Why Labour lost.

[Thomas]

Heres a snippet of the resignation letter labour party member  Dr. Allan moore sent to the corbyn regime in scotland ...

Having been a Labour supporter for over 20 years, and member for over a decade, I have seen the party, particularly in Scotland, lose its identity, purpose, and relevance as it has moved toward becoming a party of soundbite policies and pure opposition, devoid of any substance or reasoned opinion.

Soundbite policies and pure opposition devoid of any substance or reasoned opinion as we have seen over things like casual claims of mass racism across the uk or labours infamous brexit policy at the last general election sum this party up.

[Thomas]

If I could answer such questions I would be living in a tax haven somewhere.

If i remember aright comrade smurf , you told us you made a killing flogging your hertfordshire flat that enabled you to move to cornwall.  I well remember you bragging about it on the old forum.You might not be living in a tax haven , but you acted the right wee tory and took advantage of the nasty english housing market you now complain about with your crocodile tears.

Trying and failing to fling mud yet again at the tories over the english housing market until someone points out the uncomfortable truth of labours record when in charge and off you pop with your tail between your legs.

[Thomas]

I hold no candle for New Labour, but all they were really guilty of was continuing unchanged with Thatcherite housing policies. All the council housing stock in Plymouth was transferred to a private housing association by a Labour council under a Labour government. New Labour of course. Meanwhile they built even less council houses than the Tories did, and did nothing for private tenants. It was Thatcherite housing policy on steroids. If Starmer returns us to that we'll never solve the housing crisis. Thatcherite housing policies are the problem, not the solution. But some Blairites and many Tories do very well out of it. Self-interested bastards!

Steve  i again point out you are treating people as fools.

If you think voters are going to buy into this "new labour a different party to us" bollocks , prepare for another kicking at the next election.

In 8 years of labour/liberal rule at the scottish parliament , you built 358 council houses in the entire length and breadth of scotland. The snp built 30 time that amount in the first 8 years of their rule.

The snp government also maintained housing association builds despite tory austerity , the tory austerity your party supported over scotland rather than us having  independence.

The snp government ended the hated right to buy policy in scotland , while yet again labour made a total fuss over it and tried to point scor against us , with some labour councils in scotland at one point threatening to refuse to implement it in a political point scoring excercise that backfired.

The snp wanted to end the regressive council tax and impose a local income tax  , surprise surprise labour opposed this.

The snp protected both social and private tenants in scotland , implemented a widely envied affordable housing strategy , effectively abolished the bedroom tax and ended stamp duty for the vast majority of scottish buyers while labour either opposed dithered or abstained on most of these things.

You think scottish voters forget these things or blame some mythical different labour party?

Honestly you are in cloud cuckoo land .

Labour own englands housing problems as much if not more than the tories ,and thank feck you are no where near having policy control over ours.

Labours heads remain in the sand , and long may it continue .

[Thomas]

That is indeed true. But they are an essential part of the mix, without which we cannot hope to win either. Ditching the main thing people liked about us in 2017 in pursuit of supposedly making us "electable" is actually logically idiotic.

Remind me again , isnt this exactly what you and the tories did in 2017? In the previous election back in 2015 , both labour and conservatives were pro european remain parties. After the result of the 2016 referendum , both labour and tories stood on a brexit ticket in 2017 , ie; ditching your previous long held pro european stance to make yourself electable in light oif the ref result.

This was what in part fuelled the vast anger of the  electorate post 2017 , the fact so many mps had stood on a get brexit done ticket and got elected , then proceeded to go against the very thing they had promised with predictable results where labour were annihialted in 2019 , and the tories ejected many pro remain mps and took a harder brexit line in order to win.

So no its not idiotic , what labour did  by treating the electorate as fools was logically idiotic.

The one thing you shouldn't change is the thing people liked.

you need to read what i am ariting steve , im not claiming you should. I said policy alone isnt enough to get you elected if you are against the public view on the big isues of the day.

Ignoring englands wish to brexit and scotlands wish for independence clearly proves how idiotic your party is . You can promise all you like , and dangle yet more idealistic pie in the sky policy all day long , but you wont get my vote because i want scot indy or streetwalkers vote in england because he wants brexit.

The problem is that we have many Blairites - heavily invested in the Thatcherite status quo, often financially and not just psychologically - who are ideologically opposed to many of those popular policies. They are dishonestly engaged in trying to make the fallacious argument that the policies themselves are the problem, motivated more by their own personal dislike of them, using our defeat as their reasoning.

You talk of the "blairites" as though they are in a seperate party to you. Not only are they labour members and politicians , they are in control of labour so what are you talking about?

Do you think the ordinary public see you as two different parties or something ?

And yet polling evidence of the popularity of those policies clearly shows logically that it was not these that caused our defeat.

No one claimed it was. The claim was popualr policy alone isnt enough to win elections when you are against the public mood on the big constitutional issues. Concentrating on one and ignoring the other as you cant deal with it( brexit , scot indy) is a major achilles heel for labour that the last election proved was fatal.


....as the next one will be till you come to terms with the big difficult decisions.

especially in 2017 when the focus was less on Brexit and more on policy.

What are you talking about?

Is this yet more re writing of labour history ?

Getting brexit done was a key policy in the 2017 labour manifesto .

On 23 June 2016, voters were simply asked if they would like to remain a member of the EU or leave it. But the Labour manifesto in 2017 was a hard Brexit manifesto. It promised to leave the European Union by "accepting the result", and that "freedom of movement will end when we leave the European Union". By definition for freedom of movement to end, we will have to leave the single market, since, as the EU's chief negotiator has observed, the four freedoms are indivisble. In the North of England and in the Midlands, as well as other parts of the country, voters flocked to Labour and supported our Brexit manifesto. In light of the vote this week in Parliament, these voters will now be more cautious.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/01/it-s-time-accept-labour-manifesto-you-voted-promised-hard-brexit

I keep telling you steve , your partys trouble is it arrogantly keeps treating voters as thick gullible idiots.

[srb7677]

I know which party is most to blame for insane housing costs and failure to look after the ordinary working person who just wants a roof over their head that doesn't suck their wallet dry with each rental demand and it's rosettes are not remotely blue

I hold no candle for New Labour, but all they were really guilty of was continuing unchanged with Thatcherite housing policies. All the council housing stock in Plymouth was transferred to a private housing association by a Labour council under a Labour government. New Labour of course. Meanwhile they built even less council houses than the Tories did, and did nothing for private tenants. It was Thatcherite housing policy on steroids. If Starmer returns us to that we'll never solve the housing crisis. Thatcherite housing policies are the problem, not the solution. But some Blairites and many Tories do very well out of it. Self-interested bastards!

[papasmurf]

But why didn't the drop in home owners rate from 73% to 63% have that effect in past elections?

If I could answer such questions I would be living in a tax haven somewhere.

[Nalaar]

Given the massive home ownership slump for the ten years from 2006 to 2016, during which years conservatives won all elections held. If anything the home ownership rate has stabilised just above 60% for the last few years

The next general election, in theory is not for another over 4 years.  A lot of people are going to end up renting in that time.

But why didn't the drop in home owners rate from 73% to 63% have that effect in past elections?

[papasmurf]

Given the massive home ownership slump for the ten years from 2006 to 2016, during which years conservatives won all elections held. If anything the home ownership rate has stabilised just above 60% for the last few years

The next general election, in theory is not for another over 4 years.  A lot of people are going to end up renting in that time.

[Nalaar]

I know which party is most to blame for insane housing costs and failure to look after the ordinary working person who just wants a roof over their head that doesn't suck their wallet dry with each rental demand and it's rosettes are not remotely blue

With home ownership dropping like a stone, that is yet another tranche of voters Bojo The Clown can't rely on.

Presumably this would already of had an effect?

Given the massive home ownership slump for the ten years from 2006 to 2016, during which years conservatives won all elections held. If anything the home ownership rate has stabilised just above 60% for the last few years.

Source https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/home-ownership-rate

[papasmurf]

I know which party is most to blame for insane housing costs and failure to look after the ordinary working person who just wants a roof over their head that doesn't suck their wallet dry with each rental demand and it's rosettes are not remotely blue

With home ownership dropping like a stone, that is yet another tranche of voters Bojo The Clown can't rely on.

[johnofgwent]

There are in fact plenty of big things that need doing, though. Fixing the housing crisis for example.

Or abolishing excessively insecure work contracts.

Well, the Tories had thirteen years to "fix" the damage done to our housing market by thatcher's destruction of the council housing sector, and did absolutely F@@@ all.

Additionally, the worst case of boom and bust under the tories was nigel lawsons absolute arse of an idea to remove the right of an unmarried couple to enjoy TWO bites of MIRAS Tax relief, but to do it notr as soon as he sat down but to give said DINKY's a further six months to find somewhere before the axe fell. As a result three bedroom semis in Newport's suburbs shot up from the £39,900 I had just paid the week before his announcement, to £86,500 the amount i was offered by a red braced Arse hole with a suitcase of money knocking doors in my street on the last day MIRAS was available followed in short order the following monday by a tanking back to £55,000 and humungus negative equity that took decades to catch up.

But the house I moved into for £94,000 the weekend before Blair's ascendancy to the throne which rose to little more than £98,000 in the first years of Brown's "prudence" shot to an offer value of £295,000 the week before lehman brothers went bust.

I know which party is most to blame for insane housing costs and failure to look after the ordinary working person who just wants a roof over their head that doesn't suck their wallet dry with each rental demand and it's rosettes are not remotely blue

[Streetwalker]

That focus has very much been on Brexit in every election since we voted to leave . Especially when some party's decided the referendum didn't matter . Get that done and other policy  might get a viewing .

I agree that Brexit was a strong factor in both 2017 and 2019. But in the former Labour's manifesto shifted a lot of focus onto policy much more so than in 2019 which was almost wholly about Brexit. This goes a long way towards explaining why Labour did so much better in 2017 than in 2019. In the former they succeeded in diverting some of the attention away from Brexit onto their popular policies. In 2019 this didn't happen. The media had learned it's lesson.

Labour may have shifted its focus in 2017 but it still had its Brexit policy for anyone interested to see . That being they would negotiate a deal that would see us remain inside the single market and customs union . That was enough to make sure anyone who voted Brexit many of whom were traditional Labour voters would not be voting Labour .
But it wasn't all about Brexit or Labour policy . Corbyn  was a disaster for the Labour party . I think most people who would be described as central or swing voters would rather swing right than left and that was the choice we were given in 2019 .

[Borchester]

The Labour party lost because it ran out of things to do.

The brothers and sisters have an image of themselves raising the confused proletariat out of Tory serfdom and hammering out revolutionary policy between shifts in the newly reopened coal mines and steel mills.

Most of the electorate want something on the lines of a reasonably competent office manager or foreman. There for the big things but the rest of the time having enough sense to keep out of the way.

We have run out of big things. The major problem of the unemployed is not starvation but obesity. A few months back the country went into lockdown and the economy was meant to collapse. Instead the treasury fired up the printing presses, raised new loans and I doubt that we will endure much more than a penny on the income tax. So far the best the Labour party can come up with is Betty Big Bum from Brent squealing racism because the police suggested she took some driving lessons.

Overall, I can't see Keir Starmer moving into Number 10 anytime soon.

Your posts are often an exaggerated, silly, but mildly amusing parody of some false reality parallel universe run by the Daily Mail. As such they are often difficult to engage with intelligently, and this one is no exception.

There are in fact plenty of big things that need doing, though. Fixing the housing crisis for example. Or abolishing excessively insecure work contracts. The Tories of course can be relied upon to do neither, because they are in the pockets of landlords and exploiters. Half of all Tory MPs are landlords themselves and thus direct beneficiaries of the housing crisis.

Self-serving, morally corrupt, bastards!

That is the spirit!

Complete bollocks but the sort of thing that will keep you happy and the Tories in government. 

[srb7677]

The Labour party lost because it ran out of things to do.

The brothers and sisters have an image of themselves raising the confused proletariat out of Tory serfdom and hammering out revolutionary policy between shifts in the newly reopened coal mines and steel mills.

Most of the electorate want something on the lines of a reasonably competent office manager or foreman. There for the big things but the rest of the time having enough sense to keep out of the way.

We have run out of big things. The major problem of the unemployed is not starvation but obesity. A few months back the country went into lockdown and the economy was meant to collapse. Instead the treasury fired up the printing presses, raised new loans and I doubt that we will endure much more than a penny on the income tax. So far the best the Labour party can come up with is Betty Big Bum from Brent squealing racism because the police suggested she took some driving lessons.

Overall, I can't see Keir Starmer moving into Number 10 anytime soon.

Your posts are often an exaggerated, silly, but mildly amusing parody of some false reality parallel universe run by the Daily Mail. As such they are often difficult to engage with intelligently, and this one is no exception.

There are in fact plenty of big things that need doing, though. Fixing the housing crisis for example. Or abolishing excessively insecure work contracts. The Tories of course can be relied upon to do neither, because they are in the pockets of landlords and exploiters. Half of all Tory MPs are landlords themselves and thus direct beneficiaries of the housing crisis.

Self-serving, morally corrupt, bastards!

[Borchester]

The Labour party lost because it ran out of things to do.

The brothers and sisters have an image of themselves raising the confused proletariat out of Tory serfdom and hammering out revolutionary policy between shifts in the newly reopened coal mines and steel mills.

Most of the electorate want something on the lines of a reasonably competent office manager or foreman. There for the big things but the rest of the time having enough sense to keep out of the way.

We have run out of big things. The major problem of the unemployed is not starvation but obesity. A few months back the country went into lockdown and the economy was meant to collapse. Instead the treasury fired up the printing presses, raised new loans and I doubt that we will endure much more than a penny on the income tax. So far the best the Labour party can come up with is Betty Big Bum from Brent squealing racism because the police suggested she took some driving lessons.

Overall, I can't see Keir Starmer moving into Number 10 anytime soon.