Guardian article on why Labour keep losing

It makes some fair points. You only have to read comments on here to see that the nasty party insult is still doled out.
Many voters who have defected from Labour know it isn’t that cut and dried now and takes more than words, such as workable and affordable policies to win back votes.
And a strong leader to promote the right message.
 
It helps when 95% of the press have the tory party's back. Imagine press reaction if labour had given out multi millions in contracts to mates etc etc. I also think that community spirit is dead and buried, I've noticed a dramatic decline in neighbourliness in the last 20 years. It's become the "private reg club I'm better than you mindset" and that mentality won't vote for labour they think it's beneath them.
 
It helps when 95% of the press have the tory party's back. Imagine press reaction if labour had given out multi millions in contracts to mates etc etc. I also think that community spirit is dead and buried, I've noticed a dramatic decline in neighbourliness in the last 20 years. It's become the "private reg club I'm better than you mindset" and that mentality won't vote for labour they think it's beneath them.
95%? Really? I was wondering why the media is currently on a mission to discredit the Tories. BBC, Telegraph, Independent, Star, Sun. All seem to be running an anti-Boris campaign.
 
It helps when 95% of the press have the tory party's back. Imagine press reaction if labour had given out multi millions in contracts to mates etc etc. I also think that community spirit is dead and buried, I've noticed a dramatic decline in neighbourliness in the last 20 years. It's become the "private reg club I'm better than you mindset" and that mentality won't vote for labour they think it's beneath them.
The author is the article mentions the left keep using the press as a reason for failure in elections.

And, I've just seen the most overwhelming outpouring of neighbourliness throughout Covid. It's been everywhere.

The question is do people want to continue to contribute in a post Covid world; if they do, the how do we continue to.
 
There’s no talking to some. Some will always vote one way no matter what the policies or leadership, it’s just ingrained in some peoples psyche and no matter what they will always see the other side with bad thoughts.
 
Less than 5 million folk read newspapers nowadays yet the left think people are hugely influenced by them it's utter dribble the last election proved that which was won on one policy get Brexit done.
 
Less than 5 million folk read newspapers nowadays yet the left think people are hugely influenced by them it's utter dribble the last election proved that which was won on one policy get Brexit done.
We are talking the last 40 years here not just right now. Brexit has galvanised the poorer regions, why is that? Maybe 40 yrs of the press bias against the EU and more recently social media with immigrants being the scapegoat for their ills. I can't see how the North will benefit from this govt and with labour driven out of Scotland I don't see the situation changing anytime soon. The only parallel I can see is the US rust belts supporting Trump in huge numbers, how the masses are easily led.
 
I didn't vote for Blair, I thought he was a c**t from the start, so just didn't vote, I've never understood this binary option of one or the other, most of the time they're all unelectable chancers.

My lifetime options.

92 - A generally massively unlikeable Victory Rally loving man VS a man who looked like he'd wandered in by accident while looking for the TSB as he had a meeting about his loan application for a second hand Volvo 240.

97 - A wanker VS a drowning accidentally wandered in man surrounded by wankers who wanted to drown him.

01 - A wanker VS a computer generated Tory Boy

05 - A wanker VS the Dark Lord withering in sunlight and had given up years before (c)

10 - An angry angry so angry 'fill your boots open markets, we don't got no regulations!' man VS Eton 'not sure why I'm here, when do the staff bring lunch?' Rifles

15 - The YTS trainee apparently left wing but policy averse brother of Mandelson's slightly more evil apprentice VS Eton 'not sure why I'm still here, has lunch been served yet? What does Rupert need me to do next?' Rifles

17 - A man who despite some actual decent policies would never be allowed to win an election in this country unless it was straight after a World War and hung around with borderline potentially terrible people VS A fault admitting averse automaton constantly on the edge of a breakdown desperately trying to push something she publicly didn't believe in 5 minutes ago and then lobbed a load of cash (which we didn't have 5 minutes ago) at a bunch of intolerant bigots to cling to power.

19 - Honestly Diane Abbot will be great! VS Eton Trifles lying toad faced ** who shouldn't be anywhere near public office.

The country is generally centre right, always has been for some reason, I suppose that's what happens in a democracy when everyone can vote, go democracy! Yay! Those with power generally cling on to it at all costs and right wing policies serve their purpose well so we end up with populist right wing corrupt inept nonsense like now, sly right wing cruelty like the previous lot or middling ineffective centre pointlessness.

Anyway, I could never vote Tory as their morals are in their boots and the obtusely dullard slavery to market forces generally results in callous hardship to the vulnerable while the left are permanently inept at party politics because most meetings end up like the People's Front of Judea, they also lack a sense of humour in the more militant camps, they were always the people you'd avoid in Uni bars.

So I don't know, just fuck all of them off.
 
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I didn't vote for Blair, I thought he was a c**t from the start, so just didn't vote, I've never understood this binary option of one or the other, most of the time they're all unelectable chancers.

My lifetime options.

92 - A generally massively unlikeable Victory Rally loving man VS a man who looked like he'd wandered in by accident while looking for the TSB as he had a meeting about his loan application for a second hand Volvo 240.

97 - A wanker VS a drowning accidentally wandered in man surrounded by wankers who wanted to drown him.

01 - A wanker VS a computer generated Tory Boy

05 - A wanker VS the Dark Lord withering in sunlight and had given up years before (c)

10 - An angry angry so angry 'fill your boots open markets, we don't got no regulations!' man VS Eton 'not sure why I'm here, when do the staff bring lunch?' Rifles

15 - The YTS trainee apparently left wing but policy averse brother of Mandelson's slightly more evil apprentice VS Eton 'not sure why I'm still here, has lunch been served yet? What does Rupert need me to do next?' Rifles

17 - A man who despite some actual decent policies would never be allowed to win an election in this country unless it was straight after a World War and hung around with borderline potentially terrible people VS A fault admitting averse automaton constantly on the edge of a breakdown desperately trying to push something she publicly didn't believe in 5 minutes ago and then lobbed a load of cash (which we didn't have 5 minutes ago) at a bunch of intolerant bigots to cling to power.

19 - Honestly Diane Abbot will be great! VS Eton Trifles lying toad faced ** who shouldn't be anywhere near public office.

The country is generally centre right, always has been for some reason, I suppose that's what happens in a democracy when everyone can vote, go democracy! Yay! Those with power generally cling on to it at all costs and right wing policies serve their purpose well so we end up with populist right wing corrupt inept nonsense like now, sly right wing cruelty like the previous lot or middling ineffective centre pointlessness.

Anyway, I could never vote Tory as their morals are in their boots and the obtusely dullard slavery to market forces generally results in callous hardship to the vulnerable while the left are permanently inept at party politics because most meetings end up like the People's Front of Judea, they also lack a sense of humour in the more militant camps, they were always the people you'd avoid in Uni bars.

So I don't know, just fuck all of them off.
That's why we should have the PR system the two party who can only win power is just plain crap.
 
I was somewhat underwhelmed by the article. Behr bullet points the Tory faultlines and agrees with Labour that they deserve to be called out on them. He also recognises the huge backing for the Tory Party by the right wing media. And yet, he doesn't have any explanations for this not being enough to warrant support for Labour among the electorate. Actually, he does come up with two valid reasons but only in a throwaway remark. These are that Labour has been taken over by a combination of far-left dreamers (my word) and snooty metropolitans.

I think it's more subtle than that but I do believe that this is the view of electors in many 'red wall' seats. When the Labour Party made the huge mistake of allowing people into the Party for £3.00, in order to vote in the 2015 leadership election, it allowed the militant idiots back in. The huge rise in Party membership saw young people with hope join up - but that was temporary - and the far-left apparatchiks, who would then take over constituency parties in key battlegrounds.

What we now have is an electorate in the old industrial towns that says, Labour took us for granted and they now don't talk to us because they are either (a) hard-left ideologues, or (b) metropolitan types whose focus is on woke issues. So, there is enough of a feeling of betrayal to both stop people in these areas voting Labour and to vote Conservative as a sort of punishment. These are areas left behind because both New Labour and the Tories focussed on growth in the big cities - especially London - and on growth through Financial markets rather than through industrial development in the old towns. That is where Labour now needs to focus its efforts on rebuilding trust and rebuilding its community connections; because Labour's original growth was generated out of its communities, industries and trades unions. If those connections are not there then Labour might as well be a city-centric 'brand'. But that would be a betrayal of their people, their communities.
 
Is it not just a case of joe public preferring capitalism over socialism. When you strip it back to basics that's what it boils down to. People on here with these strong socialist principles are hoping for a time long since gone. This is the 21st century and some of you need to move into it.
 
What we now have is an electorate in the old industrial towns that says, Labour took us for granted and they now don't talk to us because they are either (a) hard-left ideologues, or (b) metropolitan types whose focus is on woke issues. So, there is enough of a feeling of betrayal to both stop people in these areas voting Labour and to vote Conservative as a sort of punishment.

Don't make the mistake of thinking voters are choosing Conservative as a punishment of Labour or that they feel betrayed by Labour. That's the kind of narcissistic, egocentric thinking that voters find distasteful. People have not moved away from Labour ideology as a protest but because it's no longer what they want. Simple as that. The party doesn't seem to have moved with public opinion regarding where people want to be in the 2020s. There's nothing quite so unappealing as hearing Labour diametrically opposed to Tory policy just because it is Tory policy. For most people, the government tries to run the country and Labour tries to undermine the government. They'll have to do a lot better than that to win voters over.
 
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Don't make the mistake of thinking voters are choosing Conservative as a punishment of Labour or that they feel betrayed by Labour. That's the kind of narcissistic, egocentric thinking that voters find distasteful. People have not moved away from Labour ideology as a protest but because it's no longer what they want. Simple as that. The party doesn't seem to have moved with public opinion regarding where people want to be in the 2020s. There's nothing quite so unappealing as hearing Labour diametrically opposed to Tory policy just because it is Tory policy. For most people, the government tries to run the country and Labour tries to undermine the government. They'll have to do a lot better than that to win voters over.
Go away with your big words. It's a case of sod Labour they don't give a toss, might as well try the other lot.
 
Don't make the mistake of thinking voters are choosing Conservative as a punishment of Labour or that they feel betrayed by Labour. That's the kind of narcissistic, egocentric thinking that voters find distasteful. People have not moved away from Labour ideology as a protest but because it's no longer what they want. Simple as that. The party doesn't seem to have moved with public opinion regarding where people want to be in the 2020s. There's nothing quite so unappealing as hearing Labour diametrically opposed to Tory policy just because it is Tory policy. For most people, the government tries to run the country and Labour tries to undermine the government. They'll have to do a lot better than that to win voters over.

If people don't understand that the democratic role of opposition is to hold the government accountable then frankly they shouldn't be voting but yay democracy!.
 
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It helps when 95% of the press have the tory party's back. Imagine press reaction if labour had given out multi millions in contracts to mates etc etc. I also think that community spirit is dead and buried, I've noticed a dramatic decline in neighbourliness in the last 20 years. It's become the "private reg club I'm better than you mindset" and that mentality won't vote for labour they think it's beneath them.
🤦‍♂️🤣🤣🤣
 
1: the left need to stop blaming the press. It gets you nowhere and it's like blaming the weather. It is what it is.

2. The main mistake Labour are making is assuming the 'the working man' sees themselves as anti Tory. The last labour government did too little. It was indistinguishable from a soft Tory government.

3. In 97 labour won because it still carried a vestige of loyalty from the north, scotland etc AND it made itself palatable to lib dem types in leafy suburbs. This time round, it's trying the same trick but without the loyalty from vast swaithes of the country and Volvo esta drivers who think Johnson is a bit crude won't be enough to sweep Starmer to victory.

4. By the time the next election comes, it's going to be twenty five years since then and the centre of the party still thinks blasting out 'things can only get better' and saying 'tories are nasty' is a surefire recipe for success.

Their lack of ideas and inability to capture the public mood in policy (or possibly more accurately, shape the public mood) has been apparent for years. New labour was a curious mix of tory populist style 'law and order' and weird privatized socialism that that didn't work in the long run. They have nothing else.

Say what you like about the allotment holder, but he had some ideas. Keith doesn't appear to have *any*

5. Because of it's constitution, Labour's internal struggles always play out over years. The Tories are probably more riven by nasty infighting but they just have a quick punch up, stab the leader in the back and move on. Labour goes on for years, wrestling over control of committees, suspensions, endless wrangling and the gives the impression it's more interested in internal affairs than the countries affairs.

6. Labour fucked up Brexit badly. Keith was a lot to blame for that. They then made Keith the leader.

7. I can't remember a more ambition less time in UK politics. Keith has no ideas, I don't even know who the lib dem leader is and Boris governs by opinion polls. There's no vision. Everything is just short term squabbles.
 
The reality is Labour do not help themselves.

Take Ed and David….

As a Tory (who has voted for all the main parties at different times) - David was electable - Centralist and slightly Left - which was no bad thing.

Ed was nowhere near David’s ability IMHO and Labour elect Ed - madness!!!

Then we have JC - the UK population generally supports middle ish of the argument politicians - he was never that and then throw in a re-nationalise manifesto with making most things free - the UK population is not stupid and will not buy it.

Quite a lot of us remember British Rail!!!!

Sadly, KS has a very piss poor cabinet that is simply not good enough.

Labour used to have some very good politicians in the likes of Jack Straw, John Smith, Alastair Darling and even to some extent Gordon Brown - now they have very few good ones, and I am not saying the Torys have either.

The reality is, the likes of Momentum in Labour scare me and a lot of other voters - personally I think, until they are gone Labour have not got a hope in hell of beating the Torys in a GE.
 
They need a heavyweight old school firebrand Labour leader. Not a ridiculous hard lefter like Corbin but someone who can appeal to left and centre. They don’t have one at all. Someone like Starmer is just a charisma free zone.
 
I was somewhat underwhelmed by the article. Behr bullet points the Tory faultlines and agrees with Labour that they deserve to be called out on them. He also recognises the huge backing for the Tory Party by the right wing media. And yet, he doesn't have any explanations for this not being enough to warrant support for Labour among the electorate. Actually, he does come up with two valid reasons but only in a throwaway remark. These are that Labour has been taken over by a combination of far-left dreamers (my word) and snooty metropolitans.

I think it's more subtle than that but I do believe that this is the view of electors in many 'red wall' seats. When the Labour Party made the huge mistake of allowing people into the Party for £3.00, in order to vote in the 2015 leadership election, it allowed the militant idiots back in. The huge rise in Party membership saw young people with hope join up - but that was temporary - and the far-left apparatchiks, who would then take over constituency parties in key battlegrounds.

What we now have is an electorate in the old industrial towns that says, Labour took us for granted and they now don't talk to us because they are either (a) hard-left ideologues, or (b) metropolitan types whose focus is on woke issues. So, there is enough of a feeling of betrayal to both stop people in these areas voting Labour and to vote Conservative as a sort of punishment. These are areas left behind because both New Labour and the Tories focussed on growth in the big cities - especially London - and on growth through Financial markets rather than through industrial development in the old towns. That is where Labour now needs to focus its efforts on rebuilding trust and rebuilding its community connections; because Labour's original growth was generated out of its communities, industries and trades unions. If those connections are not there then Labour might as well be a city-centric 'brand'. But that would be a betrayal of their people, their communities.
Very true about many constituences being taken over by radical left wingers when Corbyn was leader. I know of quite a few people who have been councillors and worked for their local constituencies for 40 years who now feel crowded out and no affinity with the local party anymore. Having worked for many years with the Westminster and London Labour politicians and civil service, they are very much in their Metropolitan elite bubble disconnected from most of the country. It is no wonder the local communities elsewhere have lost faith. When Blair was in power they had the opportunity to do something for these communities, but nothing was forthcoming
 
I thought Nandy would have been a better option to Starmer myself at the time, but she seems a little less assured of late. Burnham enjoying being Mayor too much I think.
I don't think she's being allowed sufficient TV time by the Party. Mistake if it's true.
 
I know of someone standing for Norbreck Anchorsholme who has blatantly lied.
Saying they had lived locally all their life.
Obviously forgot Central dr and the Grange.
Guess which party? 😮
 
Labour need to stop discussing leaders and start discussing some new policies...across the board policies that they can defend and that needs to include a definitive view on our future relationship with the EU. Until that happens they are just wallpapering over the cracks. (Wallpaper kindly provided by Bojo furnishings Inc)
 
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