UK Local Elections 2021
- Thread starter 09philj
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That's not exactly unique to labor. Tories have been divided since at least Cameron, that's why he started the whole brexit thing going while also campagning against it while half the party campaign for it. Ultimately Johnson succeeded where May/Corbyn/Cameron failed because he a) cracked the whip hard and kicked people who disagreed with him out and b) won a massive election (proabbly in no small part thank to Corbyn). Starmer best chance of success is to do the same, but I doubt he'll ever be able to either of these, much less both. I think he's just going to be a transition leader and for the sake of Labor future electoral chance he need to focus on a.
Also I think it's important to mention that right now Johnson and Tories are riding high because of the success of the vaccine effort and the shamble of EU vaccine effort, which they can use to claim that brexit was the right thing to do. If this election happened even just half a year ago results would have been pretty different. It remains to be seen if Johnson can keep the wave going until the next general election but I really doubt it.
Are you speaking of the election in which the Labour Right among his leadership actively tried to sabotage Labour's chances? If so, that's a weird thing to blame on Corbyn if you don't also think he should have purged his party of the Blairites.
Time for me to play armchair analyst.
Labour's problems:
The party is seen as going more and more away from the working class and more towards the Urban Bourgeoisie. You think the guy working 40 hours weeks on a metal press wants to hear how he's so very privileged and that the true people suffering are women in comfy 30 hour a week office jobs earning likely at least the same as the guy if not more because they have degrees and qualifications etc? Labour have been seen to be going further in on identity politics where you have Dianne Abbot supporters running round calling everyone racist for pointing out when she's rather publicly screwed up. One of the senior members of the party sending her kids to private schools and people are playing the whole "Oh you're oppressing her" card.
Under Corbyn it was seen as unrealistic and the plans put forward being that of a fanciful dreamer who idealised communism and very much was seen as against Britishness trying to block visits from allied leaders while wanting to invite terrorists round to tea in a rather hypocritical manner. Also he brought with him the more hard Left fringe party members who lets just say for all the claims the party worked against him, he was mostly only still in power thanks to the actions and intimidation tactics from some of his supporters.
Keir Starmer's problem is he tried to play the same trick that works in US politics of be vague with your policies just paint the opposition as the enemy. That doesn't work in UK politics and as every 2 days he was on some new bandwagon people haven't seen an easy to pin point consistent set of positions. I mean the guy pushed for schools to re-open before then was pushing for them to re-open during the UK Q1 lockdown then was against them re-opening 2 weeks before the planned re-opening. His big gambit for this election was Borris Johnson redecorating downing street and arguing over if proper procedure had been followed because a Tory party donor may have paid for it indirectly rather than it coming out of the public purse because PM's residence etc. It all came down to very specific bits of bureaucracy which when you ask "The man in the street" about it you'll mostly get "Wait some some daft rich twat paid to do up Number 10 and that means they money doesn't come out of my taxes? Good at least the rich bastards are paying for something now instead of keeping all their stuff in tax havens". Starmer was a lawyer and that kind of play may win legal cases but doesn't work with elections because the bigger picture really is do people give a toss that form 23Bz9 was filled in correctly or not? The answer is no.
Labour's problems:
The party is seen as going more and more away from the working class and more towards the Urban Bourgeoisie. You think the guy working 40 hours weeks on a metal press wants to hear how he's so very privileged and that the true people suffering are women in comfy 30 hour a week office jobs earning likely at least the same as the guy if not more because they have degrees and qualifications etc? Labour have been seen to be going further in on identity politics where you have Dianne Abbot supporters running round calling everyone racist for pointing out when she's rather publicly screwed up. One of the senior members of the party sending her kids to private schools and people are playing the whole "Oh you're oppressing her" card.
Under Corbyn it was seen as unrealistic and the plans put forward being that of a fanciful dreamer who idealised communism and very much was seen as against Britishness trying to block visits from allied leaders while wanting to invite terrorists round to tea in a rather hypocritical manner. Also he brought with him the more hard Left fringe party members who lets just say for all the claims the party worked against him, he was mostly only still in power thanks to the actions and intimidation tactics from some of his supporters.
Keir Starmer's problem is he tried to play the same trick that works in US politics of be vague with your policies just paint the opposition as the enemy. That doesn't work in UK politics and as every 2 days he was on some new bandwagon people haven't seen an easy to pin point consistent set of positions. I mean the guy pushed for schools to re-open before then was pushing for them to re-open during the UK Q1 lockdown then was against them re-opening 2 weeks before the planned re-opening. His big gambit for this election was Borris Johnson redecorating downing street and arguing over if proper procedure had been followed because a Tory party donor may have paid for it indirectly rather than it coming out of the public purse because PM's residence etc. It all came down to very specific bits of bureaucracy which when you ask "The man in the street" about it you'll mostly get "Wait some some daft rich twat paid to do up Number 10 and that means they money doesn't come out of my taxes? Good at least the rich bastards are paying for something now instead of keeping all their stuff in tax havens". Starmer was a lawyer and that kind of play may win legal cases but doesn't work with elections because the bigger picture really is do people give a toss that form 23Bz9 was filled in correctly or not? The answer is no.
Or you know maybe English people very much realise now probably isn't the time for mass spending to tell tons of people how they're privileged and need to repent when the country is in such debt and such programs won't get the UK out of that debt anytime soon
Yes what a shame the press has to try and report in an unbiased manner and can't just spread whatever rumours people want spread.
We're still leaving
I think you fail to realise just how badly the English object to the French.
Funny when he's a former banker.
See, this is what always gets me. Its scandal after scandal. Not feeding kids. Singing the praises of the NHS, but then giving them a shitty "pay rise", that doesn't even cover inflation. Wasting millions in tax-payer money on deals with their friends, which aren't fit for purpose. The highest COVID deathtoll in the EU, with the hardest hit economy.
It seems like every week, there is another scandal.
Yet you check the polls, and Tory approval either gets higher, or doesn't move at all.
Is this because people just don't care, or because Labour are just crap at being an effective opposition, and an attractive alternative?
Because Labour are seen as idiots.
On the NHS want a pay rise.
Conservatives: "Well how about 2% we have kinda borrowed a lot of money"
Labour (or at least the unions): "They should get 15% this year and every year from now on and we'll just borrow even more money "
Citations please on the '30hr week woman who earns more with less qualifications for the same job' thing
Pretty sure many people here have pointed out that cancel culture affects the left more than the right since before the term cancel culture existed. We already knew Fake News existed before Trump started using the term. These aren't new to anyone here
I said the office woman would have more qualifications. You know because more women go to university.
Oh sure it's totally not just finally left wing people are being hit by it and suddenly it's a huge travesty. Also in the UK cancel culture is limited due to political discrimination laws. The US doesn't have such laws.
No, I just meant your statement was laughable and you think it's true in the same way the Matt Hancock cares about all the people who died. I googled for a picture of a clown.
Was that even part of the recent election cycle?
That's when the press has to start unbiased reporting around election times
Does that not strike you as an alarming aspect of the press? 'You can tell big whoppers, but not within a few weeks of an election. Oh no, people won't be affected by any of the press coverage in the years between, only the few weeks before.' Ludicrous.
Isn't that just another form of identity politics?
Our economy might have collapsed! My business might have gone under and I might starve soon but at least I don't have to be on the same team as those dastardly French! Britania rules the waves again!
The thing is, Labour actually don't really talk about identity politics very much. They don't talk about "privilege" or any of that much at all. Diane Abbott is not a frontbencher; in practical terms she has no more high-profile position than any of several hundred other backbenchers.
It's the Conservatives who bang on about identity-politics issues like free speech in universities, cancel culture etc: they bang that drum because they know it whips people up and they can score cheap points on it. It's the Conservatives who've put culture-war stuff into The Queen's speech, for instance, whereas Labour haven't brought it up in the Commons at all.
There were certain elements of Labour who were pretty happy to weaponise identity politics to attack Jeremy Corbyn and his allies. It's ultimately led to Corbyn being kicked out of the party. The whole "denying that you're antisemitic is evidence of antisemitism" argument.
That's quite simply not true, here's the poll (you can set it to 2 year time frame).
POLITICO Poll of Polls — British polls, trends and election news for the United Kingdom and Scotland
All polls, trends and election news for the the United Kingdom, Scotland and London — Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, Brexit Party, SNP, Greens, Scottish independence referendum and Scotland elect…
www.politico.eu
Poll moved quite a bit after Labour replace Corbyn by Starmer and cons number just kept going down until the two were neck and neck. Cons have recovered a bit over the last few months, mostly owning to the vaccine roll out going well but the difference between the two is not very large at the moment and once vaccine move away from people memory any scandal will hurt them seriously.
The antisemitism scandal had become a major national talking point, and from Labour's perspective it was absolutely essential to bring the reputational damage it was doing to an end.
That didn't necessarily mean suspending Corbyn. It wouldn't have happened... had he not picked the worst possible time to mouth off about it, immediately following the EHRC report. His response guaranteed headlines about how the party wasn't accepting the issue, how they were just looking out for themselves, etc. It was an incredible lack of awareness on his part.
Oh it does it's just people don't seem to realise how much it happens on both sides and it only seems people seem to care when they think the lie is happening against their side. It's pretty funny to watch various attempted lies come to a screeching halt the moment an election draws near.
You could argue that but it's also very much one that tends to unite the UK rather than cause in fighting. Also it's one of those mutually agreed upon things really that the English and French are always holding grudges against one another but an English person and French person can get on entirely fine and talk together it's more of a generalised rivalry between the countries while also acknowledging they kinda need one another.
Diane Abbott was a front bencher and is or was a fairly big name. Also the identity politics perception is Starman jumping on a lot of bandwagons.
As for "haven't brought it up in the commons"
Here's a member of the conservatives refuting a point Labour member were pushing
Hell Labour have been pushing this shit for years as it was in the Blair or Brown government they were bragging about how X % of their front bench MPs were women. Women who later tended their resignations complaining they weren't being valued but were being used as basically set dressing for the party to look good and nothing more.
Caroline Flint quits government saying Brown treated her as 'female window dressing'
Europe minister steps down with damning attack on prime minister's attitude to female cabinet members
www.theguardian.com
Probably also didn't help that he defended a Priest who in a letter did push some very conspiratorial "Jet Fuel can't melt steel beams" kind of thinking. Corbyn may have been defending him on pure free speech grounds but yeh what was said in the letter wasn't the best of things for Corbyn to have ended up associated with.
Thing is Labour's next leader hopeful is probably going to cause more scandals I mean it was a Labour guy in Manchester who was threatening to sue the government over them pushing lockdown and said he'd only allow lockdown to happen if the central government granted some insane figure of funding. When they refused he was refusing and saying he wouldn't comply nor have any lockdown enforced and they'd have to take him and his council to court to get them to comply.That's quite simply not true, here's the poll (you can set it to 2 year time frame).
POLITICO Poll of Polls — British polls, trends and election news for the United Kingdom and Scotland
All polls, trends and election news for the the United Kingdom, Scotland and London — Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, Brexit Party, SNP, Greens, Scottish independence referendum and Scotland elect…
Poll moved quite a bit after Labour replace Corbyn by Starmer and cons number just kept going down until the two were neck and neck. Cons have recovered a bit over the last few months, mostly owning to the vaccine roll out going well but the difference between the two is not very large at the moment and once vaccine move away from people memory any scandal will hurt them seriously.
If Starmer could come up with a consistent thing to stick to and importantly delegate so other members of his shadow cabinet could be the spokespeople objecting on other issues to then it would help because honestly Starmer is too boring to really manage any major scandals I think. It'll be everyone else in the party causing scandals for him.