Local and P&CC elections

[yorksrob]

If Mr Khan's victory isn't down to Mr Corbyn, why should we be expected to believe that the setback in Wales (which has, after all been in labour control for well over a decade, so might well be getting ready for a change) and the defeat in Scotland (which is politically far more independent from English politics than London anyway) are any more to do with him.

 

[backontrack]

The Welsh setback is just the loss of one seat to the leader of Plaid Cymru (which was to be expected because, y'know, she's the leader of Plaid Cymru). Losing in Scotland was due to the incompetence of Kezia Dugdale and co.

 

[phoenixcronin]

OK, strong leadership would be a good start along with more effective performances during PMQ's. A strong command of economic basics would also be useful as opposed to leading us towards hyper inflation. Telling Mr Livingstone to shut up or expect to be expelled from the party would also help to demonstrate that he had strong leadership. Coming across as someone who Middle England might want to vote for wouldn't be a bad thing, as opposed to surrounding yourself with "right on" students who haven't got a clue about life. And yes I support the renewal of Trident, in terms of building the boats but not using them show's that Mr Corbyn is weak. The position in Scotland has got worse and yet all Mr Corbyn can say is we're with you! Making an effort to control the splinter group Momentum (which indeed is busy telling me that my donations and support are no longer welcome) wouldn't be a bad idea either. And I've had enough of the Islington Set and that includes Emily Thornberry who happens to be a pal of Mr Corbyn. They simply haven't got a clue as to how to connect with the working class. What's happened in Thurrock gives you a strong indication of that.

Oh and please don't think that Sadiq Khan's wonderful victory is down to My Corbyn; if anything Sadiq has tried to distance himself from Jeremy. I'm sorry but we don't have a hope of winning the next election with our current leader and there is no sign of being able to get rid of him. You can have all the grand ideas in the world but unless you have a hope of gaining power it's all pointless.

Couldn't agree more. Scrapping of Trident is a big nono for me, as I think we very much need a nuclear deterrent. Letting a lackey like Emily Thornberry anywhere near defence is an embarrassment, and enough to drive me away.

Couple that with the attitude/ideology of the Momentum types means I'll probably never vote Labour, as I say this as a natural LibDem who has voted Labour on many occasions.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The Welsh setback is just the loss of one seat to the leader of Plaid Cymru (which was to be expected because, y'know, she's the leader of Plaid Cymru). Losing in Scotland was due to the incompetence of Kezia Dugdale and co.

If you look at the votes, the Welsh setback was more significant than one seat. Compared to 2011, Labour's share of the constituency vote fell from 42% to 35%, and of the list vote from 37% to 32% - quite big falls which ought to worry any party. I suspect it was only the vagaries of the electoral system (not many list seats) and the fact that the remaining votes were split between so many different parties that stopped Labour losing more seats.

 

[yorksrob]

To be honest, I think any party that's been in power for 13 years as labour has in Wales (I think that's what I remember reading) is likely to struggle. You get as far as you can with one political philosophy and people tend to start looking for a change of direction. That certainly seems to be the case in UK wide elections.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Labour as with the Cons and Lib Dems are London centric parties. The losses in wales and Scotland are more down to the will of the local electorate wanting to be led by Cardiff and Edinburgh. This has been going on for some time and is frankly no surprise to me. What should be noted is the gains Labour have made in England.

Make of corbyn what you will, but so far he has proved he is listening. Far more than that moron in power is!

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

If you look at the votes, the Welsh setback was more significant than one seat. Compared to 2011, Labour's share of the constituency vote fell from 42% to 35%, and of the list vote from 37% to 32% - quite big falls which ought to worry any party. I suspect it was only the vagaries of the electoral system (not many list seats) and the fact that the remaining votes were split between so many different parties that stopped Labour losing more seats.

Indeed, and it is significant that the Rhondda voted for Leanne Wood, whose party policies are significantly to the left (if you want to use that term) of Welsh Labour. Carwyn Jones can say that it was the divisions in the UK Labour party that cost him, but I'm not so sure. If it wasn't for the explicit nationalist agenda of Plaid Cymru (and round here they attract an awful lot of overtly racist people) I would consider their programme quite attractive.

 

[southern442]

Plenty of bullying going on directed at Corbyn now, particularly from the Telegraph. Some people called his performance 'abysmal'. They lost 24 seats (which isn't that much anyway, considering they lost more MP's than that in the General Election last year) in local councils, but the Tories lost 35! I don't see any articles saying 'Cameron's leadership questioned' even though in terms of councilors lost they did worse than Labour. If anything, it shows that Labour supporters have more faith in Corbyn than the Conservative supporters do in Cameron.

Ok, Labour did pretty bad in Scotland, but it doesn't make it easier for them when the main Scottish party, the SNP, is also a Centre-left social democratic party. Perhaps Labour's failure there was not due to Jeremy Corbyn but maybe because of their Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale, who seems to have kept her mouth shut for most of the election. She doesn't seem to be a very strong leader and should be replaced by someone who knows how to tell people what they stand for. It might also be worth noting that in terms of constituency votes, Labour got more votes than the Conservatives in the Scottish election.

Outside of Scotland, Labour didn't do that badly. They managed to retain their 12 seats in London, whereas the Tories lost one, plus they have themselves a London Mayor, which is pretty good going. In the Welsh elections, they came first. They did lose a seat, but the Tories lost 3 and performed much worse than them. They also won their two by-elections, one with a larger majority than before. So I say that Jeremy Corbyn didn't do too badly, and that Labour's disappointments were not his fault. I just hope that he can get his party in order for next year, and if in 12 months time we have a strong and organised Labour Party, then they could do very well in the next round of elections. If you wish to call Labour's performance bad, just remember that the Conservatives didn't exactly do great either.

 

[TheKnightWho]

One might almost think the papers are biased in a particular direction, but you wouldn't hear it from the right-of-centre on the forums.

The reason why Labour is failing is Scotland is because Scottish Labour still thinks that Blairism is electable.

Given Liz Kendall got 4.5% of the vote in the Labour leadership election, the recent appalling performance in Scotland, and yet better performance than the Tories in the rest of the country it really does raise doubts over the issue of whether Corbyn really is unelectable. It doesn't surprise me at all that he's being resisted at a furious rate by the centre-right newspapers, but I think people are vastly underestimating the power of social media in comparison: it galvanises young voters over issues that are important to them, and that's territory where newspaper sales are irrelevant.

I don't think Corbyn is going to win 2020, but the idea that real leftism is dead and that we should all be radical centrists is as dead as the rest of the 2000s.
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OK, strong leadership would be a good start along with more effective performances during PMQ's. A strong command of economic basics would also be useful as opposed to leading us towards hyper inflation. Telling Mr Livingstone to shut up or expect to be expelled from the party would also help to demonstrate that he had strong leadership.

So what exactly is Corbyn doing that is leading us to hyper-inflation? Is this another "austerity is actually necessary!" argument, even though the majority of economists think Osborne damaged the economy? Given that in practice the Tory party doesn't support austerity anymore (except where it's ideologically convenient), given their massive spending, I'm struggling to see how Corbyn could make it "worse".

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Outside of Scotland, Labour didn't do that badly. They managed to retain their 12 seats in London, whereas the Tories lost one, plus they have themselves a London Mayor, which is pretty good going. In the Welsh elections, they came first. They did lose a seat, but the Tories lost 3 and performed much worse than them. They also won their two by-elections, one with a larger majority than before. So I say that Jeremy Corbyn didn't do too badly, and that Labour's disappointments were not his fault. I just hope that he can get his party in order for next year, and if in 12 months time we have a strong and organised Labour Party, then they could do very well in the next round of elections. If you wish to call Labour's performance bad, just remember that the Conservatives didn't exactly do great either.

Labour's performance in England was better than many people expected, and outside Scotland it wasn't a meltdown.

However, the problem is that, if the BBC's calculations are accurate, these elections show a swing that would put Labour and the Conservatives roughly level nationally. Combine that with historical experience - which tells us that Labour in opposition almost always does substantially better in council elections than it does in subsequent general elections, and it's hard to avoid concluding that, on these results, the Conservatives are likely to win the next general election. I think that's the reason why many commentators don't see this as a good overall result for Labour.

As far as London is concerned - it's great (IMO) that Sadiq won, but the first preference vote shares for Labour and the Conseratives (44% vs 35%) were almost exactly what they were in the last general election in London (44% vs 35%), when Labour lost nationally - so winning in London isn't much of an achievement. These days, London is, generally speaking, on balance a Labour area. Remember, in 2012, there was (if I recall correctly) something of a consensus that the main reason Boris won a 2nd term was that Labour had put up Ken Livingstone, who by that time had become very unpopular - whereas any other Labour candidate would have probably defeated Boris.

Incidentally, while I know much of the press is usually heavily biased against Labour, I don't see that much in evidence of that in coverage of these election results. For example, when I checked both yesterday and today, the Telegraph's leading story on their website was Sadiq Khan's victory.

 

[southern442]

Labour's performance in England was better than many people expected, and outside Scotland it wasn't a meltdown.

However, the problem is that, if the BBC's calculations are accurate, these elections show a swing that would put Labour and the Conservatives roughly level nationally. Combine that with historical experience - which tells us that Labour in opposition almost always does substantially better in council elections than it does in subsequent general elections, and it's hard to avoid concluding that, on these results, the Conservatives are likely to win the next general election. I think that's the reason why many commentators don't see this as a good overall result for Labour.

They still have 3 and a half years to sort themselves out, so if Corbyn can get his party in good order by next year, they could have a better shot at the local elections. I think that one of the reasons why they didn't do better was because [the media were reporting that] the party had fallen apart a bit over the whole antisemitism issue. When the next round of elections come about, if Labour are in order and ready, then they will do much better.

 

[krus_aragon]

You think there should be no democratic accountability at all? Even the old system used elected councillors to oversee the police. Operational autonomy on individual cases is firmly vested in the chief constable.

No, you misunderstand me. I agree that there is need for oversight and accountability to ensure correct and impartial conduct by the police. I don't, however, feel that this role should be taken by one single person running under a party-political banner. As a case in point: all but three of the commissioners elected in England this year ran on behalf of the Labour or Conservative parties. (Wales' votes have yet to be counted as I write this.)

I prefer the idea that a selection of local councillors contribute to the task of holding the local police force to account. It is also my belief that local politics is better without (or with less of) national political parties. Independent councillors make up a significant proportion of many county councils in Wales, often outnumbering official political parties.
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If Mr Khan's victory isn't down to Mr Corbyn, why should we be expected to believe that the setback in Wales (which has, after all been in labour control for well over a decade, so might well be getting ready for a change)...

The Conservatives would like us to believe that Mr Corbyn is entirely responsible for the Labour Party in Wales. Every single pamphlet that came through our door for the Assembly elections described it as "Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party", with hardly any mention of Carwyn Jones. (He, after all, is only First Minister of Wales and leader of the Labour Party in the Assembly. So not relevant at all. :P)

 

[southern442]

The Conservatives would like us to believe that Mr Corbyn is entirely responsible for the Labour Party in Wales. Every single pamphlet that came through our door for the Assembly elections described it as "Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party", with hardly any mention of Carwyn Jones. (He, after all, is only First Minister of Wales and leader of the Labour Party in the Assembly. So not relevant at all. :P)

In London it was the same, all of the Conservative leaflets described Sadiq Khan as 'Corbyn's man' and all the associated nonsense.

 

[Busaholic]

In London it was the same, all of the Conservative leaflets described Sadiq Khan as 'Corbyn's man' and all the associated nonsense.

That description would have been more apt for Labour's candidate in the last two mayoral elections. Actually, 'Corbyn's man' this time was a woman, Diane Abbott, and she didn't get the nomination. Labour thankfully managed to choose the right candidate - I'm not convinced Mrs Mills aka Tessa Jowell would have won, given her family's financial dealings would have been aired in the media for weeks pre-election.

 

[unclefreddy]

P&CC. Another bureaucrat interfering with the local police, undoubtedly on a fairly large salary. Surely the Chief Constable should be capable of overseeing their own Police force without some commissioner interfering. I was very concerned that all the candidates had affiliations with political parties as well.
Canvassing, what canvassing? I heard and read nothing from any of the candidates, the only one whose name I knew was a candidate for the Lib-Dems in the last general election, needless to say he lost that one.

 

[RichmondCommu]

If Mr Khan's victory isn't down to Mr Corbyn, why should we be expected to believe that the setback in Wales (which has, after all been in labour control for well over a decade, so might well be getting ready for a change) and the defeat in Scotland (which is politically far more independent from English politics than London anyway) are any more to do with him.

Mr Khan did his very best to distance his campaign from Mr Corbyn but I'm not sure that the same can be said for Wales and Scotland. Unless of course you are suggesting that Wales and Scotland view Mr Corbyn as being as much of a liability as Mr Khan does.

I was disappointed to read that Mr Corbyn was not present at the ceremony in London today and I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that Mr Khan didn't vote for him in the election.
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I don't think Corbyn is going to win 2020, but the idea that real leftism is dead and that we should all be radical centrists is as dead as the rest of the 2000s.

Well exactly and so it will have been a huge wasted opportunity, especially given the disarray that the Tories appear to be in at the moment not to mention their u-turns and other unpopular policies. Plenty more wilderness years on the way I'm afraid.
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So what exactly is Corbyn doing that is leading us to hyper-inflation?

Printing money to fund projects will see inflation rocket way above the 2.5% set by the Bank Of England in my opinion. As will increasing the minimum wage to unsustainable levels which will then see the additional costs being passed on to the consumer. Inflation is the biggest danger any economy faces.

 

[yorksrob]

Mr Khan did his very best to distance his campaign from Mr Corbyn but I'm not sure that the same can be said for Wales and Scotland. Unless of course you are suggesting that Wales and Scotland view Mr Corbyn as being as much of a liability as Mr Khan does.

I was disappointed to read that Mr Corbyn was not present at the ceremony in London today and I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that Mr Khan didn't vote for him in the election.

Scotland has been distancing itself from English Labour ever since the SNP became a force in Holyrood, much more so since their referendum, so I fear you are manufacturing "reality" to suit your agenda.

 

[TheKnightWho]

Printing money to fund projects will see inflation rocket way above the 2.5% set by the Bank Of England in my opinion. As will increasing the minimum wage to unsustainable levels which will then see the additional costs being passed on to the consumer. Inflation is the biggest danger any economy faces.

So you think the only way to fund projects is by printing money? We are a modern, 21st century, globalist economy - not Zimbabwe. There are considerable other options open to us.

Seriously - what you are saying is just wrong.
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Scotland has been distancing itself from English Labour ever since the SNP became a force in Holyrood, much more so since their referendum, so I fear you are manufacturing "reality" to suit your agenda.

Indeed. Scottish Labour are the last vestiges of Blairism in the party, and have performed by far the worst.

But then the Blairites seem to ignore the evidence and blame it all on Corbyn, who performed fine in the rest of the country! Certainly better than the Tories by any metric, and they aren't being described as "unelectable".

 

[pemma]

Currently we have Conservative John Dwyer who doesn't like police cuts but is unwilling to challenge his own party policy of reducing policing budgets. For once the UKIP candidate has impressed me - he's said he'll do the job for £20k less than the current Conservative and put the surplus in to the policing budget. However, I think the Labour candidate is the strongest candidate and the most likely to topple the Conservative.

Surprisingly that proved to be correct and the Conservative PCC in Cheshire has been replaced by a Labour PCC. It seems a high turnout in Labour strong Warrington and a low turnout in Conservative strong Cheshire East helped.

 

[southern442]

Indeed. Scottish Labour are the last vestiges of Blairism in the party, and have performed by far the worst.

But then the Blairites seem to ignore the evidence and blame it all on Corbyn, who performed fine in the rest of the country! Certainly better than the Tories by any metric, and they aren't being described as "unelectable".

Exactly. Scottish Labour have a very weak leader, the majority of them follow now outdated principles set by a man who for some reason still hasn't been tried for war crimes, and they don't seem to have done much either. Why don't these Blairites join the Conservatives already? They also hold Corbyn accountable for their failings, even though his principles are very different to theirs.

The reason why Scottish Labour isn't doing as well as they should be is because people that support the party and left-wing politics in general are better off voting for SNP!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Does anyone know anything about what was behind the Mayor result in Bristol? There was a very large swing from the incumbent independent to Labour. I'm guessing there must be some unusual local factors at work there, and I'm wondering what they were?

 

[Mojo]

Does anyone know anything about what was behind the Mayor result in Bristol? There was a very large swing from the incumbent independent to Labour. I'm guessing there must be some unusual local factors at work there, and I'm wondering what they were?

l think it was more to do with mobilising the right people rather than any specific anti-George sentiment. In terms of the actual numbers, George actually got more votes in 2016 than back in 2012, but turnout was up by around 52,000 compared back to 2012.

l have to admit, back in 2012 l actually voted in Bristol for the Mayor; not for George as l had never heard of him despite being fairly politically aware! l think George has been an excellent Mayor and really stood up for Bristol unlike the Councillors did before him. There was a lot of opposition to the introduction of 20mph speed limits and new controlled parking zones, but overall the wonderful city is a much better place to live.

 

[pemma]

Cheshire Police prepared a Press Release congratulating Conservative Mr Dwyer on getting re-elected ahead of the PCC results being announced but didn't prepare one in the event of any other outcome. When they heard Labour were in front at the first count they quickly rushed one through saying they were looking forward to working with Mr Keane.