The Labour Party
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TinFoilHat
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Until we get PR they still will be.
However, turkeys don't vote for Christmas. Best I can hope for is a hung parliament and Lib Dems using a referendum on it as the deal-breaker.
hilts
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Harsh that fella Sunak would beat you to death with a baseball bat but Keir would just hold his coat.
It's absolute rubbish that they're all the same.
I worked providing legal advice in one of the poorest areas of the UK for a decade, either side of the 1997 election.
It might not have been the revolution many want, and it wasn't the society I'd create in an ideal world, but the differences in employment rights, benefits etc., were huge. I met people who were being paid £1 an hour, when the first minimum wage was introduced, and others who unbelievably had never had a holiday allowance! Pensioner poverty was a stain on this country, but was turned around to such an extent that people now debate whether state pensions are too generous.
Given that people used to laugh at teachers for being poor when I was growing up, compared with the improvements under Labour, and the huge increase in support/special needs staff, I suspect most people working in schools would say the same. And you only have to look at the recent FT analysis of NHS waiting times over the decades, showing steady increases under the Tories, and a massive drop from 1997 to 2010, to see that there were big differences in the health service.
I know the current Ming vase strategy of Labour (desperately avoiding committing to anything at all that might dent their poll lead) might be frustrating, but they are not the Tories in any shape or form.
The Future’s Blue!
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This ‘All the same’ talk seems to be from Tory supporters, Starmer haters, or those that don’t really take an interest in politics.
If Labour get in then they should be judged on what they actually achieve.
The question is, do people want to carry on with the Tories in the seat?
Two issues.
Why are Starmer/Reeves excluding possible sources of revenue that no-one but the really rich wouid care about (and not all of them)? Especially if they are still promising a council tax freeze - unless they expect councils to carry on cutting.
And I think we're near peak rump Tory. If peoole are still firm Tory, I don't think anything is now likely to budge them. If I get someone on the doorstep who says they'll vote Tory, I just say "Still?"
If you're local, then I do suspect that a lot of the seats around here than went Tory will go back to Labour, but the lead could still be more fragile than it appears.
Most of the polls have a large part of the Tory 2019 vote saying they "don't know". It's much larger than the other parties, and the suggestion is that they're "unhappy", but are not going to switch, and may well vote Tory at an election.
I noticed just this week that some of the popular "left-wing" posters on twitter were sharing a video of someone who looks like Starmer (but isn't) being hugged by Jimmy Savile. Doing the Tories job for them, and you know that things like that will be pushed all over social media, along with millions of unofficial attack ads that most of us will never see.
The Future’s Blue!
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Well, I can look at the first issue like this. I’ve just had a backdated pay rise and over half of that went to the taxman. I’m not rich and still support the family as they’re finding their way through life. With all the other taxes, I’d be pissed if Labour said that they were raising the top limit unless they’re talking about the top 5%. A real issue that could lose Labour the GE.
On the second, there’s those that will vote Tory, no matter what, even those who are not well off but align because they want to be thought of as being in a certain class. It’s the middle England that Labour are looking at, and without them, again, the lose the GE.
The hard-left and right aren’t the issue, they’re probably 20% of the electorate, everybody in the middle is where they are fighting for.
Postman Pep
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Tbf he said slightly better not they're all the same.
Again he appeared to be questioning their commitment to austerity not their avoidance. Seems pretty unequivocal to me.
I suppose it comes down to people's perceptions of what the ming vase contains. Ken will be happy you will continue to pretend.
Postman Pep
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Was that it?
I was expecting Ken to say something like the "bigot" that got Gordon Brown into trouble.
Postman Pep
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"Tbf he said slightly better not they're all the same."
Sure - I'll say that's bullshit too.
It's easy to list the achievements of the last Labour government, but after 13 years most people would probably fail to list more than a couple of things the Tories have actually done, never mind a list of positive changes.
I suspect you have good intentions, but it comes across that you'd rather the Tories win so you can keep bitching from the side lines. There is a world of good things that politicians can do between where the Tories are now, and a Postman Pep Utopia. The video you shared talks about the cost of living crisis, public services, growing the economy etc. Yet the guy who shared it suggests that Ken is a racist, sexist, who mostly cares about the rich getting more wealthy. If you assume everyone who ever voted Tory only has those values, then you're writing off half the country, and things will never change.
hilts
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Half the country? Not even close.
I'm glad that's the point you take away :/
A surprising number of voters switch party from one election to the next, so the number who have "ever voted Tory" is going to be a lot higher than their highest recent vote shares. The survey below suggests a third changing their vote is commonplace these days, and it was an astonishing 43% between 2010 and 2015 (skewed by the Lib Dem collapse).
How many voters really switch parties in British elections? What the evidence tells us
The British electorate is volatile but one party has to benefit more than the others for that to actually affect the outcome.
theconversation.com
Bear in mind, that's just between general elections - obviously a lot of people would have voted differently in European and local elections, further increasing the pool of of people who have "ever voted Tory".
Obviously turnout isn't close to 100%, but I'm not aware of any research which suggests non-voters wouldn't vote in a similar way, and given that there's considerable churn amongst voters/non-voters from election to election, the number who have voted at some point is a lot higher than the turnout for any single election. For example the vote in 2017 was just under 70%, and only a couple of points up on 2015, yet 17% of 2015 voters didn't vote in 2017. That's just voter churn between two elections two years apart.
hilts
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I'm glad that's the point you take away :/
A surprising number of voters switch party from one election to the next, so the number who have "ever voted Tory" is going to be a lot higher than their highest recent vote shares. The survey below suggests a third changing their vote is commonplace these days, and it was an astonishing 43% between 2010 and 2015 (skewed by the Lib Dem collapse).
How many voters really switch parties in British elections? What the evidence tells us
The British electorate is volatile but one party has to benefit more than the others for that to actually affect the outcome.
Bear in mind, that's just between general elections - obviously a lot of people would have voted differently in European and local elections, further increasing the pool of of people who have "ever voted Tory".
Obviously turnout isn't close to 100%, but I'm not aware of any research which suggests non-voters wouldn't vote in a similar way, and given that there's considerable churn amongst voters/non-voters from election to election, the number who have voted at some point is a lot higher than the turnout for any single election. For example the vote in 2017 was just under 70%, and only a couple of points up on 2015, yet 17% of 2015 voters didn't vote in 2017. That's just voter churn between two elections two years apart.
Like I said nowhere near half the country
A really impressive comeback ;)
In multiple single elections the Tory vote has been a third of the total electorate (including those that didn't vote).
Given that:
Churn between just two consecutive elections has been around 30% of voters for the last couple of decades, and up to 43% in 2015.
Someone aged 40 could have already voted in 6 general elections, and many more local/European elections
People often vote differently in local/generals.
I'd be astonished if that figure isn't approaching half the country.
If you want to show me where I'm going wrong (without any pedantic comments about people who aren't allowed to vote like kids, or foreign nationals), then I'd be genuinely interested to hear. I personally, found the churn figures quite astonishing. I'd seen plenty of those flow diagrams showing where voters move between elections, but hadn't realised just how much all that added up to.
hilts
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Interesting stuff
Now, I know you don't mean that ;)
But it does explain why politicians target swing voters.
Between 2010 and 2015 something like 13m voters changed their vote. Given that the Tories won both elections with less than that number of votes, it's bizarre, but that's people for you.
Postman Pep
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Plenty of assumptions about me in there but again nothing on the point initially raised.... beyond your 'ming vase theory' of course.
Rather than avoiding committing to anything unpopular they are making a firm commitment to ruling out something that has popular support. Is it really the electorate they are taking into account when making these calculations?
There is similar levels of support for public ownership/nationalisation (again ruled out) and against further private sector involvement in the NHS (very much ruled in). Maybe I'm not so out of step with public opinion as you try to portray?
As for a utopia Starmer last week vowed to 'smash the class ceiling'......seemingly by making the pie bigger without any adjustment to the size of the portions. Instead of continually telling me to put up and shut up maybe have a think about the question Goodall raises here. Not for my benefit more because it might come in handy when you are out on the stump.