Post Match Thread: Election 2017

[Gabriel]

I think people have been conned into thinking what other people tell them they should think. They have been told that if we ask those who can afford it to pay a bit more tax then they are going to up sticks and leave turning this country into a wasteland. I personally know of people living on minimum wages on a council estate but who choose to vote Tory. Talk of turkeys voting for Christmas. You couldn't make it up. The power of propaganda can't be underestimated. It has come to the point where anyone who speaks up openly for the needs of the downtrodden is labelled as some kind of Marxist Leninist throwback(Corbyn) to be ridiculed for following an outdated and discredited creed. The accepted and acceptable creed being that of the middle and upper middle classes, namely that everybody should be able to make a better life for themselves by pulling up their bootstraps and working hard. While this is an admirable stance, ( I'm self employed and do quite well for myself and I'm quite ambitious for my children) not everyone is in a position to adequately fend for themselves. It should be a function of the state to ensure basic needs are adequately met for the population at large and not just provide a bare, grudging minimum of services by constantly clawing away and under mining funding. We are one of the richest countries in the world and we can afford it. The problem is ideologically since Mrs Thatcher we choose not to. It's a question of priorities. People have been conditioned to think that is the way it is and that is the way it has to be. This message has been put out by politicians and reinforced by the right wing media and people have nought into it. This is why you get people protesting about A and E closures and then going out and voting Tory.
Well it doesn't have to be that way.
What is needed is someone to slay this dragon. People need understand that public services are fundable without the sky falling in. Do we want to carry on making the rich richer or do we want to give our people the best life we can. While the working class has capitulated in it's struggle of making life better for the weak, the Tories have kept up their's, at the same time co opting us into helping them in the name of social mobility.
I just think Corbyn might finally be the man to connect with people to change their thinking and fight for their own interests rather than being wannabe Tories, hoping for social mobility and leaving behind the vulnerable and needy to fend for themselves the best they can. That you can't expect people who have been born into wealth and never experienced hardship to know what hardship feels like and therefore to sympathise and alleviate yours.
I know what I am saying may be the triumph of hope over expectation but I hope Corbyn is that man and I hope he succeeds.
If he fails I'll just go back onto my pit of despair for the future of the working class people of this country.

Thank you for the response and your candour.

From a purely political perspective, I sense that many on the Left are investing too much hope and expectation in one person, Corbyn, and, hence, if he were again to prove unelectable, then the message would be seen to die with him. If there is to be the substantial change that you desire, then I suspect that Corbyn may have to be the forerunner, and that it might have to be someone else, or more likely a wider grouping of people, who delivers on the message.

 

[SWP's back]

Niether political wing of these groups should have a say over how the 4 nations of the UK go forward, England , Scotland and Wales didn't vote for this kind of party to have sway.

Then SF and DUP shouldn't be allowed to stand.

Every voter knows how a GE works as does every party.

There's no rule that states "a party unable to garner a majority of seats can only form any coalition based on how much Urban Genie can stand them".

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Some people confuse ideology with politics. Corbyn, and today's Labour Party, are great at spouting ideology, but if they don't have the political brains to ever get into power, ideology is just a bunch of slogans for the losers!

You just don't seem to get it. People don't want less of the same from a Tory-lite Labour Party. They want more of something different. Had it not been for the backlash against wee Jimmy Krankie in Scotland and the Tories in England being propped up by the death of the UKIP vote, Corbyn would be in a very strong position to form the next government this weekend.

 

[Bluemanc100]

I've no doubt, but he'll never lead the Labour party.

Genuine question... why?

 

[The perfect fumble]

I'm not 'a Tory'.

I've voted Labour, Libs twice and Tory twice.

I don't pick a side and then vote for them relentlessly. Politics isn't football. That's something I don't think you'll ever understand.

You're right politics isn't football...you've voted Labour, Libs twice and Tory twice, right?

What other teams do you support?

 

[Bluemanc100]

Options bar corbyn in the last 2 leadership elections would have fared no better imho

how I believe they would have fared if they had been leader

Cooper - may have won a similar number of seats , but doubt it
Liz kendal - not a chance we would be wiped out now.
Andy burnham - Probably as many seats as now or a couple more than milliband
Owen smith - see Liz Kendall

the mebership was dropping and we were failing to get the youth and traditional labour vote energized since 2010 and none of those who ha also attempted to be leader would have done any better , tired soundbite style bullshit politicians, only burnham has the cameleonic ability to change tact to suit. out of them, but doubt he would have made much difference.

One reason labour improved was the grassroot contribution doorstepping and those load of numpties would not have enegised as many to come out as has.

Example of this is woodcocks campaign, spent 2 years slaging of corbyn and pissing off the membership, when it came to rhe campaign he at first struggled to get support canvassing with him from members who were pissed off with his attitude and bullshit the last 2 years. (though they did come out despite this to help for the good of the party)

None of the above would have increased tge youth vote either imho.

Also the right side of labour in fight as much as the left, they did it in the 80's and throughout government.

Jezza aint perfect, but credit to him that he proved the progress lot wrong and we need never go back to the liles of ed balls, dave milliband and tristham hunt.

What about Chuka (sp) the party seemed to give up easy when he cited family reasons not to stand

 

[The perfect fumble]

Genuine question... why?

Because he's a Blairite and the members won't vote for him.

 

[hilts]

I've a lot of time for your posts, PB and you may well be right.

But I still return to the fact thought that to me it is staggering that after:

• 6 years of really painful Tory cuts
• deep cuts to our police force and then right at the time of the election, the worst terrorist acts we've seen in this country for years
• A PM who resided over said cuts
• A shockingly bad Tory campaign
• A PM who proved to be a joke; a laughing stock amongst many on both sides
• No vision painted by the Tories, of hope and how things will be better

and on the other hand:

• a Labour gift of £28,000 to everyone wanting to go to university (50% of young people)
• a Labour manifesto that promised 95% of people they'd be better off or no worse off
• Labour promises to fix all our public services

The Conservatives STILL won. How on earth did that happen? How on earth did the Tories win??? In all normal circumstances, they'd have had their arses handed to them.

The mathematical answer, is that Labour started too far back. They made up enormous ground, but were never going to catch up enough. But that's a trivial answer, and doesn't get to the root of it. WHY were they so far behind to start with? Corbyn has been so deeply unpopular in the public at large, and we have to ask, why is that? Well part of it is certainly down to the media, who clearly hate him. But surely that cannot explain all of it? Why is he so unpopular amongst his own MPs?

In my view, he is simply too left wing to ever be what the country wants or needs. We are no longer a nation of millions of unskilled workers being exploited by evil employers. Powerful hard left unions and union leaders yelling out brothers out, is no longer appropriate in this country. We are country of highly skilled, highly paid employees with excellent relations with their employers. Sensible pay demands (and pay) and no strike agreements. This is the modern reality. Corbyn wishes to return us to what he remembers as a golden era where the unions held the power; the state owned the assets; rich people weren't so rich. Hardly anyone else wants this anymore.

Working class people have aspirations not to be working class. They don't want to work on the shop floor doing menial tasks for poor pay all their lives; they are upwardly mobile. They want a better life for themselves and their kids. Perhaps they want to own their own business. They want to live in a country where business is allowed to thrive, because they want where they work to thrive. Or their own business to thrive.

But some of Corbyn's entourage don't get it. I heard one of his supporters on the TV being asked what she hoped for most in a Corbyn government. She replied, I want the rich to be paid less. That was her very sad 1st priority. Forget making the country better; she just wants other people to be worse off. Corbyn still has some of that in him; a bitter resentment of anyone successful. The broader public can smell it and they don't like it.

Not sure I agree with the underlined part fella

 

[smudgedj]

You just don't seem to get it. People don't want less of the same from a Tory-lite Labour Party. They want more of something different. Had it not been for the backlash against wee Jimmy Krankie in Scotland and the Tories in England being propped up by the death of the UKIP vote, Corbyn would be in a very strong position to form the next government this weekend.

Or maybe labours bribe of free university places didn't work in scotland.

 

[urban genie]

Then SF and DUP shouldn't be allowed to stand.

Every voter knows how a GE works as does every party.

There's no rule that states "a party unable to garner a majority of seats can only form any coalition based on how much Urban Genie can stand them".

No there isn't, and NI is part of the UK and so part of our system and have a right to be there, as a democracy we will have to live with the government and those in the coalition we get, but doesn't mean it has to sit easy with people.
Do you not agree though that a party with some of the beliefs of the DUP would have not won a seat in the other 3 countries? Because I don't believe they would

But that's the way our system works and life goes on, we have to get on too, but it won't stop me being opposed to it(DUP or SF in gov).

Maybe PR needs looking at again.