next labour leader

Nick 0208 Ldn said:
Why is defence policy or English devolution be a product of the right? Considering the challenges Labour is facing in England at present, such an emphasis is surely part of the solution. Kendall is also seizing upon Tory weakness, as Osborne has called on the MoD to enact further cuts.
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Agreed on devolution of power, plenty of social democratic arguments for that. Defence is a trickier one, but if you're talking about the median voter in centrist terms then you'd say they'd probably back maintaining the 2%. Free schools is another odd one, goes with the devolution agenda but I'm instinctively against the idea of letting anyone teach (the argument that the great universities and public schools do this is a bad one to my eyes, as they can afford them and there aren't many to go around), as well as having excess school places in some areas whilst being in dire need of them elsewhere. Gove being a massive knob doesn't help either (I'm hoping Labour get Starmer shadowing him in Justice post-haste). I read somewhere today that one of George Osborne's favourite maxims is "those in opposition move to the centre ground; those in government move the centre ground". It's unquestionable that the centre has moved to the right on both immigration and public spending in the last five years. The left has to be very careful we don't damage ourselves beyond repair for a generation again.

I'd say the Tories would want Kendall least as well, but then that's not saying a great deal as I think they'd be delighted with either Cooper or Burnham.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
For all the talk of the newspapers dying, we have an aging population of whom the vast majority still turn to the papers for their political news as, rightly or wrongly, for them it retains a degree of respectability and reputability than the Internet hasn't got. A left-wing Labour Party will always have problems as long as that's still the case. I agree with you entirely on the bolded though, I'm not as much of a defeatist as my post may have made out. Whilst I think the media swung it for the Tories in this election, the papers are clearly not omnipotent and they can be challenged.

As for a TV channel, I don't think that's legal. Isn't all broadcast media is supposed to politically neutral? Like obviously it doesn't work out that way in practice, as there's a lot of leeway for 'asking the questions the public want to hear', even if those questions are biased, but on the face of it a formal Labour TV channel I think would break the law. There's a huge grey area with youtube channels and internet telly in general, not sure where they fit into it.
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You don't read defeatist but I would say their are some interesting posters lurking here.

Don't have to air TV political propaganda to get the subliminal messages across - as most right wing TV channels have been doing since back when. A leftist TV channel might avoid the stereotypes of the main channels and their biased news. On the other hand it wouldn't need to repeat "The Boys From The Black Stuff", to get the point across about poverty in UK to name one example.

The Torygraph has 500,000 readers; it had more when Wilson broke the Tory party back in the 60s and 70s. Some might say the white hot revolution was leftist, but the Open University survived as a triumph of what can be done by a left centre government.

Let's all be positive because pretty soon the Tories will do what they always do with a crusade and a majority - implode!
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
The Telegraph wouldn't appreciate being associated with certain tabloids, of that i am confident. lol The political motivations of the media vary depending upon the format; whilst it could be said that print output is of a majority right-leaning disposition, broadcasting arguably veers to the left.
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Oh yeah I have no doubt that the broadsheets are disgusted by the Tabloids a lot of the time, but in the context of the election and politics in general they all wanted/want the same thing. The only real difference between the Telegraph publishing things about business being afraid of Labour and the Mail claiming that Miliband is a Stalinist is presentational- different tactics to get a message across to different demographic groups.

I don't think the broadcast media is particularly left-leaning personally, aside from the comedy-type shows and the stuff that's put on channels targeted at younger audiences. The BBC gets a lot of flak from the right but there have been numerous occasions recently where its misrepresented situations to the benefit of the establishment (the police's role in the recent protests in London comes to mind, as well as the independence referendum). The big channels generally tend to side with the government of the day, and since the government of the day has been a centre-right or right wing party for the last 36 years I'd say it actually skews right, although not as far right as the papers. Stuff like Benefits Street for example is just sensationalist Daily Mail propagandism funneled into a telly show.
 
Ed's back, is meddling:

Miliband is said to have emphasised that his party lost due to the failure of millions of notional supporters to turn out. The pollster Ipsos MORI has used the term "lazy Labour" to the describe the 2.9 million who supported the party in pre-election polling but did not go on to vote. Left-wingers have argued that this demonstrates the need for a more radical offer to enthuse this group, rather than a more moderate pitch aimed at winning over Conservative voters.
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http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/burnham-set-win-further-support-among-miliband-allies

"If 2.9m more people voted for us, we might have won."
 
I was too busy badgering others to vote, while on Twitter.
 
Shamwow said:
I do wonder about this. I've got so many mates that say they support Labour and then don't actually end up voting at all. It annoys me.
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It's a common problem going on for years. All my mates at University were lefties. In 1979 all voted for Thatcher on the grounds that she was a leader and they weren't voting for the Tories. Elections can expose even the most intelligent to ridicule.
 
Shamwow said:
I do wonder about this. I've got so many mates that say they support Labour and then don't actually end up voting at all. It annoys me.
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Yeah but that's always been the case, Tories are just demographically more likely to vote. Ed blaming the defeat on it is like United saying we'd have won the league had Falcao not been gash and scored 30 this year. He seems to be saying Labour were bang on politically, it was just them bloody non-voters not voting wot lost it. The thing about non-voters is they don't tend to vote.
 
Ubik said:
Yeah but that's always been the case, Tories are just demographically more likely to vote. Ed blaming the defeat on it is like United saying we'd have won the league had Falcao not been gash and scored 30 this year. He seems to be saying Labour were bang on politically, it was just them bloody non-voters not voting wot lost it. The thing about non-voters is they don't tend to vote.
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Ed is saying why try take voters off the Tories when we have lots of people who seem to support labour but aren't enthusiastic enough about it to actually vote for them. If anything he seems to be saying they should go further left and differentiate themselves mores.

Some of my mates who didn't vote when pushed gave the reason "well they're all the same anyway so what does it matter?" I guess he's going for them.

You are right however in the sense that I tend to think most of these people wouldn't vote anyway no matter how far left Labour went.
 
Shamwow said:
Ed is saying why try take voters off the Tories when we have lots of people who seem to support labour but aren't enthusiastic enough about it to actually vote for them. If anything he seems to be saying they should go further left and differentiate themselves mores.

Some of my mates who didn't vote when pushed gave the reason "well they're all the same anyway so what does it matter?" I guess he's going for them.

You are right however in the sense that I tend to think most of these people wouldn't vote anyway no matter how far left Labour went.
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Plus you'd need 2m of them to turn up just to draw level with the Tories. That's one of the other advantages of bringing soft Tories over - every vote you gain, they lose. I'd agree that a lot more needs to be done to get disaffected voters back, but it can't be a key part of your strategy to win, it's a foundation of sand.
 
Sadly you're not going to 'enthuse the base' in a meaningful way without an intelligent and charismatic leader who can deliver the Labour argument simply and passionately.

Now can we just have one of them please. :(
 
Ubik said:
Plus you'd need 2m of them to turn up just to draw level with the Tories. That's one of the other advantages of bringing soft Tories over - every vote you gain, they lose. I'd agree that a lot more needs to be done to get disaffected voters back, but it can't be a key part of your strategy to win, it's a foundation of sand.
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I don't know enough about this stuff to really give an opinion but regardless I'll give my opinion that to get existing lefty non-voters to vote could be a stronger foundation than targeting those who will just vote for the incumbent government while the economy is good or until the scandals build up too much.
 
The Greens put on nearly one million votes compared to their 2010 showing, and if they could but improve the party's finances more of the disaffected might turn to them.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
The Greens put on nearly one million votes compared to their 2010 showing, and if they could but improve the party's finances more of the disaffected might turn to them.
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Add a decent leader too and they'll gain a further boost.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
The Greens put on nearly one million votes compared to their 2010 showing, and if they could but improve the party's finances more of the disaffected might turn to them.
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With this electoral system, any support they gain will inevitably get squeezed once the election nears and the looming prospect of another 5 years of the Tories comes around, as happened this year. It's notable that in Norwich South, their second best result in 2010, their share of the vote actually dropped whilst Labour's grew by 10 points. In Brighton Pavilion the opposite happened, because voters knew there was a realistic chance of winning without the Tories nipping in to win the seat. Unless Labour goes heavily to the right on immigration policy or something, I'm not sure the Greens can grow much beyond their current point other than in picking up protest votes in safe seats. UKIP remains more of a threat in terms of disaffection, despite their recent putsch.

On another note, Stella is my early favourite for deputy.
 
Shamwow said:
I don't know enough about this stuff to really give an opinion but regardless I'll give my opinion that to get existing lefty non-voters to vote could be a stronger foundation than targeting those who will just vote for the incumbent government while the economy is good or until the scandals build up too much.
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Historically & demographically speaking, poor turnout tends to occur in places where Labour is already the dominant party (ie deprived city areas). So increasing turnout across the board may not make as much of a difference, it simply gives them even more of a majority. In Manchester Central for example we regularly have the worst turnout in the country, but Labour's Lucy Powell was re-elected with 27,000 votes, the second placed candidate only got 6000. An increased pro-left turnout here wouldn't make any difference to the result, just increase Labour's majority.

Hopefully in the new few weeks we'll see people crunching the election results a bit more and we'll see whether a (realistic) increased turnout in the the key marginal seats would be enough for Labour to do its thing.

fwiw I personally dont think that people aren't voting for left vs right reasons, I think there's a combination of apathy and distaste of westminster that's widespread these days. Hence the sudden interest in UKIP with its shouty-shouty rants, the Greens with their far out hippy shit and the SNP with their uplifting optimistic messages. Right or wrong, these new approaches have caught people's imagination in a way that I dont see any of the Labour candidates doing, no matter how central or left they go.
 
Ubik said:
On another note, Stella is my early favourite for deputy.
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Thought she did well on QT last night, always an engaging, passionate speaker at the very least. Not convinced I want her to get Deputy and become tarnished by leadership, she's a wonderful local voice/politician and national campaigner, would be a shame to lose that.

And I imagine she'll be a major part of the '2025 wave' with Chuka and Jarvis anyway.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
The Greens put on nearly one million votes compared to their 2010 showing, and if they could but improve the party's finances more of the disaffected might turn to them.
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A lot of their policies are fanciful. There is a definite limit to how far they can grow. I don't think that they are too far way from that level at the moment.
 
Cheesy said:
Add a decent leader too and they'll gain a further boost.
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Indeed so, i'm undecided as to whether that person is Caroline Lucas, but the right leader could make all the difference.


Ubik said:
With this electoral system, any support they gain will inevitably get squeezed once the election nears and the looming prospect of another 5 years of the Tories comes around, as happened this year. It's notable that in Norwich South, their second best result in 2010, their share of the vote actually dropped whilst Labour's grew by 10 points. In Brighton Pavilion the opposite happened, because voters knew there was a realistic chance of winning without the Tories nipping in to win the seat. Unless Labour goes heavily to the right on immigration policy or something, I'm not sure the Greens can grow much beyond their current point other than in picking up protest votes in safe seats. UKIP remains more of a threat in terms of disaffection, despite their recent putsch.
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Is it necessarily a question of policy? @bishblaize raises the matter of anti-Westminster sentiment in the country, a charge based on credibility and record which is difficult to overcome. Whilst Labour and the Tories hoovered up a fair few Lib Dem votes on this occasion, i wouldn't expect this to be see a similar distribution in 2020. They'll need a more realistic and professionally compiled manifesto mark you.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
Indeed so, i'm undecided as to whether that person is Caroline Lucas, but the right leader could make all the difference.




Is it necessarily a question of policy? @bishblaize raises the matter of anti-Westminster sentiment in the country, a charge based on credibility and record which is difficult to overcome. Whilst Labour and the Tories hoovered up a fair few Lib Dem votes on this occasion, i wouldn't expect this to be see a similar distribution in 2020. They'll need a more realistic and professionally compiled manifesto mark you.
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Remember, there will be changes in the electoral boundaries under this government and several commentators have suggested they will adversely effect the Liberals. There is a huge anti-Westminster sentiment that UKIP tried to ring fence it but failed. It's an option open to all parties but its a poison chalice.
 
Stretford End Phil said:
There is a huge anti-Westminster sentiment that UKIP tried to ring fence it but failed. It's an option open to all parties but its a poison chalice.
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It would indeed be suicide to try and go all anti-Westminster when you're Labour. However they could revitalise people's interest in politics with a leader that was sufficiently different & fresh. They dont need to be anti-Westminster, just obviously not 'of' Westminster.
 
Stretford End Phil said:
There is a huge anti-Westminster sentiment that UKIP tried to ring fence it but failed. It's an option open to all parties but its a poison chalice.
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Yup. I've said before, there's room for a new, centre left party in England, particularly in the north of course, and especially now Labour will move to the right in all likelihood. We never had an SNP to vote for. Obviously there are considerable differences between the regions, however the strong showing by fecking UKIP of all people in north England to me says there is the same disenchantment with mainstream politics. I like the Greens and I voted for them but I don't see them as being enough. As Jeff said earlier, can you see ex-miners in Yorkshire voting for them?
 
People do realise that more people (11.3 million) voted for the Conservatives in this election than voted for labour in their last 2 election wins? (9.5 in 2005 and 10.7 in 2001)?

500,000 more people voted conservative this time round than they did in 2010, but yet have ended up with far fewer seats (330) than labour did in 2001 (418 with 500,000 less votes) and 2005 (355 with 800,000 less votes)

The system really is broken, when a party can have 800,000 more votes than their opposition and end up with 25 less seats than they did at their worst showing.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
A lot of their policies are fanciful. There is a definite limit to how far they can grow. I don't think that they are too far way from that level at the moment.
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Green policies are voted on by members, aren't they? One would think the more the membership grows the more serious the policies would become.
 
soap said:
Yup. I've said before, there's room for a new, centre left party in England, particularly in the north of course, and especially now Labour will move to the right in all likelihood. We never had an SNP to vote for. Obviously there are considerable differences between the regions, however the strong showing by fecking UKIP of all people in north England to me says there is the same disenchantment with mainstream politics. I like the Greens and I voted for them but I don't see them as being enough. As Jeff said earlier, can you see ex-miners in Yorkshire voting for them?
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Very very interesting, no actually quite an exciting prospect. We don't need a party like the SNP. The mayoral changes will shift power and the North will see cosmetic power offerings but it opens the door to a new direction and party.

Would you be willing to start it up? Why not galvanise support from the guys here. The left really needs inspiration at this time and you describe an interesting opportunity.
 
bishblaize said:
It would indeed be suicide to try and go all anti-Westminster when you're Labour. However they could revitalise people's interest in politics with a leader that was sufficiently different & fresh. They dont need to be anti-Westminster, just obviously not 'of' Westminster.
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Harnessing hatreds or serious dislikes is always difficult for normal parties, which is why extremists exist. The anti-Westminster sleaze was about corruption and ineptitude; young people politicking without any real world experience; and, the club atmosphere. It would not be a great leap to reform these issues but it would kill the two main parties. Hence why nothing happens.
 
Ducklegs said:
People do realise that more people (11.3 million) voted for the Conservatives in this election than voted for labour in their last 2 election wins? (9.5 in 2005 and 10.7 in 2001)?

500,000 more people voted conservative this time round than they did in 2010, but yet have ended up with far fewer seats (330) than labour did in 2001 (418 with 500,000 less votes) and 2005 (355 with 800,000 less votes)

The system really is broken, when a party can have 800,000 more votes than their opposition and end up with 25 less seats than they did at their worst showing.
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Well the system isn't proportional, that's true. But dont forget to take into account population growth and variable turnout too.
 
Stretford End Phil said:
Very very interesting, no actually quite an exciting prospect. We don't need a party like the SNP. The mayoral changes will shift power and the North will see cosmetic power offerings but it opens the door to a new direction and party.

Would you be willing to start it up? Why not galvanise support from the guys here. The left really needs inspiration at this time and you describe an interesting opportunity.
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It wouldnt surprise me to see a political party born online tbh. Maybe not on a footy forum tho.
 
Stretford End Phil said:
Very very interesting, no actually quite an exciting prospect. We don't need a party like the SNP. The mayoral changes will shift power and the North will see cosmetic power offerings but it opens the door to a new direction and party.

Would you be willing to start it up? Why not galvanise support from the guys here. The left really needs inspiration at this time and you describe an interesting opportunity.
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Yeah mate, I have been typing up an essay of sorts elaborating on my sentiments, was planning to find some sort of left leaning political forum when I'm finished to see what people who know a lot more than me think, I'll happily post it on here too.

As for starting it myself, I'm a southerner which probably doesn't make me an ideal candidate haha. I've been told on numerous occasions that I'm a very good speaker though!
 
I'm in. Providing we're comitted to a 90% tax rate on anyone earning over £500,000... and an end to coal burning... and free flags for the gays.
 
soap said:
Yeah mate, I have been typing up an essay of sorts elaborating on my sentiments, was planning to find some sort of left leaning political forum when I'm finished to see what people who know a lot more than me think, I'll happily post it on here too.

As for starting it myself, I'm a southerner which probably doesn't make me an ideal candidate haha. I've been told on numerous occasions that I'm a very good speaker though!
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Thinking outside the box is an important quality, getting the message across is the other. After that everything else is gloss. Essays are good, points that become maxims probably better. Move with the times and push the envelope.
 
I think an important thing for the left going forward will be fighting on various fronts and acting practically. If a decent candidate gets nominated paying the £3 to be able to to vote in the Labour leadership election is a good idea. The idea of starting a new party is very exciting. Ultimately I see no reason why the two should be mutually exclusive. I'd be interested to read your essay @soap
 
jeff_goldblum said:
I think an important thing for the left going forward will be fighting on various fronts and acting practically. If a decent candidate gets nominated paying the £3 to be able to to vote in the Labour leadership election is a good idea. The idea of starting a new party is very exciting. Ultimately I see no reason why the two should be mutually exclusive. I'd be interested to read your essay @soap
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I actually lifted your "people who lived through the miners strike don't want to be preached to about socialism by middle class southerners" line when referencing the Green party!
 
ThierryHenry said:
Thought she did well on QT last night, always an engaging, passionate speaker at the very least. Not convinced I want her to get Deputy and become tarnished by leadership, she's a wonderful local voice/politician and national campaigner, would be a shame to lose that.

And I imagine she'll be a major part of the '2025 wave' with Chuka and Jarvis anyway.
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She was very good, another plus about her is that she really winds Tories up which is a must for deputy, plus I'd be more than happy to see her on tv more. But yeah can understand your point, it is very early (hopefully at any rate) in her parliamentary career, most others go for it when they've done everything else they're going to. I wouldn't want a Burnham/Watson duo is the only thing... Umunna and Watson would've worked well.
 
Ducklegs said:
People do realise that more people (11.3 million) voted for the Conservatives in this election than voted for labour in their last 2 election wins? (9.5 in 2005 and 10.7 in 2001)?

500,000 more people voted conservative this time round than they did in 2010, but yet have ended up with far fewer seats (330) than labour did in 2001 (418 with 500,000 less votes) and 2005 (355 with 800,000 less votes)

The system really is broken, when a party can have 800,000 more votes than their opposition and end up with 25 less seats than they did at their worst showing.
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Differing turnout makes the overall numbers relatively incomparable. The areas of the country with the lowest turnout out tend to be the safest Labour seats. Very safe Tory seats have relatively high turnout.

There did used to be a bit of a bias in the electoral system which is why the 2005 and 2010 results in terms of % to seats was so different, but don't worry, that's now been fully overturn by the SNP rise and Lib Dem fall, it's now estimated that Labour need to win by 4% nationally to equal the Tories in terms of seats. Before the boundary review as well.
 
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