UK General Election

Tolls said:
We've been down this road. As I say, my knowledge of the polls is a year or so out of date, so things might have changed post-Brexit and the potential problems that might cause, however at that time the indications were that the south would not vote for union if it was going to cost them, by quite a margin (I seem to remember over 60%).



However, the counter to that is to say "you had a referendum and voted against independence". Yes, Brexit etc (and I don't exactly disagree with that as a reason for another one), it's not quite as colonial as you;re making out.
Click to expand...

As I think I've pointed out before on here, the most recent poll, held post-Brexit, showed that even with the unrealistically high figure of €11 billion per annum dangled in front of them, a slight majority still went for a united Ireland. The real figure would be lower than that, and once people became aware of that, the majority in favour of unity would most likely widen.
 
Tolls said:
However, the counter to that is to say "you had a referendum and voted against independence". Yes, Brexit etc (and I don't exactly disagree with that as a reason for another one), it's not quite as colonial as you;re making out.
Click to expand...

It would be a poor counter though. The indyref did not transfer the rights of Scotland to self determination over to Westminster. It's still for Scotland to decide Scotlands future.

If nobody denies that last sentence then the rest of these questions are pretty pointless and questionably motivated. If people do deny that last sentence they should be honest enough to say it without Jaqing off and sniping b
 
Well it's got to be someone's fault. Not Corbyns. Oh no. I mean, look how many people turn out to see him speak. Obviously everyone loves him and it is just a conspiracy by the (...........insert your enemy here...........) to keep him from power.
 
MikeG said:
Well it's got to be someone's fault. Not Corbyns. Oh no. I mean, look how many people turn out to see him speak. Obviously everyone loves him and it is just a conspiracy by the (...........insert your enemy here...........) to keep him from power.
Click to expand...

Corbyn's useless, we all know that. Nice guy, heart in the right place and all, but nobody sees him as PM material.

Trouble is, Theresa May is useless too, she was a useless Home Secretary and she's now a terrible Prime Minister presiding over a party with around 30 MPs under police investigation for electoral fraud. Anybody other than Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader would slaughter her at an election.
 
MikeG said:
Meanwhile, in actual General Election news, the Conservatives are out polling Labour comfortably in Wales, for the first time in history. Yes, read that again. The home of Nye Bevan and Keir Hardy may well have more Tory MPs than Labour after this election.
Click to expand...

Look at it from the bright side. Maybe this will finally induce Labour to replace Corbyn with something better. Most inanimate object would do. It's a bit late and the bright side isn't all that bright, I know.

McHrozni
 
MikeG said:
Meanwhile, in actual General Election news, the Conservatives are out polling Labour comfortably in Wales, for the first time in history. Yes, read that again. The home of Nye Bevan and Keir Hardy may well have more Tory MPs than Labour after this election.
Click to expand...

Yet more evidence of how poor a leader Corbyn has been for the Labour Party if the objective of the party is to be the party in government as opposed to a left-wing pressure group with a handful of seats.

Wales should be fertile ground for a centre-left party which has policies which support the less well off - possibly at the expense of those, like me, who have the broadest shoulders financially speaking. Instead the Welsh seem to be intending to vote for a party whose policies will likely do the opposite, shift the burden to the less well off, continue the privatisation of the NHS, erode workers and human rights and so on.

You cannot blame the electorate, and you certainly cannot blame the Tories, Corbyn and his cronies have made the Labour Party even more unelectable, by orders of magnitude, than they were under Miliband :(
 
imodium said:
Welsh forget who closed their pits down, next the north.
Click to expand...

By this sort of logic, anyone who votes Labour forgets all about the Winter of Discontent, endless strikes, secondary picketing, sympathy strikes, and Trade Union leaders trying to run the country. How about we deal with the politics of what is in front of us, rather than stuff that went on 3 or 4 decades ago.
 
Strawberry said:
Corbyn's useless, we all know that. Nice guy, heart in the right place and all, but nobody sees him as PM material.

Trouble is, Theresa May is useless too, she was a useless Home Secretary and she's now a terrible Prime Minister presiding over a party with around 30 MPs under police investigation for electoral fraud. Anybody other than Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader would slaughter her at an election.
Click to expand...

I disagree. The Conservatives have good core support in large parts of England, the SNP control large parts of the former Labour heartland in Scotland and the other party that can hurt the Tories electorally, the LibDems are MIA.

OTOH if the Labour Party could find a charismatic, motivational and competent leader then they might just be in with a shout but as the last two leadership elections have shown - candidates like this don't seem to exist in today's PLP.
 
The Don said:
You cannot blame the electorate, and you certainly cannot blame the Tories, Corbyn and his cronies have made the Labour Party even more unelectable, by orders of magnitude, than they were under Miliband :(
Click to expand...

What I don't get is why, despite all of this, he still won the Labour election with over 60% of the vote.

Is he just this good at pandering to the base and leaves all who aren't the core supporters of the party hanging?

McHrozni
 
The Don said:
I disagree. The Conservatives have good core support in large parts of England, the SNP control large parts of the former Labour heartland in Scotland
Click to expand...

This is more an effect than a cause, I think. Labour have been without an electable leader for years now, so it's natural their support will ebb.

It takes monumental levels of incompetence not to capitalize on the behavior of Theresa May of these past nine month. Yet, Corbyn was there, holding her hand throughout.

McHrozni
 
McHrozni said:
What I don't get is why, despite all of this, he still won the Labour election with over 60% of the vote.
Click to expand...

Perhaps because those voting for him care less about having a leader who is electable than they do about ideological purity. They'd rather have a Labour Party that fully reflects their views and has a handful of seats than a Labour Party - like the Blairite version - which has moved significantly towards the centre and is in government.

Then again, there are probably some people who are so convinced that they are right that they genuinely believe that Corbyn can become Prime Minister if only the right wing press will get off his case long enough for the population at large to realise what a great man he is. :boggled:

And then there's the longstanding "moderate" members like me and a number of my friends and acquaintances who are quitting the party, leaving it in the hands of the Momentum numpties.
 
McHrozni said:
This is more an effect than a cause, I think. Labour have been without an electable leader for years now, so it's natural their support will ebb.
Click to expand...

True, but the SNP's stunning electoral success at the expense of Labour means that in order to get a clear parliamentary majority, Labour needs to make enormous gains in England. They'd need to win around 330 - 350 of the 530 English seats, assuming that the SNP continues to hold almost all the Scottish seats. At the moment they have 205.

That would require a truly exceptional leader, not just a "not Corbyn" leader IMO.

edited to add....

Labour's collapse in Scotland is IMO largely due to them being perceived as "Red Tories" following their support for the union in the independence referendum rather than more general failures of the current or previous leaders.
 
Last edited:
McHrozni said:
What I don't get is why, despite all of this, he still won the Labour election with over 60% of the vote.
Click to expand...

I think that Labour is overcompensating for Blair. Tony Blair got Labour into power by shifting it to the centre left and making it electable. He is one of those rare breeds of charismatic Leaders that currently no party has. Cameron was sort of almost one.

Blair got embroiled in Iraq and with all the dodgy dossier stuff turned himself into a hated figure. Had Gore won election in the US after Clinton rather than W Bush his legacy would look vastly different.

So today the Labour party seem convinced that moving the party to the centre ground makes it unelectable, because Blair, and to a lesser extent because Milliband failed so badly. (They chose the wrong Milliband imo)

So Labour is currently in the grip of "hard left" members. Corbyn says the right kinds of things that keep them happy, and they can enthuse enough of the base membership to vote him in as leader, despite his obvious inability to lead. If he was the Pied Piper of Hamlyn, the rats would leave his sinking ship rather than follow him.

So until the centrists in the Labour party can come up with a credible alternative and can enthuse enough of the party members to vote for that person then Labour are lost in the wilderness. It'll likely take an absolute hammering at the ballot box for Labour to elect a new leader, and we'll have had majority Conservative rule for 7 years plus a Conservative government in all but name for the previous 5 without a credible opposition.

Next GE we will have exited the EU and Scotland is highly likely to have exited the UK so the country will look lots different by then.
 
The Don said:
That would require a truly exceptional leader, not just a "not Corbyn" leader IMO.
Click to expand...

I agree.

Though I struggle to think of any potential exceptional leaders, in any party right now.

the only person I can come close to would be David Milliband, who has long since departed the political scene.

If you could pick your ideal Labour leader right now, who would it be?
 
Hilary Benn or Chuka Umuna.

I don't mean ideal from an opponents point of view either. I mean ideal in the sense of democracy not being healthy if there is no viable choice. I want to see a healthy opposition, be that Labour or someone else, and in due course, I want to see such an opposition win power.
 
Last edited:
The Don said:
Perhaps because those voting for him care less about having a leader who is electable than they do about ideological purity. They'd rather have a Labour Party that fully reflects their views and has a handful of seats than a Labour Party - like the Blairite version - which has moved significantly towards the centre and is in government.

Then again, there are probably some people who are so convinced that they are right that they genuinely believe that Corbyn can become Prime Minister if only the right wing press will get off his case long enough for the population at large to realise what a great man he is. :boggled:

And then there's the longstanding "moderate" members like me and a number of my friends and acquaintances who are quitting the party, leaving it in the hands of the Momentum numpties.
Click to expand...

In other words, it's time for the sane portion of the party to consider the two remaining options:

1. Join another existing party, like LibDems or
2. Create a new party.

Direct representation with FPTP system complicates the second option.

I don't envy you Brits one bit.

The Don said:
True, but the SNP's stunning electoral success at the expense of Labour means that in order to get a clear parliamentary majority, Labour needs to make enormous gains in England. They'd need to win around 330 - 350 of the 530 English seats, assuming that the SNP continues to hold almost all the Scottish seats. At the moment they have 205.

That would require a truly exceptional leader, not just a "not Corbyn" leader IMO.

edited to add....

Labour's collapse in Scotland is IMO largely due to them being perceived as "Red Tories" following their support for the union in the independence referendum rather than more general failures of the current or previous leaders.
Click to expand...

This last paragraph is consistent that an average leader would see Labour start clawing back support soon. Of course quick major results would require an exceptional leader, but just a leader of average quality would make Labour competitive in a few years' time. It would probably not be enough to form a government, but maybe enough to require a coalition government for Tories, or at least the slimmest of majorities.

Furthermore, nothing prevents Labour from caucusing up with the SNP on some issues, such as Brexit. Of course, Corbyn already made sure that would be a tall order for Labour.

McHrozni
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom