Keir Starmer and the Labour Party

[brad465]

If Loach is telling the whole story, it rather reeks of McCarthyism and will probably prove counter-productive to Labour in trying to secure more support. They need to be thinking how to attract an anti-Tory like me to vote for them in a General Election for the first time in thirty years, and this action makes it less likely.

Depends, there maybe Tory supporters put off by Corbyn who maybe convinced Labour are improving if he's not in the party anymore, considering Loach's strong pro-Corbyn voice, but it's a question of would this move of trying to expel extreme factions in the party cost more core support than they gain in Tory support. Whatever the case, at the moment I'm not seeing much in the way of media coverage, beyond the Guardian and Twitter, so I'm not sure how many are aware of this and/or interested.

 

[brad465]

While Unite's leader count hasn't properly started yet, it appears the outsider Sharon Graham is going to win, with Steve Turner conceding to her in a text to supporters.

Unite union expected to elect first female leader

Sharon Graham looks set to take over from Len McCluskey to become the first woman to lead Unite.

www.bbc.co.uk

Sharon Graham looks set to become the first female leader of the Unite union, taking over from Len McCluskey.
The head of the union's organisation department was not Mr McCluskey's preferred choice.
He had backed Steve Turner, an assistant general secretary of the union who had run his previous campaigns for general secretary.
But in a text message to supporters this evening, Mr Turner - once seen as the favourite - appeared to concede.
He said: "It appears Sharon has got it! Sorry it didn't work out for us.
"Thanks for everything and we will make the formal announcement tomorrow."
Gerard Coyne, the candidate seen as most sympathetic to Sir Keir Starmer, seems set to come third.
Insiders are estimating that Ms Graham could have a majority of around 6,000 votes over Mr Turner, with Mr Coyne narrowly behind.
The health warning is that the formal vote count only gets under way on Wednesday.
But after ballots had been sorted in to respective piles, and extensively "sampled" to check for discrepancies, members of all three campaign teams that spoke to the BBC tonight expected a victory for Ms Graham.
A fourth candidate, Howard Beckett, pulled out earlier in the contest and threw his support behind Mr Turner.

This could be particularly helpful for the Labour leadership as she has campaigned to not get so involved in the internal party matters. Certainly a lot better than Howard Beckett (before he pulled out) who would have been McCluskey 2.

 

[birchesgreen]

I voted for Coyne but to be honest as long as Turner doesn't win i'm cool.

 

[backontrack]

There's plenty of candidates for this. I think there's an argument that Blair secured a landslide majority and then proceeded to slowly lose it after another strong result in 2001. He alienated traditional Labour voters, and then did nothing to rectify that.

I look at Miliband and Corbyn and I don't think the issue is necessarily their political views...they simply weren't convincing!!! They were trying to be honourable, sure. But Corbyn seemed totally disinterested in fighting any of the main slurs against him. He didn't really respond to any of them. It's why people literally thought he was a member of the IRA, which is ludicrous. Corbyn just let everything stick, and gave far too much voice to the likes of Len McCluskey. He also didn't see Labour as needing to win over swing voters in specific areas. And he certainly didn't inspire confidence in those of the party who were out to get him. And Miliband...I think fair swathes of the party were fairly sceptical of him for a decent long time, because he didn't seem at all like he could be a strong leader. Both were terrible leaders, absolutely dire. And no, I'm not convinced D Miliband would have been any better.

Starmer is just the same. He's bereft of ideas (he's brought Mandelson back in for christ's sake) and personality - an uninspiring leader and a terrible candidate to go up against the overblown 'character' of Boris Johnson. He's sniffly and reedy, dull and repetitive, incapable of appearing to show any emotion. In all of his video pieces he looks faintly concerned and scared. He also won't throw any of the ample attack oppotunities the Tories have given us over the last two years right back at them (honourableness again?). We were sold the idea of a methodical statesman and instead we got someone whose idea of leadership is to turn up at PMQs, say something like 'major sleaze' (which is just trying to do 'captain hindsight') and then go home. There's no Labour project, no offering for voters. Nobody is really saying 'this government is bad' or planting the idea in people's heads that we should get rid of them. It's a pantomime opposition.

The issue with Labour isn't left vs right (although even now Starmer seems hellbent on alienating progressive Gen Z voters, who the government hates - what happened to 'the children are our greatest resources??? Starmer promised unity and instead has pandered exclusively to the right and attacked the left - Ken Loach is out, but we're somehow fine with Rosie Duffield's blatant and offensive constant transphobia?).

The issue is mentality. Which is: the mentality is that we're bad, we can't govern, we don't have the capacity to offer voters anything, we suck, we should hate ourselves because of Corbyn, we should hate ourselves because of Iraq, we should hate ourselves because the media does. There's no ambition, only nauseating, stultifying introspection. Labour only care about what Labour do - the Tories don't care about what the Tories do! They just do it. It's like comparing Hamlet to Laertes.

Everyone is obsessed with being the heir to Blair, meanwhile there's a total lack of talent in the party. They're all rubbish. Who is going to take over from Starmer? Andy Burnham is the only one in there who seems like he'd do well, and he's not even in Westminster, so it's not very good, is it?

Workington Man has been a piece of political genius. It's crippled Labour by forcing Starmer to only really consider a type of voter that he fundamentally doesn't know how to appeal to, and then everyone else doesn't matter. There's this implicit Tory argument that only one type of voter really matters, the 'true British voter' - and Starmer has swallowed it and he's no longer interested in representing anyone else, be that young leftists or metropolitan remainiacs or people on this forum who moan about the Labour party. Meanwhile, the party machinery is useless - terrible local election coordination, no social media presence, an obsession with returning to the 90s.

I think you could reasonably argue that Starmer was the ideal leader to go up against Cameron and May. But even Corbyn would be a better choice to go up against Johnson. It's like choosing the wrong weight of golf club; you need to counter your opponent's strengths, and Starmer seems hopelessly unfit for that.

The Labour party pathologically lacks confidence. It's out of ideas, it doesn't want to engage voters or provide them with anything to get behind. It's just the bare minimum. Ironically, it's like Starmer's team Arsenal, with an uninspiring PE-teacher manager in the second year of his 'project' leading a group of uninspired and discordant players to consecutive by-election and presumably general election losses, Tierney and Saka permitting.

Many people depend on a Labour government, including the planet. Labour MPs and leaders need to feel urgency - and the shadow cabinet. They need to feel a rocket up their arses. But instead they seem content with quiet stagnation.

Labour is fixated on, and preoccupied with, itself. It's far too mannered. That's its problem.

 

[nw1]

The problem I see is that the opposition to the Tories are too busy fighting amongst themselves in a "Judean People's Front" fashion.

Labour and the Lib Dems need to unite and fight the common enemy - the Tories, rather than squabbling amongst themselves or within themselves.

That said, I am at a complete loss to explain why Labour are not doing better by default, becaue the Tory government is so utterly, utterly terrible that I find it hard to understand why so many people still support them. (I won't explain why here, as it will be a long, off topic explanation: but think corruption, double standards, lack of principles, legitimisation of xenophobia, and economic mismanagement re a few - just as starters).

It's also led by an arrogant, conceited, manipulative individual with zero principles - certainly the worst post-war PM if not the worst leader since Cromwell - surrounded by a pack of hard-right extremists, and brown-nosers who will do or say anything to climb the greasy pole.

With that in mind, the dull but relatively harmless Starmer surely, surely is a safer bet. I will certainly vote for any party that will not hit the poorest hardest to pay for Covid (the Tories will certainly do that, as sure as night follows day - I've lived through enough Tory goverments to know that is their nature) and wishes to re-build bridges with continental Europe and assure them that we are not an insular country full of xenophobes obsessed with 'strong borders' - again the Tories just want to perpetuate Union Jack-waving insularism while Labour at least probably recognises that we need good relations with the continent.

Even still, I think Labour need to quash their pride a bit, and enter into a strategic collaboration with the Lib Dems to ensure a coalition that will defeat the Tories has a chance of winning. The Lib Dems could pull out in more socially-conservative seats in the midlands and North, while Labour could pull out of wealthier but more socially liberal seats in the south. That way, without a divided opposition, there is a chance the Tories can be defeated.

I detest the vision that the Tories have for this country as a penny-pinching insular country not wishing to be friends with our close geographical and cultural neighbours - simply because the xenophobic vote appears to be what the Tories are targeting. I also find it bad for democracy the way the Tories keep winning and winning; if they win next time they will have been in power almost 75% of the 50 year period 1979-2029. To have one party so dominant is truly frightening. First past the post also needs to end, as it is a system that constantly delivers Tory wins. It seems to me that the main split in UK politics is Tory vs. non-Tory, and the Tories will always win on that system. In some ways the USA is better: yes we have had Trump, but their two-party system also allows the opposition a real chance.

Not sure if the UK as a whole has become more right-wing and conservative compared to the 1990s and 2000s. I suspect not really, but the media has done immense damage in convincing people that all their problems are down to Labour, the EU and immigrants.

So in summary, the opposition to the Tories needs to unite to rescue the UK from the Tories, and both Labour and Lib Dems need to recognise the grave danger to democracy which arises by fighting amongst each other rather than turning on the real, enemy, the Romans Tories.

Yes, "a patriotic war was the solution to increased unemployment, economic stagnation, civil disturbances at home" for Thatcher...

I do remember studying opinion polls for this era and found that in late 1979 together with 1980 and 1981, Labour were continuously in front - as they also were at times in 1985 and 1986, and convicingly in mid/late 1989, so the elections of the 80s appeared to be very unfortunately-timed for those that do not like Thatcher.

If there hadn't been the Falklands war (I don't believe it was engineered as a way to win the election, it was just bad timing) I suspect Thatcher would not have won in 1983. If Labour had another leader besides Foot, who I get the impression was a little too hard-left (don't know, was too young to be politically aware at this time besides noting there were a lot of riots and high unemployment), Thatcher would have had even less chance.

Remember Labour and the SDP/Liberal Alliance combined got MANY MORE votes in 1983 than Thatcher (53% vs 42%, if Wikipedia is accurate), so you can't argue that even close to a majority of UK adults of 1983 were supporters of Thatcher. First past the post was the problem, as it so often is: this rotten system needs to be ditched, but it never will be under Tory governments because they benefit from it.

 

[Harold Hill]

Labour is now the party of the public sector and the new British and that's not (quite) enough to win an election, particularly in England

 

[nw1]

Labour is now the party of the public sector and the new British and that's not (quite) enough to win an election, particularly in England

The converse of that is that the Tories are the party of private-sector workers.

I suspect that there are many, many people who work in the private sector that despise the Tories' dishonesty and legitimisation of xenophobia, enough to actively vote against them, and if Labour is the best-placed party to do that, they will vote Labour.

 

[backontrack]

The problem I see is that the opposition to the Tories are too busy fighting amongst themselves in a "Judean People's Front" fashion.

Labour and the Lib Dems need to unite and fight the common enemy - the Tories, rather than squabbling amongst themselves or within themselves.

That said, I am at a complete loss to explain why Labour are not doing better by default, becaue the Tory government is so utterly, utterly terrible that I find it hard to understand why so many people still support them. (I won't explain why here, as it will be a long, off topic explanation: but think corruption, double standards, lack of principles, legitimisation of xenophobia, and economic mismanagement re a few - just as starters).

It's also led by an arrogant, conceited, manipulative individual with zero principles - certainly the worst post-war PM if not the worst leader since Cromwell - surrounded by a pack of hard-right extremists, and brown-nosers who will do or say anything to climb the greasy pole.

With that in mind, the dull but relatively harmless Starmer surely, surely is a safer bet. I will certainly vote for any party that will not hit the poorest hardest to pay for Covid (the Tories will certainly do that, as sure as night follows day - I've lived through enough Tory goverments to know that is their nature) and wishes to re-build bridges with continental Europe and assure them that we are not an insular country full of xenophobes obsessed with 'strong borders' - again the Tories just want to perpetuate Union Jack-waving insularism while Labour at least probably recognises that we need good relations with the continent.

Even still, I think Labour need to quash their pride a bit, and enter into a strategic collaboration with the Lib Dems to ensure a coalition that will defeat the Tories has a chance of winning. The Lib Dems could pull out in more socially-conservative seats in the midlands and North, while Labour could pull out of wealthier but more socially liberal seats in the south. That way, without a divided opposition, there is a chance the Tories can be defeated.

I detest the vision that the Tories have for this country as a penny-pinching insular country not wishing to be friends with our close geographical and cultural neighbours - simply because the xenophobic vote appears to be what the Tories are targeting. I also find it bad for democracy the way the Tories keep winning and winning; if they win next time they will have been in power almost 75% of the 50 year period 1979-2029. To have one party so dominant is truly frightening. First past the post also needs to end, as it is a system that constantly delivers Tory wins. It seems to me that the main split in UK politics is Tory vs. non-Tory, and the Tories will always win on that system. In some ways the USA is better: yes we have had Trump, but their two-party system also allows the opposition a real chance.

Not sure if the UK as a whole has become more right-wing and conservative compared to the 1990s and 2000s. I suspect not really, but the media has done immense damage in convincing people that all their problems are down to Labour, the EU and immigrants.

So in summary, the opposition to the Tories needs to unite to rescue the UK from the Tories, and both Labour and Lib Dems need to recognise the grave danger to democracy which arises by fighting amongst each other rather than turning on the real, enemy, the Romans Tories.



I do remember studying opinion polls for this era and found that in late 1979 together with 1980 and 1981, Labour were continuously in front - as they also were at times in 1985 and 1986, and convicingly in mid/late 1989, so the elections of the 80s appeared to be very unfortunately-timed for those that do not like Thatcher.

If there hadn't been the Falklands war (I don't believe it was engineered as a way to win the election, it was just bad timing) I suspect Thatcher would not have won in 1983. If Labour had another leader besides Foot, who I get the impression was a little too hard-left (don't know, was too young to be politically aware at this time besides noting there were a lot of riots and high unemployment), Thatcher would have had even less chance.

Remember Labour and the SDP/Liberal Alliance combined got MANY MORE votes in 1983 than Thatcher (53% vs 42%, if Wikipedia is accurate), so you can't argue that even close to a majority of UK adults of 1983 were supporters of Thatcher. First past the post was the problem, as it so often is: this rotten system needs to be ditched, but it never will be under Tory governments because they benefit from it.

Labour seem to have a lot of resentment towards the Lib Dems, and quite frankly, rightly so!

A decade of "Labour can't win here" fiddled election leaflet polls denied by central party leadership, Swinson thinking she can run for Prime Minister, expecting Labour to 'do the decent thing' and pull out of Lib Dem-contested seats only for Sam Gyimah to run in Labour marginal Kensington and hand it to the Tories, Swinson suspending Tim Walker from the party for daring to stand down in a Labour seat...but now the impetus is on Labour to extend the olive branch??!?

If Layla Moran were to become leader, then maybe it could happen. But I'm not holding my breath, because Labour wouldn't be the only party swallowing their pride. The Lib Dems have spent the last few years grandstanding about how they wouldn't go into coalition with anyone - not with the Tories, certainly not Labour - so any talk of a progressive alliance is just lip service. If Labour genuinely did well then it would suck away Lib Dem voters - they don't want it to happen.

 

[nw1]

Labour seem to have a lot of resentment towards the Lib Dems, and quite frankly, rightly so!

A decade of "Labour can't win here" fiddled election leaflet polls denied by central party leadership, Swinson thinking she can run for Prime Minister, expecting Labour to 'do the decent thing' and pull out of Lib Dem-contested seats only for Sam Gyimah to run in Labour marginal Kensington and hand it to the Tories, Swinson suspending Tim Walker from the party for daring to stand down in a Labour seat...but now the impetus is on Labour to extend the olive branch??!?

If Layla Moran were to become leader, then maybe it could happen. But I'm not holding my breath, because Labour wouldn't be the only party swallowing their pride. The Lib Dems have spent the last few years grandstanding about how they wouldn't go into coalition with anyone - not with the Tories, certainly not Labour - so any talk of a progressive alliance is just lip service. If Labour genuinely did well then it would suck away Lib Dem voters - they don't want it to happen.

Then we're stuck with the Tories, unless (and I think there is a strong possibility of this) by 2024 people will realise that 'Boris' is not the answer to all their problems, realise this and take electoral revenge on him by giving him the boot. This is particularly likely if we are still in a post-Covid recession by then. Fake 'guru' figures are eventually found out, I suspect 2024 might be long enough in the future for this to happen. Thatcher went eventually, and I suspect 'Boris' has less staying power than her. And none of the other senior Tories have any charisma (Sunak, Shapps) or are downright unpleasant (Patel, Raab) so it's not like they have someone to pluck out of the air should 'Boris' lose favour.

But seriously, it's time for Labour and the Lib Dems (and I am apportioning equal blame to both here - I agree that the Lib Dems' action in Canterbury was not good and Swinson was a very poor leader; I also condemn ANY politician who voted in any way other than against that ridiculous December election) to realise that the most foolproof way of getting a progressive Britain is to work together and accept that neither can form a majority government. Are they seriously too stupid to realise that? Do they (Labour and Lib Dems) really want the possibility of 8 more years of hard-right government, austerity, and poor relations with the rest of Europe?

 

[backontrack]

Then we're stuck with the Tories, unless (and I think there is a strong possibility of this) by 2024 people will realise that 'Boris' is not the answer to all their problems, realise this and take electoral revenge on him by giving him the boot. This is particularly likely if we are still in a post-Covid recession by then. Fake 'guru' figures are eventually found out, I suspect 2024 might be long enough in the future for this to happen. Thatcher went eventually, and I suspect 'Boris' has less staying power than her. And none of the other senior Tories have any charisma (Sunak, Shapps) or are downright unpleasant (Patel, Raab) so it's not like they have someone to pluck out of the air should 'Boris' lose favour.

But seriously, it's time for Labour and the Lib Dems (and I am apportioning equal blame to both here - I agree that the Lib Dems' action in Canterbury was not good and Swinson was a very poor leader) to realise that the most foolproof way of getting a progressive Britain is to work together and accept that neither can form a majority government. Are they seriously too stupid to realise that? Do they (Labour and Lib Dems) really want the possibility of 8 more years of hard-right government, austerity, and poor relations with the rest of Europe?

I think it's not, ultimately, in the Lib Dems' interests to seek an electoral alliance with Labour.

 

[nw1]

I think it's not, ultimately, in the Lib Dems' interests to seek an electoral alliance with Labour.

The question is, why? They are not going to win on their own; an alliance with Labour means they might get into government as a coalition, a more tasteful version of what happened in 2010.

 

[birchesgreen]

Problem is if you talk of alliances BEFORE an election it can really hinder your chances - especially with our biased media and stupid FPTP system.

 

[daodao]

I think it's not, ultimately, in the Lib Dems' interests to seek an electoral alliance with Labour.

The Lib Dems are not socialists and strongly support the capitalist system, tinged with social justice and social liberalism. They have far more in common with Liberal Conservatism, which is why the Cameron-Clegg partnership worked relatively well for 5 years. Historically, there have been defections between these 2 parties (Churchill did it twice!) and splinter groups from the Liberals have eventually joined the Tories on several occasions in the past: the Liberal Unionists in 1912, the National Liberals in 1968.

I really don't know why the Lib Dems are considered to be left-wing; they only leaned that way under the leadership of the late Charles Kennedy, who was originally a Labour Party member before defecting to the SDP. He has been the only Lib Dem leader who resonated with me; the rest are/were just Tory-lite.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Labour seem to have a lot of resentment towards the Lib Dems, and quite frankly, rightly so!

A decade of "Labour can't win here" fiddled election leaflet polls denied by central party leadership, Swinson thinking she can run for Prime Minister, expecting Labour to 'do the decent thing' and pull out of Lib Dem-contested seats only for Sam Gyimah to run in Labour marginal Kensington and hand it to the Tories, Swinson suspending Tim Walker from the party for daring to stand down in a Labour seat...but now the impetus is on Labour to extend the olive branch??!?

That's a classic example of picking a few selected facts to give a totally misleading impression. You're correct that a small number of local LibDem parties have put out leaflets along the lines of 'Labour can't win here', but Labour does the same thing to the LibDems on a much bigger scale, and also has long actively supported an electoral system that ensures the LibDems are permanently massively under-represented. If it comes to electoral politics and tactical voting, I would say the LibDems have far more reason to be angry at Labour than Labour has to be angry at the LibDems. You mention the suspension of Tim Walker for standing down, but omit to mention that during the Richmond Park by-election a few years ago, Labour suspended (or expelled? I can't recall which) a number or local members for what would seem to be a much smaller 'offence' of simply suggesting that people should vote tactically for the LibDems to keep the Tories out. And why on Earth do you think the LibDems should stand aside for Labour when Labour is never willing to do the same for the LibDems?

If Layla Moran were to become leader, then maybe it could happen. But I'm not holding my breath, because Labour woul't be the only party swallowing their pride. The Lib Dems have spent the last few years grandstanding about how they wouldn't go into coalition with anyone - not with the Tories, certainly not Labour - so any talk of a progressive alliance is just lip service. If Labour genuinely did well then it would suck away Lib Dem voters - they don't want it to happen.

There is another problem with formal alliances: People assume all LibDem voters would go to Labour, but I doubt that's true. I for one would probably vote LibDem if there was an election tomorrow. But if the LibDems entered any kind of alliance with Labour, my vote would instantly switch to the Tories - because right now I think Labour are truly awful.

 

[NorthKent1989]

The Lib Dem’s aren’t on the left, they’re soft centre right at best, Yellow Tories, you can tell this by where they usually win every few years, they normally successfully replace the Tories in Tory held areas, like Richmond or Amersham/Chesham, so it’s clear they appeal to the ‘Soft Tory’ who’d never go as far as voting Labour.

Frankly it’s a misconception that the Lib Dem’s and Labour could ever form an alliance, aside from the fact that Labour more often than not have refused to be in a coalition with anyone, the two parties don’t have all that much in common aside from the EU and that issue is old and over now.

There’s more chance of there being another Tory/Lib Dem coalition quite frankly and compared to what we have now, the Coalition of 2010-15 was positively a golden age compared to the chaos of post 2016 onwards.

Right now the Lib Dem’s are the only party as a whole who want to preserve liberty and personal freedoms in this country with their stance on Vaccine Passports, for this reason alone if there was an election today I’d vote for them, because I simply do not trust The Tories or Labour

 

[Cheshire Rover]

Do they (Labour and Lib Dems) really want the possibility of 8 more years of hard-right government, austerity, and poor relations with the rest of Europe?

If you believe that the current Conservatives are hard-right then I'm sorry, you are deluded. They are liberals in the traditional sense, centre left. They have a liberal/wet leader and are very metropolitan in outlook. On things like immigration they talk hard but play very soft for example.

If you are wondering why they are doing so well in the polls etc, it's not that they are a good party or a good Govt, it's because Labour are unelectable and will continue to be until they stop pandering to minority woke causes that sit well inside the cities but not in that huge mass of blue outside of them. The only successful Labour leader in the past 3 decades in Tony Blair and even he went rogue at the end. England isn't a socialist nation and never will be. If the Labour party are serious about getting into power they will have to adopt policies that many of the Labour faithful will abhor, move very much to the centre of politics, abandon the coloured hair brigade and get serious about the economy, immigration, education, employment etc and start sticking up for the 'people' and not the rights of individual groups.

Finally, this bull about the Tories being enemy has to stop. The Tories represent a lot of ordinary people, so by claiming the Tories are the enemy immediately puts that support base on alert. Labour has to convince a significant chunk of the electorate in traditional Tory areas to vote for them and calling then an enemy won't cut it.

And if Labour do all that and get a credible leader, not a knight of the realm with a dubious background on prosecuting certain groups or celebrities, they might become a credible option to enough people to vote for them. But at the moment, to many outside of the movement, they just don't have the policies nor enough credible people in position to form a Govt.

 

[Acfb]

TBH I've always viewed the Lib Dems as a centrist party even when Kennedy was leader in 2005 they contained orange book people such as David Laws.

As a Labour supporter I used to hate the Lib dems at a national level during the 2005-10 period as they were extremely opportunist but the formation of the coalition helped Labour regain its left flank which Blair offended in 2005.

I can't see any impediment to the lib Dems working with Labour at the next election because the Lib Dems no longer pose any kind of electoral threat to Labour and the only people that Starmer has high approval ratings with are 2019 LD voters.

Starmer is very unlikely to win back lots of red wall voters in 2023/24 so the only plausible way he can become PM is the Lib Dems winning 20+ Tory seats mainly in the south of England in addition to finding an accommodation with the SNP.

 

[nw1]

The Lib Dem’s aren’t on the left, they’re soft centre right at best, Yellow Tories, you can tell this by where they usually win every few years, they normally successfully replace the Tories in Tory held areas, like Richmond or Amersham/Chesham, so it’s clear they appeal to the ‘Soft Tory’ who’d never go as far as voting Labour.

Frankly it’s a misconception that the Lib Dem’s and Labour could ever form an alliance, aside from the fact that Labour more often than not have refused to be in a coalition with anyone, the two parties don’t have all that much in common aside from the EU and that issue is old and over now.

I'm not so sure about that. Saying the issue is "old and over now" is defeatism to me, and appearing to accept that the UK should never have close relations with Continental Europe again. Granted the UK government has probably ruined the chance of us actually rejoining the EU for a while, but there is no reason why we cannot relate on more friendly terms with the EU, rejoin the customs union, and allow freedom of movement again. In other words, restore the freedoms that we have had for a good while now. I suspect both Labour and the Lib Dems would both want to restore relations with continental Europe, while the Tories appear to want go-it-alone isolationism and want nothing to do with continental Europe, certainly now that all the Europhiles have gone from the parliamentary party.

But it's not just that, while the Lib Dems are not left wing, they are at least "not right wing". They do have a soft side, most Tories do not (with the exception of some in the Major years, and before that, Heath, though that really is a different era); they do in principle believe in public spending, though with more limits than Labour.

In summary, while the two parties differ, they have more in common with each other than the current bunch of Tories - though I will admit that people like Major, Heseltine and Clarke were not too different in outlook to the Lib Dems.

If you believe that the current Conservatives are hard-right then I'm sorry, you are deluded. They are liberals in the traditional sense, centre left. They have a liberal/wet leader and are very metropolitan in outlook. On things like immigration they talk hard but play very soft for example.

How about requiring that all EU nationals in the UK require registration for 'settled status'?
How about questioning people visiting the UK from the continent and denying access if they do not have a return ticket?
How about removing the rights of EU nationals to stay here, a right they have had for perhaps 30 years, depending on country?
How about making it much more difficult for British citizens to relocate to the EU?
How about there being food shortages due to a lack of drivers, because many of the drivers were EU nationals?
How about refusing an extension of the transition period, offered by the EU, because they were so hell-bent on achieving hard Brexit on Jan 1st - even though we were in the middle of a particularly bad Covid spike - simply because they did not want to appear to be weak?
How about Hancock making revolting dog-whistle comments such as 'it's the national health service, not the international health service'?
How about the promotion of mindless nationalism, such as boasting about the return of 'blue passports' - passports which are much more useless than the EU passports we have enjoyed since 1992?

All this, in my book, I would consider hard-right, and is closer to people like Orban and Le Pen than moderate centre-right governments, either historically in the UK, or currently in Continental Europe. It's telling that the Tories didn't join the 'standard' centre-right group in the EU parliament, and it's telling that the Tories were one of the few groups in the EU parliament who supported Orban. And even Orban isn't crazy enough to take his country out of the EU.

Granted, not all the politicians involved are actually hard-right by conviction (though I would argue Patel is), but they certainly want to implement hard-right policies, because that is the electorate they are going for. They recognise that a good deal of the traditional affluent-but-socially-liberal Tory electorate of the past cannot be relied on for votes, so they have gone elsewhere to search for support - namely the UKIP vote.

If you are wondering why they are doing so well in the polls etc, it's not that they are a good party or a good Govt, it's because Labour are unelectable and will continue to be until they stop pandering to minority woke causes that sit well inside the cities but not in that huge mass of blue outside of them. The only successful Labour leader in the past 3 decades in Tony Blair and even he went rogue at the end. England isn't a socialist nation and never will be.
If the Labour party are serious about getting into power they will have to adopt policies that many of the Labour faithful will abhor, move very much to the centre of politics, abandon the coloured hair brigade and get serious about the economy, immigration, education, employment etc and start sticking up for the 'people' and not the rights of individual groups.

So are Labour 'unelectable'? Are Labour obsessed with 'woke' causes, or are they actually more rational and objective than the Tories?With the exception of Corbyn I would consider all recent Labour leaders pretty centrist. If Labour has a problem, it's that it's cosied up to the Tories too much recently - and I would include Corbyn on that, who supported May in pushing Article 50 through without thinking the consequences through properly.

And do the Tories give a damn about the economy? How about implementing Brexit, which comes with huge economic risk, doubly so given that Covid is already causing huge economic problems?

Furthermore 'coloured hair brigade' just sounds like prejudice, plain and simple, and isn't even worth arguing over. Sorry.

 

[GusB]

If you believe that the current Conservatives are hard-right then I'm sorry, you are deluded. They are liberals in the traditional sense, centre left. They have a liberal/wet leader and are very metropolitan in outlook. On things like immigration they talk hard but play very soft for example.

Do you seriously think the Tories are centre-left? How far to the right are you for you to believe this?! Their immigration policy is atrocious; we wouldn't be experiencing a shortage of HGV drivers without their hard immigration policies. What about Theresa May's "Go Home" vans? If you believe that the Conservatives are centre-left, it is you that is deluded.

England isn't a socialist nation and never will be.

Yet again "England" is equated with "United Kingdom", completely ignoring the fact that the UK has other constituent parts.

Finally, this bull about the Tories being enemy has to stop. The Tories represent a lot of ordinary people, so by claiming the Tories are the enemy immediately puts that support base on alert. Labour has to convince a significant chunk of the electorate in traditional Tory areas to vote for them and calling then an enemy won't cut it.

Why does it have to stop? The Tories are the enemy. Do you honestly think they represent ordinary people? I'd like to think that I'm a fairly ordinary person, and they certainly don't represent me. They didn't represent the people in the mining communities and, despite their rhetoric, they haven't really represented the farmers and fishers whose votes they courted in the run-up to the Brexit referendum. The Tories primarily represent the interests of the rich. They may implement policies that allow people to feel that they're rich, and therefore more likely to vote for them, but ultimately they don't give a flying fig about "ordinary people".

 

[nw1]

TBH I've always viewed the Lib Dems as a centrist party even when Kennedy was leader in 2005 they contained orange book people such as David Laws.

As a Labour supporter I used to hate the Lib dems at a national level during the 2005-10 period as they were extremely opportunist but the formation of the coalition helped Labour regain its left flank which Blair offended in 2005.

I can't see any impediment to the lib Dems working with Labour at the next election because the Lib Dems no longer pose any kind of electoral threat to Labour and the only people that Starmer has high approval ratings with are 2019 LD voters.

Starmer is very unlikely to win back lots of red wall voters in 2023/24 so the only plausible way he can become PM is the Lib Dems winning 20+ Tory seats mainly in the south of England in addition to finding an accommodation with the SNP.

That's the thing. With a bit of carefully targeted campaigning in the 'right' seats, I think the Lib Dems are in with a chance of winning that many Tory seats in the south. Remember in the last election we had the 'Corbyn fear factor' in that a lot of people were fearful, rightly or wrongly, of Corbyn which might have swung a lot of southern seats to the Tories. (In my view Corbyn is a good deal more palatable than Johnson but evidently a lot of people here in the south disagreed).

In the north, I think Labour can win back some of them. Those seats which voted most strongly in favour of Brexit in the referendum are probably a lost cause, but those which voted more weakly for Brexit can I think be won back. I would imagine places like Wakefield would swing back to Labour, but places like Grimsby and Hartlepool are lost causes - for now. Maybe in 2029 when people realise that they have been lied to by 'Boris'.

There are also the northern Welsh seats like Wrexham, Delyn and so on. Wales seems to be much more Tory-sceptic than northern Englland and such seats recently voted Labour in the Welsh assembly elections. I would predict these will return to Labour at the next election.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Why does it have to stop? The Tories are the enemy.

And that is exactly how prejudice and hatred starts. When people start saying 'this group are the enemy'.

No-one in the UK is 'the enemy' (maybe with the exception of terrorists who are actively plotting to kill people). There are simply people who have different beliefs about how society and the economy should be organised.

To my mind, one of the scariest things about UK politics is the way it has become completely normalized on the left to use this kind of language to dismiss and diminish people on the right.

 

[GusB]

And that is exactly how prejudice and hatred starts. When people start saying 'this group are the enemy'.

No-one in the UK is 'the enemy' (maybe with the exception of terrorists who are actively plotting to kill people). There are simply people who have different beliefs about how society and the economy should be organised.

To my mind, one of the scariest things about UK politics is the way it has become completely normalized on the left to use this kind of language to dismiss and diminish people on the right.

To my mind, one of the scariest things about UK politics is the way it has become completely normalised on the right to use this kind of language to dismiss and diminish people on the left.

See, it works both ways.

 

[NorthKent1989]

I'm not so sure about that. Saying the issue is "old and over now" is defeatism to me, and appearing to accept that the UK should never have close relations with Continental Europe again. Granted the UK government has probably ruined the chance of us actually rejoining the EU for a while, but there is no reason why we cannot relate on more friendly terms with the EU, rejoin the customs union, and allow freedom of movement again. In other words, restore the freedoms that we have had for a good while now. I suspect both Labour and the Lib Dems would both want to restore relations with continental Europe, while the Tories appear to want go-it-alone isolationism and want nothing to do with continental Europe, certainly now that all the Europhiles have gone from the parliamentary party.

But it's not just that, while the Lib Dems are not left wing, they are at least "not right wing". They do have a soft side, most Tories do not (with the exception of some in the Major years, and before that, Heath, though that really is a different era); they do in principle believe in public spending, though with more limits than Labour.

In summary, while the two parties differ, they have more in common with each other than the current bunch of Tories - though I will admit that people like Major, Heseltine and Clarke were not too different in outlook to the Lib Dems.


How about requiring that all EU nationals in the UK require registration for 'settled status'?
How about questioning people visiting the UK from the continent and denying access if they do not have a return ticket?
How about removing the rights of EU nationals to stay here, a right they have had for perhaps 30 years, depending on country?
How about making it much more difficult for British citizens to relocate to the EU?
How about there being food shortages due to a lack of drivers, because many of the drivers were EU nationals?
How about refusing an extension of the transition period, offered by the EU, because they were so hell-bent on achieving hard Brexit on Jan 1st - even though we were in the middle of a particularly bad Covid spike - simply because they did not want to appear to be weak?
How about Hancock making revolting dog-whistle comments such as 'it's the national health service, not the international health service'?
How about the promotion of mindless nationalism, such as boasting about the return of 'blue passports' - passports which are much more useless than the EU passports we have enjoyed since 1992?

All this, in my book, I would consider hard-right, and is closer to people like Orban and Le Pen than moderate centre-right governments, either historically in the UK, or currently in Continental Europe. It's telling that the Tories didn't join the 'standard' centre-right group in the EU parliament, and it's telling that the Tories were one of the few groups in the EU parliament who supported Orban. And even Orban isn't crazy enough to take his country out of the EU.

Granted, not all the politicians involved are actually hard-right by conviction (though I would argue Patel is), but they certainly want to implement hard-right policies, because that is the electorate they are going for. They recognise that a good deal of the traditional affluent-but-socially-liberal Tory electorate of the past cannot be relied on for votes, so they have gone elsewhere to search for support - namely the UKIP vote.


So are Labour 'unelectable'? Are Labour obsessed with 'woke' causes, or are they actually more rational and objective than the Tories?With the exception of Corbyn I would consider all recent Labour leaders pretty centrist. If Labour has a problem, it's that it's cosied up to the Tories too much recently - and I would include Corbyn on that, who supported May in pushing Article 50 through without thinking the consequences through properly.

And do the Tories give a damn about the economy? How about implementing Brexit, which comes with huge economic risk, doubly so given that Covid is already causing huge economic problems?

We probably can have friendlier relations with the EU someday, but right now we need to move on from Covid which the more pressing issue, I doubt the EU will let us rejoin the customs Union for the simple fact that they probably wouldn’t be able to trust that we would remain in that, the most we can do is have a friendly relationship but this resetting back to pre 2016 has to to be put to bed, it’s not defeatist it’s moving on, as I said recovering from Covid and getting back our freedoms is the most pressing issue right now.

Labour are unelectable, and under Starmer, have proven to not be a friend of the people whatsoever, he doesn’t inspire such feeling, pandering to BLM has alienated any hope of regaining the Red Wall, and I say this as a mixed race person who finds BLM problematic for reasons I won’t state here for the wanting of staying on topic.

Starmer refusing to listen to the Pub landlord in Bath by stating in the most elitist way possible that would make any Tory proud that “I don’t need to listen to people like you” isn’t exactly what voters want to hear.

Labour is obsessed with identity politics and this doesn’t exactly help a working class family with issues they face, this only seems to satisfy the spoilt urban middle classes.

I have to agree with @Cheshire Rover that this current crop of Tories are not in the least bit far right, they’re centre right at best, they have just stated that they are going to allow 20,000 Afghan refugees to be resettled here, that doesn’t signify that they are far right, individuals are but not as a whole

 

[DynamicSpirit]

To my mind, one of the scariest things about UK politics is the way it has become completely normalised on the right to use this kind of language to dismiss and diminish people on the left.

See, it works both ways.

Except that people on the mainstream right don't generally describe people on the left in that way. In my experience, it's almost exclusively a thing that the left direct against the right, not vice versa.

 

[nw1]

Why does it have to stop? The Tories are the enemy. Do you honestly think they represent ordinary people? I'd like to think that I'm a fairly ordinary person, and they certainly don't represent me. They didn't represent the people in the mining communities and, despite their rhetoric, they haven't really represented the farmers and fishers whose votes they courted in the run-up to the Brexit referendum. The Tories primarily represent the interests of the rich. They may implement policies that allow people to feel that they're rich, and therefore more likely to vote for them, but ultimately they don't give a flying fig about "ordinary people".

Quite. In my lifetime, the Tories have always let poorer people, or ordinary people in general, be hit the hardest in times of recession. This will happen again with the post-Covid recession, of that there is absolutely no doubt. The only silver lining there is that people will wake up and realise that, and also realise that Brexit, sold as the answer to all their problems, is no such thing - and finally give 'Boris' what he deserves in 2024.

Think of how popular Thatcher still was in 1987. In 1990, she was a joke. That is the time frame to the next election. There is hope.

 

[NorthKent1989]

Why does it have to stop? The Tories are the enemy. Do you honestly think they represent ordinary people? I'd like to think that I'm a fairly ordinary person, and they certainly don't represent me. They didn't represent the people in the mining communities and, despite their rhetoric, they haven't really represented the farmers and fishers whose votes they courted in the run-up to the Brexit referendum. The Tories primarily represent the interests of the rich. They may implement policies that allow people to feel that they're rich, and therefore more likely to vote for them, but ultimately they don't give a flying fig about "ordinary people".

People having a different opinion makes them the enemy now? See it this type of thinking that divides people even more and is unhelpful, it’s a toxic way of thinking.

To be honest the same could be said about Labour about them not caring about ordinary people, both parties are woefully out of touch.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I have to agree with @Cheshire Rover that this current crop of Tories are not in the least bit far right, they’re centre right at best, they have just stated that they are going to allow 20,000 Afghan refugees to be resettled here, that doesn’t signify that they are far right, individuals are but not as a whole

I think it would be fair to say the at the moment, the Tories tend to be culturally on the right. Economically they are somewhat on the right to the extent of supporting private enterprise. But they have moved strongly to the left on issues related to the Government intervention and 'big Government'.

 

[GusB]

Except that people on the mainstream right don't generally describe people on the left in that way. In my experience, it's almost exclusively a thing that the left direct against the right, not vice versa.

They absolutely do describe people on the left that way.

People having a different opinion makes them the enemy now? See it this type of thinking that divides people even more and is unhelpful, it’s a toxic way of thinking.

To be honest the same could be said about Labour about them not caring about ordinary people, both parties are woefully out of touch.

Yes, if that opinion leads to policies that actively make poorer people poorer - the "bedroom tax", for example. Putting people who are already in a precarious situation into a much worse situation is fairly toxic. Requiring people who have been assessed as unfit for work by medical professionals to undergo "work capability assessments" is toxic.

 

[nw1]

We probably can have friendlier relations with the EU someday, but right now we need to move on from Covid which the more pressing issue, I doubt the EU will let us rejoin the customs Union for the simple fact that they probably wouldn’t be able to trust that we would remain in that, the most we can do is have a friendly relationship but this resetting back to pre 2016 has to to be put to bed, it’s not defeatist it’s moving on, as I said recovering from Covid and getting back our freedoms is the most pressing issue right now.

Labour are unelectable, and under Starmer, have proven to not be a friend of the people whatsoever, he doesn’t inspire such feeling, pandering to BLM has alienated any hope of regaining the Red Wall, and I say this as a mixed race person who finds BLM problematic for reasons I won’t state here for the wanting of staying on topic.

If this really is a problem, they have time to realise this in time for the next election, assuming a date of spring or early summer 2024. I am not convinced, though, that they are unelectable. Starmer may be bland but he is no hard-left extremist. But as I said, plenty of time to replace Starmer if necessary. As I said look at how the Tories and Labour reversed fortunes between 1987 and 1990. Look at how quickly the Tories lost popularity after the 1992 election - it really was hero to zero for Major (for the record, IMO easily the least-bad Tory leader since Heath) in just six months. Anything could happen, and Labour should do what they can to exploit weaknesses in the Tory party and be constantly on the attack.

Starmer refusing to listen to the Pub landlord in Bath by stating in the most elitist way possible that would make any Tory proud that “I don’t need to listen to people like you” isn’t exactly what voters want to hear.

Labour is obsessed with identity politics and this doesn’t exactly help a working class family with issues they face, this only seems to satisfy the spoilt urban middle classes.

So how do the Tories, which always hit ordinary people hardest in times of recession, help ordinary people? As I said it's a practical certainty that it'll be ordinary people, not the rich, who will suffer from the coming recession the hardest in the next couple of years. Remember in the early 2010s, under Cameron? Him and Osborne sure didn't care about ordinary people, and this lot, significantly to the right of Cameron, are even less likely to.

Labour, while having no magic wand, would be a bit more compassionate simply because it's in their nature. When were there last compassionate Tories? Some (not all) in Major's government, perhaps - but even that was blighted by people like Lilley and Howard.

I have to agree with @Cheshire Rover that this current crop of Tories are not in the least bit far right, they’re centre right at best, they have just stated that they are going to allow 20,000 Afghan refugees to be resettled here, that doesn’t signify that they are far right, individuals are but not as a whole

Given the situation there, I suspect any government except the most extreme right would do such a thing. The only person who would not take such an action, I suspect, would be someone like Farage.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

They absolutely do describe people on the left that way.

Really? Look at this very thread: A couple of people (including you) have openly described the Tories as the enemy. Yet, despite there being a number of contributors who are very obviously strongly against the Labour Party, as far as I can see, no-one has described Labour in anything like those terms.