next labour leader
- Thread starter sun_tzu
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Entirely plausible.
Political identities are manufactured. Have you thought about yours?
I know this wasn't in response to me, but could you elaborate on what you mean about political identities being manufactured? I'm not doubting it, I'm just not 100% sure what you mean and would be interested to know.
http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...bour-leadership-election-needs-long-shortlist
Observer not happy either. Really does feel like a bit of a stitch up on two fronts at the moment, from one side the two well known faces taking all the nominations, on the other side the candidates not running due to, from my take at least, them thinking they'll have an easier target after 2020 (maybe I'm just too cynical). Hard to imagine cocking something up more than the general election, but this leadership one seems to be doing its utmost best.
Observer not happy either. Really does feel like a bit of a stitch up on two fronts at the moment, from one side the two well known faces taking all the nominations, on the other side the candidates not running due to, from my take at least, them thinking they'll have an easier target after 2020 (maybe I'm just too cynical). Hard to imagine cocking something up more than the general election, but this leadership one seems to be doing its utmost best.
I definitely think that some younger candidates don't want to risk winning the leadership but losing the election in 2020, getting battered by the press and being pressured to resign. In the modern day I think realistically an opposition leader has one shot at winning an election. If you lose and re-run it's a no-win situation.
If a Labour leader went into a second election with a similar agenda to that which they lost with the first time they'd get savaged by the press for being out-of-touch and not moving with times, and if they tried a different they'd be tarred as flip-flopper with no conviction and no concrete plans. The media proved during the election that it can basically single-handedly destroy a candidate and a lot of the new generation are understandably wary of that.
If a Labour leader went into a second election with a similar agenda to that which they lost with the first time they'd get savaged by the press for being out-of-touch and not moving with times, and if they tried a different they'd be tarred as flip-flopper with no conviction and no concrete plans. The media proved during the election that it can basically single-handedly destroy a candidate and a lot of the new generation are understandably wary of that.
Spain not swallowing 'austerity fixed the economy' bollocks.
Chuka as thrown his support behind Liz Kendall.
That is a big deal. If Alan Johnson and maybe even David Miliband put their support behind her too, I reckon she becomes favourite.
Left vs right again So probably not good for party cohesion but she is looking like burnhams most realistic challenger
God I can't believe Andy Burnham is the leftist candidate. Goes to show how effective New Labour was in shifting the make-up of the parliamentary labour party to the right during Blair's leadership when no actual left winger can get the support of the 35 MPs.
There are enough to get a candidate on the ballot, the problem was that they all gave their support to Burnham very early on so he's now pretty free to tack to the centre to win over the membership. Ditto with the unions. It also certainly wasn't Blair that changed the makeup, given that Ed Miliband, Abbott and Balls all got on last time, and all were to the left of the current candidates.
Funny isn't it, they haven't learned any lessons from the last election. The SNP annihilated them in Scotland by going with a clear, decisive anti-austerity, socialist message and yet most of them seem to want to suck up to the banks and big business and hope they can beat the Tories at their own game. I know Scotland has a particularly left wing bent so the situation doesn't translate perfectly to the UK as a whole, but all around the world you can see the left and extreme right making gains and half the Labour party appear to think that they're going to win by moving away from that other than vaguely talking about being tough on immigration occasionally.
I think they need a female leader for whom it wouldn't be cricket to attack them much on a personal level, and who's willing to take them a bit further left to try to actually deal with the huge societal and economic issues that are still looming over the country. Yvette Cooper seems the most likely to fit that bill but she doesn't really seem to know what she wants to stand for at the moment. So expect a Boris Johnson Prime Ministership next time round I reckon.
I think they need a female leader for whom it wouldn't be cricket to attack them much on a personal level, and who's willing to take them a bit further left to try to actually deal with the huge societal and economic issues that are still looming over the country. Yvette Cooper seems the most likely to fit that bill but she doesn't really seem to know what she wants to stand for at the moment. So expect a Boris Johnson Prime Ministership next time round I reckon.
Agree with this (except I don't care about the gender, there are plenty of lefty males too)
Nothing makes my heart sink more than hearing a Labour politician declare with glee that Labour have taken the centre ground, or that their centre ground approach can win the votes of the electorate. This inter-party battle for the centre ground does Labour no good at all. Let the Lib Dems play the centralist card, the Labour party needs to drag the centre ground further to the left and the only way to do that is to campaign for everything the left stands for with pride and conviction. The clamour to be centre ground comes off as 1) cheap political game playing, and 2) weak and apologetic - "we're not scary radical lefties, we're just like those other guys but a bit nicer". It gives the impression that being left-wing is something to hide, to cover up, to be embarrassed about. The left have allowed themselves to be portrayed as naive and incompetent, and instead of fighting back with conviction and earning/proving their credibility they align themselves slightly to the left of the Tories.
There is literally no point in a centrist Labour Party. Labour voters stood by the party after Blair took them into the centre because the Tories had been in office for 18 years and they were desperate for a change, not because they loved the new direction. The New Labour lot currently championing the middle ground need to cast their minds back and remember how poor their opposition was in those three elections.
In 1997 the Tories were a scandal-ridden, divided mess and in 2001 and 2005 they had atrocious PM candidates who didn't have a hope in hell. It's long overdue that the Labour hierarchy realises that maybe their big, bold '3rd Way' wasn't as significant a factor in the electoral successes of 1997-2005 as their egos would have them believe. They also have to realise that there's a young generation of predominantly left-leaning voters who have never experienced anything other than a centrist Labour Party. They can rely on the votes of a lot of older folks who remember what the party used to stand for, but in my lifetime Labour has done nothing of much significance to endear itself to its traditional support.
The only thing that keeps people my age (mid-twenties) around here voting Labour is because we're still suffering from what the Tories did to the coal and steel industries. When your support base in your traditional heartlands is largely sticking with you because they hate the other guys, rather than because they feel that you represent them, you have a problem. At this election,that neglect of their traditional support base during the Blair/Brown years and during the election campaign lost them over 50 seats to left-wing opposition, not to mention ruining them in Tory-Labour marginals where swathes of people didn't see the point in voting Labour and went for UKIP instead because at least they had something different to say.
In 1997 the Tories were a scandal-ridden, divided mess and in 2001 and 2005 they had atrocious PM candidates who didn't have a hope in hell. It's long overdue that the Labour hierarchy realises that maybe their big, bold '3rd Way' wasn't as significant a factor in the electoral successes of 1997-2005 as their egos would have them believe. They also have to realise that there's a young generation of predominantly left-leaning voters who have never experienced anything other than a centrist Labour Party. They can rely on the votes of a lot of older folks who remember what the party used to stand for, but in my lifetime Labour has done nothing of much significance to endear itself to its traditional support.
The only thing that keeps people my age (mid-twenties) around here voting Labour is because we're still suffering from what the Tories did to the coal and steel industries. When your support base in your traditional heartlands is largely sticking with you because they hate the other guys, rather than because they feel that you represent them, you have a problem. At this election,that neglect of their traditional support base during the Blair/Brown years and during the election campaign lost them over 50 seats to left-wing opposition, not to mention ruining them in Tory-Labour marginals where swathes of people didn't see the point in voting Labour and went for UKIP instead because at least they had something different to say.
Only once since England won the world cup has a labour leader who is not Tony Blair delivered delivered a majority in a general election (a majority of 3 in 1974)
So perhaps Blair was onto something with centrist populist policies
One tiny non Blair majority in over 50 years by the next election for the left wing policies vs 3 clear wins wins for a centrist labour party... If the party picks a left wing leader they are choosing ideals over power and that's a valid choice if that's the decision taken. But can you do more good in power or by preaching from the opposition benches?
So perhaps Blair was onto something with centrist populist policies
One tiny non Blair majority in over 50 years by the next election for the left wing policies vs 3 clear wins wins for a centrist labour party... If the party picks a left wing leader they are choosing ideals over power and that's a valid choice if that's the decision taken. But can you do more good in power or by preaching from the opposition benches?
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They certainly didn't do any good last time they were in power.
Yep, it's a way to get elected but if you want a change towards fairness and equality it's a waste of time
I agree with others in that Labour perhaps benefited from how shite the Tories were in the early 2000s, but I do think that any party hoping to get a majority government has to be at least partly centrist, unless they’re up against really shite opposition, or have a brilliant campaign.
Both parties know that you can’t be completely radical in one direction or the other, unless you have a very strong PR team, but Labour could still arguably be quite left-wing and possibly get in.
I don’t even think their biggest problem this time round was the fact that they were left-wing, but more that people perceived Miliband to – rightfully or wrongfully – be a weak and unconvincing leader.
Both parties know that you can’t be completely radical in one direction or the other, unless you have a very strong PR team, but Labour could still arguably be quite left-wing and possibly get in.
I don’t even think their biggest problem this time round was the fact that they were left-wing, but more that people perceived Miliband to – rightfully or wrongfully – be a weak and unconvincing leader.
The thing is, whenever there's a survey that asks people to pick between different policies without knowing whose they are, the leftist parties win by a mile and the Tories do terribly. I don't think the country is ideologically centre-right, it's just that whenever anyone tries to do anything vaguely left-of-centre Murdoch et al set out to discredit and destroy them - and it works.
Take this election where Labour's slightly-less-right-wing-than-the-Tories approach was polling better than the Tories before the election, despite the fact that the SNP were cutting the Labour vote in Scotland. People liked their ideas more, they just were afraid to vote for them because of the stuff the press had been peddling throughout the election - Labour will ruin the recovery, Ed Miliband's a nerd etc. Ultimately it came down to a combination of who had the better campaign team and whether Labour could keep their traditional vote onside in the midst of UKIP's easy scapegoating. As it happens the Tories (predictably) had the support of the majority of the press and Labour failed to provide enough assurance to the working classes that they had their interests in mind.
Take this election where Labour's slightly-less-right-wing-than-the-Tories approach was polling better than the Tories before the election, despite the fact that the SNP were cutting the Labour vote in Scotland. People liked their ideas more, they just were afraid to vote for them because of the stuff the press had been peddling throughout the election - Labour will ruin the recovery, Ed Miliband's a nerd etc. Ultimately it came down to a combination of who had the better campaign team and whether Labour could keep their traditional vote onside in the midst of UKIP's easy scapegoating. As it happens the Tories (predictably) had the support of the majority of the press and Labour failed to provide enough assurance to the working classes that they had their interests in mind.
It’s one of the big flaws of FPTP. You could argue that there are a lot more vaguely left-wing parties that people vote for than right-wing ones. Labour are supposed to be left-wing. The Lib Dems, if not left in economic policies, are a fairly liberally minded party. The Greens are very left-wing. The SNP are generally centre-left.
Even UKIP, who are more of a right-wing party, managed to obtain a lot of votes in Labour areas, which suggests that while they’re not a left-wing party, they were doing a good job of getting lefties to vote for them.
But because the Tories can manage to obtain just over a third of the votes, they manage to govern the entire country because of a flawed electoral system which has no room for accommodating potentially similar parties whose vote may be split in certain areas.
As is sitting on the opposition benches whilst the conservatives rule... That's the decision facing the party this time in the election - pick a leader and direction that appeals to people who will vote labour anyway or pick a leader and direction that can win the floating votes
Most people who vote do so from the pocket, the people whose pocket it affects most don't vote.
Centre politics is the present and the future IMO, left or right.
The problem is that I don’t think any of the potential leadership candidates don’t look like they could seriously win an election.
That doesn't explain why Labour do so well in deprived urban areas.
True... Jarvis, Chukka and David milliband were probably the best bets.
If it's Liz kendal or burnham I'd say kendal has broader appeal but it's going to be a big job to get labour into a winning position in 5 years unless the tories tear themselves apart over Europe (which is conceivable)
Like inner London?
Was thinking more Hull East, Greater Manchester and the like. Wonder what the link is between people's education and earning power in relation to their propensity to vote?
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/generalelect...ortant-for-the-conservatives-than-for-labour/
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&q=likley to vote by education&ei=J4trVZTXApLQ7QbIoIOwBA&url=http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/57531/1/democraticaudit.com-Highly_educated_young_people_are_less_likely_to_vote_than_older_people_with_much_lower_levels_of_atta.pdf&ved=0CCAQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNFd-kKpGGni-gWD4lfjyXs2iD5rWA&sig2=MKBz6e9t4tnjsHofTSHeig
In short age seems to be a bigger factor than money or education, though all three do have some relevance
It's quite complex but largely determined by their 'feck-you-jack-i'm-ok' quotient.
I think the reason Labour get higher turn-outs and lost fewer votes to the likes of UKIP in the cities is because of the level of investment they get. Places like Manchester or London, whilst they have huge levels of inequality, get disproportionate amounts of spending on infrastructure etc. because they're economic hubs. So whilst Labour wasn't doing much for, for example, pit villages in County Durham or Tyne and Wear under Blair, big cities were seeing huge amounts of investment in comparison. They can think back to the New Labour years and be like 'well that wasn't so bad'.
Ultimately I think the reason the turn-out was low in former-industrial areas, and why a lot of voters switched to UKIP, is because they got brought to their knees during the Tories time in power and things didn't get much better under Blair. Why would you bother voting, for Labour or otherwise, when you've been let down by both mainstream parties? Like I said, Labour are still dominant in a lot of these areas because people hate the Tories, not because they particularly like New Labour.
Ultimately I think the reason the turn-out was low in former-industrial areas, and why a lot of voters switched to UKIP, is because they got brought to their knees during the Tories time in power and things didn't get much better under Blair. Why would you bother voting, for Labour or otherwise, when you've been let down by both mainstream parties? Like I said, Labour are still dominant in a lot of these areas because people hate the Tories, not because they particularly like New Labour.
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That is a bit odd. Those earning 70-100k arexa bit more likely to vote Labour than the 40-45k bracket. Guess they've made their pile.
Possibly. What did you make of Yvette Cooper advocating a benefit cap this morning?
Not sure London gets a disproportionate amount of spending.
Remember that's household income though
Fair point- 40k household income can't be that much above both being on minimum wage.
Seriously? No white text? Infrastructure spending in London is through the roof compared to the rest of the country. The average Londoner gets £24 of infrastructure spending for every £1 the average North Easterner gets. The average North Westerner gets £6 spent on them for every quid a North Easterner gets. The big cities, and especially London, get a ridiculously big slice of the pie and that barely changed when Blair got in.
Cross-rail is distorting things. Wait til H2 starts. London tax take subsidises the regions. As an aside, what do you pay in council tax?
The kind of appeal to cuntishness that made me leave the labour party 20 years ago.
You can't really make the argument that a huge public works project that predominantly benefits London (and those who commute into London) is distorting figures - it's an example of the disparity. I just found a figure from 2011 which said that London spends about £2700 a head on infrastructure compared to £5 a head in the North East and that
I'm a student so I don't pay council tax, but where my parents live Band A is £1120-ish and Band H is £3350-ish in a pretty run-down area, is London's significantly higher?
As for the tax-take argument, the tax take is London is skewed by companies being set up there and rich people living there, and the reason rich people and companies flock there is because government policy has always encouraged the concentration of wealth and power in London whilst places like Glasgow, Yorkshire, Wales, the North West and the North East did all the grunt work and got very little in return. Think of it as London paying back its debts to the rest of the country (so slowly and in such small amounts that they barely notice the money's missing).
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