we were living in the 70s, 80s or 90s (delete as per your preference of Labour era).

It also has a sense of itself as far better than you are. Labour members believe they *care* more than you do. About everything. You are a hick. A hayseed. A racist, sexist, homophobic TORY. We treat the voters as the enemy. There’s a story in Paul Waugh’s email responding to the results where when a voter tells a canvasser they are voting Tory, the canvasser replies "you’d better check your values”. Labour members all too often hate the real electorate while romanticising a fantasy proletariate.

This is what voters hear from Labour constantly. Dammit, it’s what Labour members hear from each other constantly. While at the same time we are worse than useless at dealing with those who are either guilty of serious and repeated antisemitism or sexism or even sexual abuse. There are people who need to hear these things in the party. But they aren’t generally the ones who get hunted down on social media. The more ordinary members get witch-hunted, the weaker it is when we try to deal with those who are really a problem.

But internal change from what we are is not remotely enough. Not being the Tories is clearly not remotely enough. Harking back to either Blairism or Corbynism is not enough.

Labour needs to sort out its relationship with the voters. It has to bring real people into the party beyond our urban, middle class backbone. It has to have a language that appeals not to segments of society but to everyone.

Labour must go back to basics. It’s a cursed phrase because when John Major said it he meant a set of values that neither those Tories then nor this Labour party now could live up to. But for Labour, the basics should be an understanding of what government is for and what it isn’t. It’s about talking about the things the majority cares about.

That doesn’t mean pandering on immigration. It means talking about those things that immigrants and the British-born have in common. Back to basics. A decent secure home, a decent secure job, a decent, secure future for your family. No matter your age, sex, gender, race these are the things we all care about. These are the things that bring us together.

I have never felt so despondent about the future of the Labour Party. I don’t know if it will survive this Pasokification and at the moment I am not sure it deserves to.

[close]

[No666]

Aren't the Lib Dems always doing comparatively well in council elections? I'd guess most of their "pick ups" would be Tory in a GE. Labour's result seems about right the way things are right now maybe a few more in a GE at the cost of the Lib Dems.

Even so, Labour should be ahead in the polls right now for obvious reasons. In the early 10's they were quite far ahead of Cameron until it closed up right at the end and then a shock majority ensued.

Don't know if the Lib Dem vote is down to the local issue or the pro-EU centrist Tories defecting. My neck of the woods, the Tory margin was drastically reduced in the last election and these elections they have lost control of the county council with the Lib Dems doing well, while Labour has done well in the city of Cambridge. Hints at a realliance of centrist voters, perhaps, the people who wouldn't vote either Corbyn or Johnson.

[The Real Rasta]

Not sure that's true. A couple of my best mates admit freely that they are Socialist and Labour, but didn't vote for Blair and didn't vote for Milliband but did vote for Corbyn and won't vote for Starmer.

But then it all gets a bit odd because (Although I did vote for Corbyn) - they said that it was my duty to vote for Corbyn. I replied that I did, in fact, vote for Corbyn but felt that it was a bit out of order them telling other people who they must vote for when they freely admit that they withheld their own vote.

Seemed (And still seems) a bit hypocritical to me..?

You may not have seen it Andy but Sangria seems to have an issue with a very small set of people (who may be a vocal minority I can’t say for sure cause I’m just not coming across them like that), what he is calling the ‘liberal left’ who he thinks are also Corbyn loyalists and projecting that onto a much larger group that doesn’t exist imo, that’s what I was referring to and something you seem to be doing yourself in regards to the company you keep’s views.



I don’t think anyone disagrees that in some cases Corbyn was the first time people have voted Labour or first time in a while and have not voted this time, however it’s been posted on here before most people who voted for Starmer also voted for Corbyn or the majority of people who voted for Corbyn voted for Starmer something along those lines I’m sure someone like Zeb would know for sure, I just don’t think these people exist in any great number or have any significance to the general voting public like it’s getting made out to be.

[Enders]

Anyone calling out people calling out Starmer for being a bit shit need calling out for calling them out as Corbyn supporters?

Is that where we've got to?

[oldfordie]

I think most people just have total disdain for the idea of "a politician." Are there many you can really say you like or trust? People are starting to realise that the system just isn't designed to help them. "There all the same" is one of my least favourite clichés, but it's becoming harder and harder to argue with. The constant anti-Labour message from the tabloid media won't have helped Starmer but he isn't helping himself very much either. I know a few young people (Labour supporters) who are very switched on politically who chose not to vote in this election. If you're not inspiring people with your policies then you have to be likeable at the very least.

For all of Trump's faults (openly xenophobic, lack of substance, the inability to string a sentence together), people liked that he was a character. He wasn't one of those. Americans tend to like a memorable name and face. He said dozens of things that would force UK politicians to stand down, he was hated by a lot of the media (and weaponised it quite cleverly) and still managed a term as President. Frankly, I'm still shocked he lost the last election - he was very unpopular with a lot of people too, I suppose.

Basically you need someone who people are passionate enough to get behind and who can unify the majority of people, ideally someone who doesn't feel so entrenched in the system. Dennis Skinner would never have been allowed to lead the Labour Party, but I do wonder how the British public would have took to him. I know people who have met Corbyn. He's a good politician, probably a good person, but he's a bit of a bore.

The public are clueless when it comes to judging a politician.
I think many of us have forgotten just what has happened over the last few yrs.
Lying selfish corrupt politicians like Johnson +Trump have won over millions of gullible people who seem impressed by their nasty statements and absurd simple arguments. at the same time these same people have attacked and ridiculed decent genuine politicians who sacrificed their own careers and safety to expose these charlatans for what they are.
They did a fantastic job doing this so I lay no blame or criticism on them. the blame lays with ignorant voters who closed their ears waiting for the chance to cheer on the lying politicians and the clueless career politicians. I agree about people dismissing all criticism of Johnson+Trump with simple flawed arguments of all politicians lie and all politicians are only it for themselves, this has also done tremendous damage as am sure we will see far more selfish corrupt career politicians for many years to come, why should any genuine intelligent politician want to be a Labour MP or even Tory MP today when the people they are fighting to defend attack and ridicule them for being useless or a career politicians.
I honestly don't know all the answers but I do know we have to start making lying politicians accountable, Trump +the Republicans have now taken the lies to the extreme, US democracy is under threat by selfish corrupt right win politicians. the UKs future looks bleak as I see no long term recovery. the fallout from this doesn't need to be explained. will the public lay the blame on the people who deserve it? am not sure they will.

[classycarra]

Sorry but where are on earth are you intending to end up with this back and forth? I'm pointing out that Sangria was not someone who quietened down when Corbyn was elected, they then proceeded to up the ante on their criticism of him after the referendum before implying that voting for Labour is not something that they could do. It was a means to show that the parallels are there when it comes to how the previous leader and the current leader are criticised - I'm not the only one in this thread over the last 24 hours who has pointed out that this "Criticism of Starmer is unfair in ways that criticism of Corbyn was not" rhetoric is a convenient misrepresentation of the reality. If you want to take some specific comments from me about not needing to vote Labour because of where I live and then say "Well, Sangria didn't say exactly that did he?" then that's fair enough I suppose, but it does feel like quite a significant moving of the goalposts. Maybe I'm getting the wrong end of the stick with your point? Please let me know if so.

I'll stop now though - as many on both 'sides' of this are saying, stuff like this isn't getting us anywhere. The truth is that we all disagree so aggressively on 10% of things that we don't focus on the other 90% of things that we do agree on.

Yep, I think you have got the wrong end of the stick. I think you're reading too much into my posts, which I think have been quite clear in their limited scope.

Half the stuff in your first paragraph reads like things people might be arguing over on a twitter labour bubble but the rhetoric isn't something I've been pushing. Seems like sleepwalking into a tried and tested argument that hasn't actually been started.

All I was doing was observing a difference between something you had suggested had an equivalence when looking back at those who were critical of Corbyn's performance - I don't recall Sangria or others who shared the view ever saying I'll probably never vote labour again based on Corbyn's first twelve months, nor do I remember anyone celebrating not voting as being a great thing.

[Libertine]

Trouble brewing for the Tories. This is the political version of Rafa's blanket - you can't keep all the parts of your coalition happy. Steer to the right to attract pro-Brexit cultural conservatives and the graduates in the cities and suburbs will desert them in droves....


@Samfr
If you'd predicted even a decade ago that one day the Tories would win the Tees Valley mayoralty with 73% of the vote and lose control of Tunbridge Wells council on the same day you'd have been laughed out of the room...

Tunbridge Wells isn't an isolated example either. Tories lost 14 seats in Surrey; 8 in West Sussex; lost Isle of Wight to NOC; lost Canterbury. The London outflow votes are starting to have a real impact.

For now this has less electoral significance than the Tory red wall breakthroughs but over time the number of culturally liberal grads is going to increase and the number of cultural conservative home owning former factory workers is going to decrease....

[TSC]

For all of Trump's faults (openly xenophobic, lack of substance, the inability to string a sentence together), people liked that he was a character. He wasn't one of those. Americans tend to like a memorable name and face. He said dozens of things that would force UK politicians to stand down, he was hated by a lot of the media (and weaponised it quite cleverly) and still managed a term as President. Frankly, I'm still shocked he lost the last election - he was very unpopular with a lot of people too, I suppose.

Allowing c500k to die of Covid while talking about treatments such as injecting disinfectant and beaming UV rays into the body will be a clue as to why Trumps no longer president. Long list of other reasons too of course but those spring to mind.

[classycarra]

Fair enough if I've got the wrong end of the stick but who has "celebrated not voting as being a great thing"? Can't recall that happening in this thread at all.

Likewise, fair enough mate.

Apologies if I editorialised it wrong from memory, but this was the post of yours that I was remembering:

That’s what is great about living here - it is such a safe seat that we don’t have to vote for Labour, and so a lot of us won’t from now on and will have no reason to feel guilty about it.

Although when I say “a lot”, it’s probably not that many really.

[RedGlen]

Thread title change again, so i'm hoping this is still the politics thread...

But as vote counts continue in Scotland, been listening to Patrick Harvie, co-convener of the Scottish Green Party and all I can say is that I really hope the Greens are properly rewarded in the list vote.
Would be entirely pleasing to see them pick up 11 or 12 seats,  which I feel is unlikely but hopefully they get more than they achieved last election.

[Elmo!]

Thread title change again, so i'm hoping this is still the politics thread...

But as vote counts continue in Scotland, been listening to Patrick Harvie, co-convener of the Scottish Green Party and all I can say is that I really hope the Greens are properly rewarded in the list vote.
Would be entirely pleasing to see them pick up 11 or 12 seats,  which I feel is unlikely but hopefully they get more than they achieved last election.

Reports coming out seem to suggest they have underperformed compared to the polling. I'm expecting 7-9 seats.

[Red Beret]

Just to note that Frank Prendergast lost his seat after something like 34 years as a Liverpool councillor, 31 of them with Labour. He felt obliged to quit the party after becoming aware of stuff going on. Just goes to show that people often will vote for the rosette rather than the person. I'm sure it's not just a Liverpool thing either.

[Zeb]

This is without London, and a fair few other results, but since 2018 swing from Tories to Labour has been 7.5% in core cities (including London it's 12 major regional population and economic centres) but 6.5% from Labour to Tories in large towns (population 75k+, 102 of them I think). I'm not sure that some of the talking heads being put on my telly these past couple of days realise that the remedy they recommend was already tried during this period. Question is whether those in Starmer's office planning what he's doing have the right answer on the 'how' of it.

[Yorkykopite]

He might have been all these things, but I didn't have too much of a problem with it. Broad church and all that.

I thought, and continue to think, it was a major problem having someone leading the Labour party whose sympathies were for Putin, Chavez, Hezbollah, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Provos. Call me old fashioned, but it didn't seem to have much to do with democratic socialism. 

[Elmo!]

Tories hold Aberdeenshire West which means SNP majority very unlikely.

Labour and Lib Dems tactical votes saving the Tories all over the place.

[Zeb]

Apparently the largest majority for any single UK politician to date for Burnham. 335,271. 67%% of the vote on 35% turn out. In Manchester itself, his vote share was 76%.

My local ward result was a 2.7k majority, 80% of the vote, on a 30% turnout. Plus sa change.

[TSC]

Burnham elected again unsurprisingly as mayor of greater Manchester.  Dan Norris (Labour) elected as mayor of West of England, ousting the sitting Tory.  Big turnaround, won by 125k to 86k.

Wales of course remains in Labour control under Drakeford.

Bit of positivity I guess. 

Sky now pressing Burnham on whether he is viewing a labour leadership role.

[L4Red]

They didn’t lose in 2019 because their policies were too left wing. The public liked the policies. The issues were Corbyn and the flip-flopping over Brexit.

Labour/corbyn supporters are saying it. Otherwise why are they calling everyone slightly to the right of them tories?

[Welshred]

https://twitter.com/GlenMitchell1/status/1390972438268219392?s=20

Posted in the wrong thread initially

[StevoHimself]

The public are clueless when it comes to judging a politician.
I think many of us have forgotten just what has happened over the last few yrs.
Lying selfish corrupt politicians like Johnson +Trump have won over millions of gullible people who seem impressed by their nasty statements and absurd simple arguments. at the same time these same people have attacked and ridiculed decent genuine politicians who sacrificed their own careers and safety to expose these charlatans for what they are.
They did a fantastic job doing this so I lay no blame or criticism on them. the blame lays with ignorant voters who closed their ears waiting for the chance to cheer on the lying politicians and the clueless career politicians. I agree about people dismissing all criticism of Johnson+Trump with simple flawed arguments of all politicians lie and all politicians are only it for themselves, this has also done tremendous damage as am sure we will see far more selfish corrupt career politicians for many years to come, why should any genuine intelligent politician want to be a Labour MP or even Tory MP today when the people they are fighting to defend attack and ridicule them for being useless or a career politicians.
I honestly don't know all the answers but I do know we have to start making lying politicians accountable, Trump +the Republicans have now taken the lies to the extreme, US democracy is under threat by selfish corrupt right win politicians. the UKs future looks bleak as I see no long term recovery. the fallout from this doesn't need to be explained. will the public lay the blame on the people who deserve it? am not sure they will.

Yeah, the whole "they're all as bad as each other" has always felt like an easy let-off for the Tories specifically. This is obviously less true of the US, but there is an ideological difference between the UK's two biggest party, which is why the notion of a "floating voter" in the UK has always been odd to me.

It's as if people take the Tories being bad as a given and judge them accordingly.

[Red Beret]

Quick question based on skimming the past few pages - are the media making out that these results are far worse for Labour than they actually are?

Don't get me wrong, it all seems a bit meh. But whilst it's likely poor, is it bad?

[Zeb]

https://twitter.com/GlenMitchell1/status/1390972438268219392?s=20

Posted in the wrong thread initially

He's stood there talking about representing everyone, saying that talking with Lib Dems and Greens during hustings means he wants to implement one of their big policies, saying that he's willing to work with government as he has in the past and the only thing I'm seeing referenced is 'But he stood in a cagoul shouting at the government'. It's daft.

----

Cambridgeshire mayor looks like it's getting tasty. No666 was talking about the council there earlier. Labour's candidate 14k behind but 52k Lib Dem second preferences to process.

[StevoHimself]

Allowing c500k to die of Covid while talking about treatments such as injecting disinfectant and beaming UV rays into the body will be a clue as to why Trumps no longer president. Long list of other reasons too of course but those spring to mind.

It is interesting to wonder how big an impact Covid had on the US election. You'd assume that those who voted for Trump in 2016 wouldn't have a massive issue with the whole drinking bleach thing, but I'm sure the pandemic itself didn't help. Covid is the kind of weird, stark inconvenience that's hard to spin positively for a sitting President - or to blame on somebody else.

[Zeb]

Quick question based on skimming the past few pages - are the media making out that these results are far worse for Labour than they actually are?

Don't get me wrong, it all seems a bit meh. But whilst it's likely poor, is it bad?

It's historically bad in England and Scotland but not as bad as it got in 2019. So choose your own adventure on whether you're seeing a slow recovery for Labour, or whether it's too slow, or whether nothing much has changed at all. A lot of it is because so many of these elections should have come in 2020 when it would have been more obvious that they were following on from 2019.

[killer-heels]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/08/labours-khalid-mahmood-says-party-has-become-london-centric

Amazing that these dickheads seem to think all of London is some land of milk and honey and that there is no deprivation. There are places there that are deprived as any part of the country and in some places even more so.

[Red Beret]

It's historically bad in England and Scotland but not as bad as it got in 2019. So choose your own adventure on whether you're seeing a slow recovery for Labour, or whether it's too slow, or whether nothing much has changed at all. A lot of it is because so many of these elections should have come in 2020 when it would have been more obvious that they were following on from 2019.

I guess it comes down to whether people have realistic expectations on Starmer and wanted an immediate bounce back.  I saw some references to a kind of "new manager bounce", and so some calls that he's falling short might be a bit knee jerk at this point.

I tend to steer clear of politics at the moment for the sake of my own emotional well being, so I can't really judge either way.

[Welshred]

He's stood there talking about representing everyone, saying that talking with Lib Dems and Greens during hustings means he wants to implement one of their big policies, saying that he's willing to work with government as he has in the past and the only thing I'm seeing referenced is 'But he stood in a cagoul shouting at the government'. It's daft.

I agree it is daft but it just goes to show you were certain factions are within the Labour party at the moment doesn't it? Someone is a Red Tory, a Blairite or whatever up until the point that they shout at the government then they become a hero. It seems that most people's idea of opposing the government isn't actually doing something productive but just shouting at them over everything and anything.

Amazing that these dickheads seem to think all of London is some land of milk and honey and that there is no deprivation. There are places there that are deprived as any part of the country and in some places even more so.

Don't know what you're on about but the streets of Haringey are all paved with gold as per Dick Whittington, is that not the same all over London? If it is I've not seen it...

[Jiminy Cricket]

And before anyone says Corbyn showed passion....no he didn't. His mien was a bank manager's mien.  Not even that actually. He was the bloke that filed the bank manager's letters. (Nasal whine: "Mr Blenkinsopp, I've put the correspondence about Mrs Sutcliffe's overdraft in the buff folder next to her grey folder in the filing cabinet number fourteen. And you have a meeting at 2.30 with Hezbollah. Thank you.")

[Elmo!]

2 regions declared in Scotland - Highlands & Islands and Central.

Labour down 2 and Greens and Conservatives up 1 each.