news & politics:discussion

[Matt42]

Just now, Ozanne said:

I’m saying it’s progress. After the scale of defeat in 2019 it’ll take time but it’s definitely progress.

Do you really think this is progress after 2019? To me it just looks like Starmer is keeping the party floating (with all of its current problems) until it’s flushed. What on earth has Starmer done this whole time to win anyone over? I’m just baffled where you think these votes are going to come from. People may dislike the policies Johnson is bringing in but without an alternative they will just grit their teeth and vote for them.

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, Matt42 said:

Do you really think this is progress after 2019? To me it just looks like Starmer is keeping the party floating (with all of its current problems) until it’s flushed. What on earth has Starmer done this whole time to win anyone over? I’m just baffled where you think these votes are going to come from. People may dislike the policies Johnson is bringing in but without an alternative they will just grit their teeth and vote for them.

votes will come if they feel their lives are not improving after so many promises.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Matt42 said:

Do you really think this is progress after 2019? To me it just looks like Starmer is keeping the party floating (with all of its current problems) until it’s flushed. What on earth has Starmer done this whole time to win anyone over? I’m just baffled where you think these votes are going to come from. People may dislike the policies Johnson is bringing in but without an alternative they will just grit their teeth and vote for them.

Of course it’s progress, to go from such a crushing defeat in 2019 to now according to polling stripping the Tories of a majority is clearly progress. It might not be as black and white as you want it to be but it shows clear progress being made. 
 

They are coming from some of the red wall seats and some of Tory heartlands going to Lab and Lib Dem. I would assume it’s because some are seeing through Johnson’s lies and empty promises but that’s not based on evidence.

[steviewevie]

Now Matt has cursed it I am expecting a labour landslide in 2023.

[incident]

46 minutes ago, Matt42 said:

I should imagine this is much less radical than that. 191 was what the exit poll said in 2019 for Labour and i’d argue that Starmer is less popular than Corbyn (mainly because Johnson has hoovered up a huge portion of disenchanted labour votes).

You could argue that Starmer is less popular than Corbyn, and you'd be right, but it's only half the equation when trying to make predictions.

It needs to be weighed against Starmer being a lot less toxic to a large number of people than Corbyn is/was.

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, incident said:

You could argue that Starmer is less popular than Corbyn, and you'd be right, but it's only half the equation when trying to make predictions.

It needs to be weighed against Starmer being a lot less toxic to a large number of people than Corbyn is/was.

yeah, he's less popular, but also less unpopular. 

[Neil]

6 hours ago, Florian Saucer Attack said:

People's diet under rationing was the healthiest it's ever been. Not that I am advocating for it 

Just wait till there's the land army of teenage girls to pick the veg, 

[Neil]

Who knew that bad miming of crap songs was going to save humanity?

[found home in 2009]

2 hours ago, Matt42 said:

Well I just can't see how the current situation will have any positive reaction for the Labour party at all right now. They have been kicked out of Scotland, they are losing their grip on wales to Welsh nationalist parties, they are losing the red wall and the north is gradually shifting more right wing (outside of major cities). Starmer is causing the young to shift to the greens and the LGBT / progressive wing of Labour feel like they are being kicked out of the party right now. Who the fuck is Labour for now? Because I can tell you who the tories are for… and I can even tell you who the SNP / PC / Green Party are for. The working classes are more right wing than ever and the young socialists are more socialist than ever. Labour’s failure at the “please everyone” approach is just causing people to flock to other parties.

What will be Labour’s undoing is not just the tories getting more seats, but Lib Dem, PC, SNP and maybe even Green Party getting more seats.

As a Lib Dem I'm not completely convinced we're winning more seats, though I'd love to be proved wrong. We very much target Tory seats though, we tend to be better at winning over soft Tories than persuading Labour voters to vote for us. Lib Dems doing well normally helps Labour, though many Labour supporters don't seem to realise this and often have a toxic attitude towards us.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, found home in 2009 said:

As a Lib Dem I'm not completely convinced we're winning more seats, though I'd love to be proved wrong. We very much target Tory seats though, we tend to be better at winning over soft Tories than persuading Labour voters to vote for us. Lib Dems doing well normally helps Labour, though many Labour supporters don't seem to realise this and often have a toxic attitude towards us.

Maybe that might have something to do with the coalition. Vote Lib Dem and get the Tories

[SheffJeff]

 

[maelzoid]

10 minutes ago, Ommadawn said:

Maybe that might have something to do with the coalition. Vote Lib Dem and get the Tories

I don't think you can lay that solely at the feet of the Lib dems. We'll likely never know what exactly went on during those negotiations in 2010, but however it turned out, the Tories clearly made a more attractive offer with regards to the coalition. I believe that the lib dem ethos is closer to labour than tory, so at some point, Labour's pitch was less attractive. What concessions were they not willing to make in order to form a government?

That said, I feel a majority of lib dems now deeply regret the coalition, and it has clearly harmed them at polls.

[steviewevie]

23 minutes ago, maelzoid said:

I don't think you can lay that solely at the feet of the Lib dems. We'll likely never know what exactly went on during those negotiations in 2010, but however it turned out, the Tories clearly made a more attractive offer with regards to the coalition. I believe that the lib dem ethos is closer to labour than tory, so at some point, Labour's pitch was less attractive. What concessions were they not willing to make in order to form a government?

That said, I feel a majority of lib dems now deeply regret the coalition, and it has clearly harmed them at polls.

Weren't labour rude in negotiations, particularly Ed Balls?

[found home in 2009]

2 minutes ago, maelzoid said:

I don't think you can lay that solely at the feet of the Lib dems. We'll likely never know what exactly went on during those negotiations in 2010, but however it turned out, the Tories clearly made a more attractive offer with regards to the coalition. I believe that the lib dem ethos is closer to labour than tory, so at some point, Labour's pitch was less attractive. What concessions were they not willing to make in order to form a government?

That said, I feel a majority of lib dems now deeply regret the coalition, and it has clearly harmed them at polls.

A lot of it was just electoral maths. Tories won 307 seats, Labour 255 and Lib Dems 59 and the other parties had 29 seats between them. So a Lab-Lib coalition wouldn't have had a majority. Would have to have been a Lab-Lib-SNP coalition and that wasn't seen as practical - not sure if SNP would have even been onboard with that anyhow. 

Going by his autobiography Clegg did seem to think it was morally correct to go with the Tories in terms of respecting the publics vote. There was also a lot of people within Labour calling for Brown to resign, but at the start of negotiations Brown was insisting that if there was a coalition he would be head of Labour. That definitely had a negative affect on negotiations as it's hard to negotiate a long term deal if you think the leader might get overthrown. A lot of senior Labour figures were also against going into coalition, I believe David Blunkett said it would be a "coalition of the defeated"

And according to David Laws autobiography (who was part of Lib Dems negotiating team) another stumbling point was student tuition fees. Lib Dems had campaigned to remove them and whilst neither party was open to agreeing to this Labour wanted to charge students more than the Tories.

[Guest]

Some more policy coming out from Labour.

 

[Neil]

1 hour ago, found home in 2009 said:

As a Lib Dem I'm not completely convinced we're winning more seats, though I'd love to be proved wrong. We very much target Tory seats though, we tend to be better at winning over soft Tories than persuading Labour voters to vote for us. Lib Dems doing well normally helps Labour, though many Labour supporters don't seem to realise this and often have a toxic attitude towards us.

Tory voters are not going to vote labour cos of the spaffer cluster fuck.

[mattiloy]

18 minutes ago, found home in 2009 said:

Going by his autobiography Clegg did seem to think it was morally correct to go with the Tories in terms of respecting the publics vote.

lol have you really read nick cleggs autobiography? 😂 😂 😂 all the way through?!? Haaaaaahahahahaha

[Neil]

Just now, Ozanne said:

Some more policy coming out from Labour.

 

It won't raise any money for state schools cos state schools will have 7% extra pupils to teach.

[found home in 2009]

11 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

lol have you really read nick cleggs autobiography? 😂 😂 😂 all the way through?!? Haaaaaahahahahaha

guilty as charged

[mattiloy]

1 minute ago, found home in 2009 said:

guilty as charged

Jeez louise. Lib dems, one of life’s great mysteries!

[steviewevie]

 

[steviewevie]

8 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

Jeez louise. Lib dems, one of life’s great mysteries!

They're alright. They want to legalise weed.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

 

She’s great.

[mattiloy]

4 hours ago, Ozanne said:

I’m saying it’s progress. After the scale of defeat in 2019 it’ll take time but it’s definitely progress.

All things being equal maybe. But after a badly mismanaged pandemic, with Brexit going south and with a relatively friendly press you’d probably want Starmer to be performing better really. Theres a good case for Starmer being the worst politician of all time. Maybe the worst human being of all time? Idk 

[Matt42]

4 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

All things being equal maybe. But after a badly mismanaged pandemic, with Brexit going south and with a relatively friendly press you’d probably want Starmer to be performing better really. Theres a good case for Starmer being the worst politician of all time. Maybe the worst human being of all time? Idk 

Really good point here. Starmer probably had the best opportunity going to stick it to the tories. And he has failed.