Local Government Elections

[Nearly Sane]

Where have the Blairites been these past 3 years?
Miliband who left not to queer his brothers pitch is still absent, Chukka has popped up on Iaiaian Dale, Steven Kinnock ditto with the old Milibandian apologising for being Labour schtick, Burnham did a Boris, ditto the guy in London, Mandelson, looking for the elixir of eternal life, Jarvis 3 years ago opted out to spend more time with his family only to find time for two jobs three years later.... Have these guys even got a plan or a political machinery? How are they going to rescue the Labour party?

Yvette Cooper? Or are you just sexist?

[jeremyp]

I see the BBC have just projected that for a GE it would mean Labour 35% Tories 35%, Lib Dems 16% with no statement of it not being a poll of the entirety. Obvious evidence that they are Lib Dem biased. Or maybe just incompetent stupid.

I find that something off an indictment. It's hard to think howe the current government could have been more incompetent and less empathetic towards the less fortunate members of our society. Labour should be annihilating them at the moment.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yvette Cooper? Or are you just sexist?

No..... she's about the only possibility. Those on my lists are fly by nights who need to put up etc.

[Nearly Sane]

Mmm


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-44005594

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Mmm


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-44005594

I get the feeling the tories are just going to be exchanging euroskeptic and pro Europe factions for pro immigration and antiimmigration ones.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Another idiot advocating a return to Labour singing from the Tory hymnsheet?

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/alastair-campbell-labour-is-a-long-way-from-p/

Well Alistair, perpetual and public apologies for being Labour really worked in 2015.

[Nearly Sane]

Different take than the MSM

https://skwawkbox.org/2018/05/05/the-local-election-overview-you-wont-get-from-the-bbc/

[Harrowby Hall]

Another idiot advocating a return to Labour singing from the Tory hymnsheet?

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/alastair-campbell-labour-is-a-long-way-from-p/

Well Alistair, perpetual and public apologies for being Labour really worked in 2015.

Unfortunately (perhaps) Vlad, the only constant winners in First Past The Post electoral systems are those who hold the middle ground.  When Labour did allow its left wing to be dominant, under Michael Foot and the Neil Kinnock it was unelectable and spent 18 years in Opposition.

Theresa May is trying to be clever. She identifies the unwashed masses who support Brexit as "middle ground" and is pitching her messages towards them - which is why she has become unstuck over Windrush. But until Labour ditches Corbyn or at least starts to disconnect itself from WRP manque image it has managed to acquire it will be difficult for it to sustain a Parliamentary majority.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Unfortunately (perhaps) Vlad, the only constant winners in First Past The Post electoral systems are those who hold the middle ground.  When Labour did allow its left wing to be dominant, under Michael Foot and the Neil Kinnock it was unelectable and spent 18 years in Opposition.

Theresa May is trying to be clever. She identifies the unwashed masses who support Brexit as "middle ground" and is pitching her messages towards them - which is why she has become unstuck over Windrush. But until Labour ditches Corbyn or at least starts to disconnect itself from WRP manque image it has managed to acquire it will be difficult for it to sustain a Parliamentary majority.

The Tories were unelectable for 13 years and Labour saw off three supposed middle ground Conservative leaders and then the magic wore off. There was nothing intrinsically not middle ground about Milliband indeed his sole keynote policy and attitude to privatised utilities eventually was taken on board by the tories. But I think victory which the polls predicted for Miliband was illusiory because the ukip numbers were high and there was evidence that UKIP potential parliamentary seats would just go Tory.

And that should have been it for Labour who should have according to the script; meekly accept the Tory narrative that the crisis of 2008 was Labours fault. Each Labour leader who was apologetic about Labour's record could be the successfully and succesively be knocked down.

Corbyn has reversed that and instead entering a period of the middle class vote unable to be mined further. Corbyn found a New constituency in the youth vote.

The new tory approach is to try make people forget about these Corbyn successes, and remember the Toby Young doctrine that Corbyn makes Labour unelectable and those touted as leaders and true Labour are back from a three to two year sabbatical suggesting that public apology and public reflection on their own supposed uselessness is the way back to Government.

Matthew D'Ancona on the new Tory narrative on Corbyn

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/06/tories-peak-corbyn-local-election-results

Matthew Norman on the tedious bubbling up like a fart in the bath of the old New Labour(yes them) narrative on Corbyn.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-local-elections-david-blunkett-labour-a8338961.html

Name one person who can be Corbyn's replacement who has a following in either the party or the Country.

Any problems Labour have lie with an electorate who by a very small majority did a quite stupid and thoughtless thing at the behest of some unscrupulous people. The last thing Labour should be thinking is offering up Corbyn as a pointless superstitious shamanic sacrifice taking on everybodies political sins rather than Offering him as a sensible alternative to the nest of fools which is TORKIP.

 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Different take than the MSM

https://skwawkbox.org/2018/05/05/the-local-election-overview-you-wont-get-from-the-bbc/

Fine reminder of how BBC news at least has become an arm of the establishment and probably the Conservative party under Dame Laura Keunsberg.

[jeremyp]

Fine reminder of how BBC news at least has become an arm of the establishment and probably the Conservative party under Dame Laura Keunsberg.

I would say that what happened is the bare minimum of what Labour should have done given the Tories recent record.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I would say that what happened is the bee minimum of what Labour should have done given the Tories recent record.

It is no Blair or Thatcher juggernaut but those days are over. So we are left with a couple of questions.

Where is the next inexorable Blairite Juggernaut going to come from?
Where is a May landslide going to come from?
What seems more likely is a Corbyn Scrape. Why should a minority but working minority be treated as a bigger failure than a coalition of the time that raised student fees, destroyed any prospect of electoral change and gave rise to Brexit?

[jeremyp]

It is no Blair or Thatcher juggernaut but those days are over. So we are left with a couple of questions.

One of those questions is why are those days over. Corbyn has massive grass roots support from the left and May just lurches from disaster to disaster and yet, in the country as a whole, there is no Corbyn juggernaut.

Why should a minority but working minority be treated as a bigger failure than a coalition of the time that raised student fees, destroyed any prospect of electoral change and gave rise to Brexit?

Many people didn't regard the coalition as a failure.

A minority Labour government might not be a failure - we cannily judge by its results, but it's certainly a political failure for the Labour leadership given the  current political climate in which Labour's chief opponents are doing their level best to make themselves unelectable.

There's no such thing as a working minority, by the way.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

There's no such thing as a working minority, by the way.

I think that one might argue that the 2015 election may have been due to the electorate as a mass phenomenon aiming clumsily for another coalition but then again was probably that for some reason the electorate hated labour.

By a working minority I mean a hung parliament with labour holding more seats and the scots nats and lib Dems not wanting to support the tories in any way shape or form.

As to the question of why there is no blairite juggernaut is that the Blairites are on an extended self imposed sabbatical from Opposition politics.

Whether this is because of the narcissism in the genome of blairism I know not. but my bet is for the beautiful, plausible, inevitably fantastic looking blairite or Milibandite, Chukka, Liz Kendall, Andy Burnham, being in shitty hand to hand opposition is not felt to be a good place.

[jeremyp]

I think that one might argue that the 2015 election may have been due to the electorate as a mass phenomenon aiming clumsily for another coalition.

Insofar as the electorate has a collective will, we need to take the opposite view. If the electorate had been voting for another coalition, the Lib Dem vote would not have collapsed.

As to the question of why there is no blairite juggernaut is that the Blairites are on an extended self imposed sabbatical from Opposition politics.

That's not an important question. The important question is why is there no Corbynite juggernaut. There really ought to be.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Insofar as the electorate has a collective will, we need to take the opposite view. If the electorate had been voting for another coalition, the Lib Dem vote would not have collapsed.
That's not an important question. The important question is why is there no Corbynite juggernaut. There really ought to be.

That there are the fantastic achievements of getting youth to enfranchise itself, Of not only saving the party's existence from the Blairites who, if successful would have ensured its destruction, breaking the power of the right wing media and then the overturn of the Tory majority is all that can be reasonably expected i'm afraid.

To imagine a Labour juggernaut at the moment is completely unreasonable and an example of false friend.

[jeremyp]

That there are the fantastic achievements of getting youth to enfranchise itself,

Doesn't seem to be helping them very much.

Of not only saving the party's existence from the Blairites who, if successful would have ensured its destruction,

Would it? The Blairites, by the way, lost their grip on the Labour party in 2010 five years before Corbyn got elected.

breaking the power of the right wing media and then the overturn of the Tory majority is all that can be reasonably expected i'm afraid.

So not a juggernaut then.

If the right wing media is losing power, it has got nothing to do with Corbyn and everything to do with the Internet and social media.

And given the opinion polls at the start of the 2017 general election, yes all Labour could have expected was to overturn the Tory majority, but the Tory party nearly imploded after the referendum. They should never have been that far ahead in the first place.

To imagine a Labour juggernaut at the moment is completely unreasonable and an example of false friend.

Look at the state of the Tories. It's a shambles. The only explanation for why they aren't being annihilated in every poll and election is that Labour is also useless.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Doesn't seem to be helping them very much.
Would it? The Blairites, by the way, lost their grip on the Labour party in 2010 five years before Corbyn got elected.
So not a juggernaut then.

If the right wing media is losing power, it has got nothing to do with Corbyn and everything to do with the Internet and social media.

And given the opinion polls at the start of the 2017 general election, yes all Labour could have expected was to overturn the Tory majority, but the Tory party nearly imploded after the referendum. They should never have been that far ahead in the first place.
Look at the state of the Tories. It's a shambles. The only explanation for why they aren't being annihilated in every poll and election is that Labour is also useless.

I fail to see how given the extrapolation of the local election results that Labour would now be in government that that is significant where the object is the removal of the tories.

But if you wish to discount the local elections then in that case Corbyn most recently has turned an expected Landslide for the tories and the destruction of labour into a hung parliament.

I should imagine if that were the case lots of politicians wish they could be as useless as labour.

[jeremyp]

I fail to see how given the extrapolation of the local election results that Labour would now be in government that that is significant where the object is the removal of the tories.

Labour in government is the minimum that you might have expected given that the Tories are in a huge mess.

But if you wish to discount the local elections then in that case Corbyn most recently has turned an expected Landslide for the tories and the destruction of labour into a hung parliament.

Actually, I think it was Theresa May that overturned that landslide. It's no good saying "Labour didn't lose by as much as was expected" when they went into the campaign behind. Why were they behind a Tory party that came close to imploding? Because Corbyn is shit.

I should imagine if that were the case lots of politicians wish they could be as useless as labour.

I bet Corbyn wishes hew was less useless than he is. He'd be prime minister now if he was.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Labour in government is the minimum that you might have expected given that the Tories are in a huge mess.Actually, I think it was Theresa May that overturned that landslide. It's no good saying "Labour didn't lose by as much as was expected" when they went into the campaign behind. Why were they behind a Tory party that came close to imploding? Because Corbyn is shit.
I bet Corbyn wishes hew was less useless than he is. He'd be prime minister now if he was.

Considering a party which should have been unelectable in 2017/2018 having actually imploded thanks to people who thought Corbyn was shit had managed to force a hung parliament in 2017 and would have been in government according to extrapolated results then what Corbyn has achieved is exceptional. Like the bumble bee he should fly but he does.

Being in government after political gymnastics has been as good as it gets since 2010.

[jeremyp]

Considering a party which should have been unelectable in 2017/2018 having actually imploded thanks to people who thought Corbyn was shit had managed to force a hung parliament in 2017

You are saying that a party (Labour) which some considered unelectable turned out to be unelectable.

and would have been in government according to extrapolated results then what Corbyn has achieved is exceptional. Like the bumble bee he should fly but he does.

I agree that what he has achieved is exceptional. I look at the Tory record since 2015 and I can't remember a more abject display of self inflicted ineptitude and yet, after a general election in 2017, Labour are still on the opposition benches and after the council elections in 2018, they might just shade it in a general election. They are truly exceptional, much like Brechin City FC this year.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You are saying that a party (Labour) which some considered unelectable turned out to be unelectable.

I agree that what he has achieved is exceptional. I look at the Tory record since 2015 and I can't remember a more abject display of self inflicted ineptitude and yet, after a general election in 2017, Labour are still on the opposition benches and after the council elections in 2018, they might just shade it in a general election. They are truly exceptional, much like Brechin City FC this year.

You are saying that a party (Labour) which some considered unelectable turned out to be unelectable.

I agree that what he has achieved is exceptional. I look at the Tory record since 2015 and I can't remember a more abject display of self inflicted ineptitude and yet, after a general election in 2017, Labour are still on the opposition benches and after the council elections in 2018, they might just shade it in a general election. They are truly exceptional, much like Brechin City FC this year.

Unelectable refers I would have thought to a party which has no hope of being elected, in the UK that means forming a government.
You can therefore have two parties who are electable and one becomes unelected. both

If they are now unelectable they would have no or little chance in any called election. There is no evidence that labour is unelectable.
Politically the term is used as a comment on a parties opinion polling or as a device to deter voters from voting for them by appealing to the voters desire to back and identify a supposed winner instead as in TOBY YOUNG'S use of it in 2015.

After the local elections 2017 and the decision to call an election to get a landslide and increase the majority was based on unelectability. It was a disasterous interpretation and application of the term unelectable.

For those still interested in a non tory future to refer to yourself as unelectable is a sign of lack of political self esteem such as lost the MIlibandite labour the election of 2015 who were apparently ELECTABLE right up to the point when they became unelected.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/15/warning-tories-britain-true-blue-suburbs-turned-liberal

The love affair with Conservatism is still strong though.