Post Match Thread: Election 2017

[BlueAnorak]

That's just freaky. Brown lost seats, Corbyn's won them (and a bigger share of the vote). I''m not (or wasn't) a Corbyn fan - but only because I believed Labour had to be more centrist to win power.

It may have escaped your notice but Labour were 65 seats short of a majority. They DO have to be more centrist to win power.

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

One of Labour's key points was to end mass workers coming in from the likes of Poland undercutting wages - the only way they could do that is an end to freedom of movement.

Why would people vote for Brexit but want to remain with freedom of movement? Brexit has to mean an end to freedom of movement and controlled immigration.

yep labours policy was to end freedom of movement. you can't be in the single market to do that. lots of people voted for them based on that, it wouldn't be good if they suddenly decided to ignore that.

 

[bluemoonmatt]

We talk past each other.

The Labour party has made its bed and it must lie in it. If you think that will lead to years in the wilderness, fair enough. It's the job of the party to convince the electorate to trust them in government, if they can't, then maybe a new party will emerge from the wreckage of the old, we shall see.

Do you remember the SDP, that went well.

I've said my piece now, I'll maintain Jc has earned the right to my support for now, it might be jolly decent if you guys cut the childish Tory lite/blairite scum shit and joined with us to try and unify this party so that next time rather than achieving an honourable defeat we might just actually win. A victory, for the many, not the few. Yeah

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

It may have escaped your notice but Labour were 65 seats short of a majority. They DO have to be more centrist to win power.

No they don't. There are probably at least 50 Tory held seats were a 2.5% swing from Con to Lab would see them change hands. Last night a lot of UKIP voters went to the Tories because of Brexit but many of those might be what you'd call traditional Labour voters. If they start to abandon the Tories then they'd be in serious trouble.

 

[blue cigar]

Sounds just like the Tory party to be honest.

Well i wasnt going to say pb....

 

[BlueAnorak]

Yes and he's yet anther case of a politician, who we trust to run our country, showing a singular lack of judgement when everything was at stake. Had he been less strident during the Brexit campaign he might well have been PM instead of May. Even if he was too closely associated with Cameron to do that, he'd perhaps gone to the Foreign Office under May and be in a perfect position to unseat her now.

Been having a few thoughts on the election today. Criticise at will.

• May called this election to give her some breathing room from the RWNJ's in her own party and presumably negotiate a softer Brexit than some might have wanted. but now she's completely at their mercy. It's not the DUP she should be worried about now but her own backbenchers. Just half-a-dozen of them can bring her down. And they will if necessary.
• Her front-bench will be plotting behind her back and positioning themselves for the inevitable leadership battle.
• The Conservative party conference will be entertaining this autumn.
• There was clearly a lot of love for the Labour manifesto, Corbyn's campaign but maybe not for Corbyn himself. Before it he was seen by many (me included) as a bumbling, uncharismatic, poor communicator and leader. But he's proved to be great success on the campaign trail and should build on that. But it's still him and I suspect many won't entertain the thought of voting for him. Now UKIP's out of the way and it's a straight fight between Labour and the Tories, he needs that extra push to win a subsequent election. If I were him, now he's unassailable I'd be thinking about establishing a younger successor who believes in the policies, can put them across but isn't him.

It's not just him though is it? The extreme lunacy of sticking up corporation tax 7% in 3 years would have done untold damage to the economy and people's living standards. Not raising anything like the expected figure. That said, I suspect the same people would NOT have voted for that as well as for his security issues.

 

[daztrueblue91]

One of Labour's key points was to end mass workers coming in from the likes of Poland undercutting wages - the only way they could do that is an end to freedom of movement.

Why would people vote for Brexit but want to remain with freedom of movement? Brexit has to mean an end to freedom of movement and controlled immigration.

People voted for Brexit for all different reasons. There is no doubt that immigration was a major factor but it wasn't the sole reason. There was no definitive form of Brexit that people voted for as everyone knew we would have to negotiate a deal.

The referendum has to stand and we have to leave the EU, that's not up for debate. However, we have to get the best possible deal for our economy.

 

[BlueAnorak]

No they don't. There are probably at least 50 Tory held seats were a 2.5% swing from Con to Lab would see them change hands. Last night a lot of UKIP voters went to the Tories because of Brexit but many of those might be what you'd call traditional Labour voters. If they start to abandon the Tories then they'd be in serious trouble.

Nah, on average, Most UKIP voters went straight to Labour rather than the Tories (a ration of about 7/3). It was the most astounding thing about the election IMO.

 

[Bigga]

Yes but it's more "well maybe sometime in the future we might be able to help maybe, based on some events lining up".

That still doesnt help Jim today, on his £40 a week.

I'm not in this for glory. I don't care if I get to sit on Twitter or Bluemoon or in my local coffee bar congratulating myself on how we didn't lose as badly as we thought we might. For too many this is all about them, all about how they can feel represented and positive and how they're changing the world.

I'm in it so Jim isn't so hard done to. So we don't live in country where foodbanks are an accepted norm, that people with mental health issues don't get dustbin bundled to some crap CBT group, that we can drop tuition fees and so that we can stop telling transgender people that they're freaks. I'm not interested in your constant three months away revolution, I'm bothered about doing "Blairite crap" like having the biggest investment in public service infrastructure since the end of the second world war. You lot can worry about the Daily Mail, discussing wealth redistribution, reading the latest hot take by Paul Mason and the like of.

Because I don't. I worry about how we can get into power instead. And for that to happen to need to turn Blue seats in England to Red because otherwise it's all pointless. And you don't do that with anti-wealth policies, you don't do that by telling the middle classes that they should be grateful rather than aspirational and you don't do that by saying you're going to start renationalising any industry that isn't rail.

Your inability to compromise your righteously perfect political positions makes you as complicit in the suffering of the poor and disabled as the Tories are. This is a time where we needed a leader who spoke to Middle England and a manifesto that would win in the Shires. Instead we got an energised youth vote, a Remain swing to us and Tory swing in Labour heartland.

Our semi-fictional Jim is still stressed out of his mind about how he's going to pay next quarter's gas bill and he's doing that because we lost another fucking election. So don't come here all triumphant about how your revolution is coming and it's all going to work out in the end. It's grotesque, arrogant and completely dismissive of the covenant that we as Labour made to protect those who need protecting.

This isn't a victory. When we win an election and can start changing things then I'll be booming as the rest of you. And whether you blame the Blairites or the Corbynites or Thunder the Wonder Horse is totally irrelevant to the fact that we have damned these people to up to five more years of austerity, five more years of cuts and five more years of privatisation in health.

So forgive me if I skip the fucking victory party.

Wow, normally I might say you're talking sanctimonious shyte!! But I won't cos I hear what you're saying as I'm saying the same thing too.

The only difference is Corbyn doesn't want to LIE to the population in order to win. He wants to do right for everyone, as his manifesto screams. What should he concede more that he hasn't already in that pamphlet? That pledge was a consensus of compromise!!

If the middle belt is too scared to want better for themselves and their suffering neighbour, than what else can you do...??

I forgot the chap that was on GMB, this morning, the very first Labour MP who was not not celebrating anything when Morgan was telling him it was a sort of 'victory'. I was nodding in agreement about the angry response back to Morgan about not being able to help the desperate millions, like your Jim Smith, that need help now!

You think I'm a tub-thumper?!! Far from it!

This is from Jimmy Dore, an American looking in (and a Bernie Sanders supporter who is a lightweight Corbyn) and this resonated with me...

 

[Damocles]

it might be jolly decent if you guys cut the childish Tory lite/blairite scum shit and joined with us to try and unify this party so that next time rather than achieving an honourable defeat we might just actually win

Hmm. Yeah.

"We lost an election so this obviously means all our policies that 42 million people voted against and allowed the weakest Tory candidate in history to form a Government were actually right, and you pointing out it could never win in the seats that it never won in is what caused us to lose the election."

We lost because Middle England yet again went Blue. This was somewhat offset by a stronger youth vote than expected.

If you don't win the aspirational middle class, you don't win the election. Exactly the mistake Brown first made and then Ed and then Jez.

Listen I like Corbyn. I voted for him twice. But he can't win in that crucial battleground as he proved.

Politics is a means to an end but the far left are trying to turn it into a means in itself. The point is to win elections and enact policy. Without that you may as well be sat with a thumb up your arse.

We did better than most expected including me. But it's still a failure. Being less shit than expected still makes you shit

 

[bluemoonmatt]

Spot on.

Until Election Day.

if party membership won elections we'd have won another landslide. We have circa 480k members but post 12,858,652 votes. Tory membership is estimated to be around 150k but they poll 13,650,900 votes. It's somewhere in that last million votes that decides the party in power, and it's their trust that needs to be gained, they're called the wider electorate, not party members.

 

[Machiavelli]

Why would people vote for Brexit but want to remain with freedom of movement? Brexit has to mean an end to freedom of movement and controlled immigration.

They won't be ending freedom of movement imo.

 

[BlueAnorak]

The only time he ever faced a national audience he lost by nearly 60 seats to a woman who looks like Skeletor and had a manifesto that promised to steal food from children and sell old people's houses to pay for their crap nursing home .

That's a fact too.

It's actually only 40%, but yeah I agree with the main thrust of your argument.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

Whaaat??!!

Do you mean she might have to sit down with terrorists in order to seek... peace??

Fookin' sympathiser!!

Spot on mate. Also, shock horror Tony Blair wrote get out of jail free letters for IRA on the run and that didn't create as much fuss as the papers have gone to town on Jeremy.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Until Election Day.

if party membership won elections we'd have won another landslide. We have circa 480k members but post 12,858,652 votes. Tory membership is estimated to be around 150k but they poll 13,650,900 votes. It's somewhere in that last million votes that decides the party in power, and it's their trust that needs to be gained, they're called the wider electorate, not party members.

Then it's the job of the party to convince them, that's what political parties do.

 

[bluemoonmatt]

Hmm. Yeah.

"We lost an election so this obviously means all our policies that 42 million people voted against and allowed the weakest Tory candidate in history to form a Government were actually right, and you pointing out it could never win in the seats that it never won in is what caused us to lose the election."

We lost because Middle England yet again went Blue. This was somewhat offset by a stronger youth vote than expected.

If you don't win the aspirational middle class, you don't win the election. Exactly the mistake Brown first made and then Ed and then Jez.

Listen I like Corbyn. I voted for him twice. But he can't win in that crucial battleground as he proved.

Politics is a means to an end but the far left are trying to turn it into a means in itself. The point is to win elections and enact policy. Without that you may as well be sat with a thumb up your arse.

We did better than most expected including me. But it's still a failure. Being less shit than expected still makes you shit

Couldn't agree more,

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

They won't be ending freedom of movement imo.

both labour and the tories ran on a policy of ending freedom of movement. lots of voters voted for them based on that

 

[bluemoonmatt]

Then it's the job of the party to convince them, that's what political parties do.

So you would agree 'the party' failed to do this given we're still, what 60 seats in deficit?

 

[The perfect fumble]

So you would agree 'the party' failed to do this given we're still, what 60 seats in deficit?

On this occasion yes.

 

[Machiavelli]

both labour and the tories ran on a policy of ending freedom of movement. lots of voters voted for them based on that

Oh, in that case I trust the politicians to keep the promises they made.