Politics Thread!

[merman]

So Chukka Umunna is out of the running, after briefly looking certain to win. Very odd: he seems to have been surprised by the amount of scrutiny a prospective Labour leader and potential PM gets, but he was around for the last one which was very high profile and dramatic. This one was promising to be a lot less interesting, especially with him being a shoo-in.

Maybe he instead plans to run for London Mayor, use that to its full advantage to promote his brand, putting him in a stronger position to win over the Labour party and the British people. We could even see him running for PM against Boris Johnson, assuming he takes over from Cameron when he as expected steps down.

Chukka was hounded out by the press, Daily Mail reporters hassling his friends and family non-stop for three days.

Mainly because the right saw him as a potential Obama figure.

[pogo]

I’ve read no reports of any hounding. Just reporters trying to find an angle: background for the features they plan to write between now and the leadership election, and after if he is elected; and interesting individual stories and characters. They probably all fantasise about finding another Dennis Thatcher, but they would settle for a brother who has strong opinions. So it was not going to go on and on. No paparazzi chasing him for shots for glamour magazines. No hoping to snap him doing something or with someone he shouldn’t be, as they know there’s no point. Unless he did something particularly unusual like bike to work they would have quickly gotten tired and stopped.

He just didn’t like the attention, which is fine. He’s young, maybe has a young family, has plenty of time ahead of him. If they lose in 2020 he can maybe try again. If they win he will be well placed for a senior role in government from which he will be much better placed to run again if the vacancy arises.

[KlaxonCow]

I’ve read no reports of any hounding.

Well, of course. Reporters don't report on their own bad behaviour, do they?

"Today I hacked some phones and then proceeded to be an arsehole hounding someone all day long, in a thoroughly unacceptable manner, before just making some complete bullshit up, which isn't even true, about them just to fill up the column inches. Because, you see, gentle reader, I'm a lying cunt who's only doing this shit for the easy money and I don't care whose lives I destroy in doing so, as I'm rather sociopathic like that, I'm afraid."

[pogo]

I’ve read no reports of any hounding.

Well, of course. Reporters don't report on their own bad behaviour, do they?

The press will happily report on each other’s behaviour, especially when the are of opposite political persuasions. The most detail I’ve come across is this:

But Umunna was not prepared for Fleet Street's intrusiveness. Aides say that in recent days his mother was followed home by the Daily Mail (a claim categorically denied by the paper) and his girlfriend's parents and 102-year-old grandmother were doorstepped by the media.

Doorstopping, i.e. trying once to get comment, is hardly hounding. As for following his mother the Mail deny it and they would be stupid to lie about it as it could be verified.

Andy Burnham seems favourite now, which is worrying. They don’t need another left leaning, union backed leader.

[zip accident]

I’ve read no reports of any hounding.

Well, of course. Reporters don't report on their own bad behaviour, do they?

The press will happily report on each other’s behaviour, especially when the are of opposite political persuasions. The most detail I’ve come across is this:

But Umunna was not prepared for Fleet Street's intrusiveness. Aides say that in recent days his mother was followed home by the Daily Mail (a claim categorically denied by the paper) and his girlfriend's parents and 102-year-old grandmother were doorstepped by the media.

Doorstopping, i.e. trying once to get comment, is hardly hounding.

Depends how many are doing it at the one time.

It's not just the press:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-32748923

As for following his mother the Mail deny it and they would be stupid to lie about it as it could be verified.

That didn't stop the Mirror hacking phones.

Andy Burnham seems favourite now, which is worrying. They don’t need another left leaning, union backed leader.

Says the Tories, who are scared of the left.

[pogo]

Andy Burnham seems favourite now, which is worrying. They don’t need another left leaning, union backed leader.

Says the Tories, who are scared of the left.

Lol no. The Tories (reportedly of course) toasted Chuka Umunna’s withdrawal. The more left wing the Labour leader the easier it is for the Tories.

Labour will always have their core vote. Some may defect to the Greens but only a small minority. The Lib Dems, the other main challenge on the left, are much diminished. Come 2020 Labour should have no problem attracting almost all the voters they did this time.

Their problem is attracting centrist voters: voters who voted for Tony Blair but went off Labour in 2010, utterly deserted them in 2015. This doesn’t mean another Blair/more Blairism, but it means appealing to the centre ground somehow.

They also need to be more convincing and on Europe and immigration, to keep UKIP at bay. This does not mean being as right-wing as UKIP. I think there’s room for a party that is much less tough on immigration, that makes the case for the economic benefits that immigrants bring, and tackles the problems they cause, such as the pressure on housing and education by investing in those areas.

Scotland is another matter, but it’s perhaps best not to worry about it. It will either be resolved constitutionally or if Labour reinvents itself in England it will become more popular in Scotland too. Maybe people will go off the SNP after it loses another independence referendum and makes a pigs ear of the extra devolved powers it gains and has already. Besides with the Lib Dems out of the picture a party can win at Westminster with only English seats, as the Tories have done.

[tufty]

Labour's main problem is not being "too left wing", it's Scotland.

Labour lost 39 seats in Scotland. Over the entire UK, they lost 24: a net *gain* in the rest of the UK of 15 seats. The libdems also got eaten alive north of the border, losing 10.

In the rest of the UK, gains for the Conservatives and Labour were mainly in terms of the massacre of what you'd claim were the other socialist option, the libdems. But the Conservatives got more of that slice of the cake than Labour did. Without the rout in Scotland and the libdems getting gutted, the result would have been significantly different.

But then, if my uncle had tits, he'd be my aunt.

[gravy]

Interesting point someone made on Friday's Any Answers.

The Tory leadership likely have the most problems with some of their election promises as they were in the manifesto with the expectation a coalition would have filtered out some of the most extreme.

Get some nutty policies in so you've got somthing to horse trade with that you don't mind losing anyway and it's stuff the older school, more right wing members love too.

Win / Win. Unless you get an outright majority of course. I love the idea that the mandate the party has may be too right wing for its leadership.

[gravy]

Labour's main problem is not being "too left wing", it's Scotland.

Labour lost 39 seats in Scotland. Over the entire UK, they lost 24: a net *gain* in the rest of the UK of 15 seats. The libdems also got eaten alive north of the border, losing 10.

Yeah the math's don't stack for the nation overall with the left is electoral poison.

For England alone I think this election has shown a political leaning shift where you can argue it'd be hard for a more leftist Labour to get elected there.

If that's the case it's not neccessarily forever, the economy is pretty important and whatever either side says it's global economics that have a much bigger say in all this that the UK government.

Funnily enough pogo's predictions of euro catastrophe which could wreck the Cons claiming credit for global upswing and in turn turf them out of office. We'll see

[VNVObit]

Interesting point someone made on Friday's Any Answers.

The Tory leadership likely have the most problems with some of their election promises as they were in the manifesto with the expectation a coalition would have filtered out some of the most extreme.

Get some nutty policies in so you've got somthing to horse trade with that you don't mind losing anyway and it's stuff the older school, more right wing members love too.

Win / Win. Unless you get an outright majority of course. I love the idea that the mandate the party has may be too right wing for its leadership.

Remember someone commenting that it's easier to run a coalition with another party that holds the balance of power than with your own party where views are quite diverse. Reminded of Major's "Bastards"

[Absolute_Zero]

Major had the former leader and her die-hard acolytes to deal with.

Bill Cash, who led the Maastricht rebellion that undermined Major’s government, told Cameron that he wouldn't cause any trouble. So it may not be quite so fractious as some are hoping.

[pogo]

Labour's main problem is not being "too left wing", it's Scotland.

Not really. I mean it looks that way arithmetically in terms of raw seats lost, but looked at any other way it is far from their main problem.

For one even if Labour had not been wiped out, even if they had won everything in Scotland, they would still have come second. And they are unlikely to ever to win everything in Scotland. Scotland will probably be less important in the future. A combination of boundary changes and constitutional changes will reduce its importance in ‘English’ elections. Labour need to find a way to win with just English votes.

Most importantly though it’s hard to see how they win back Scotland directly. They cannot be more Scottish than the SNP, and there’s too little room between them on other matters. And trying too hard in Scotland by promising too much will only hurt them in England.

All they can do is do as well as they can in England. Show that it is possible for a progressive party to win, attracting votes from the left and centre. If they manage that then it will also go down well in Scotland and attract back voters. Support for the SNP will fall at some point, perhaps after losing a second referendum or failing to translate devolved powers into the better outcomes for Scotland they’ve been promising.

[merman]

Labour did not win enough marginal seats in ENGLAND, regardless of how many seats they lost in Scotland. The pensioner bonds bribe, keeping the triple-lock on pension raises and the promise of tax cuts were enough to turn the Midlands blue.

[tufty]

The pensioner bonds bribe, keeping the triple-lock on pension raises and the promise of tax cuts were enough to turn the Midlands blue.

For how long, though? Gideon appears to be about to cut everything to the bone and beyond.

[VNVObit]

The pensioner bonds bribe, keeping the triple-lock on pension raises and the promise of tax cuts were enough to turn the Midlands blue.

For how long, though? Gideon appears to be about to cut everything to the bone and beyond.

Long enough to get elected. Politicians don't tend to have long term vision.
They've already managed to get future generations in hock with off balance sheet financing (housing benefit funding "affordable rent" even for those in employment) that they don't have to recognise that due to accounting rules (PFI by another name). Then they compound that by looking to extend Right To Buy which undermines confidence in the strength of Housing Associations' rental streams http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fb91f64e-f704 ... z3aPi0jSyz and the true value of the HAs' balance sheets.

They complain about the pensions but politicians should have ensured that investment continued through good and bad times to meet the liability. To say that pension is a structural problem and not acknowledge their own part in causing it (Labour did not address it either) is disingenuous to say the least.