Politics Thread!

[pogo]

I’ve made my view on PR clear before, and this election has just convinced me more. I don’t want to live in a country where UKIP or other extremists get to write even some of the laws.

But the other point from the last election: it shows that the politics of this country is mostly centre right. There isn’t broad or strong support for left wing policies. In particular very few support the “no more austerity” message of the marchers that turned out in London. It’s not even supported by a majority of the Labour party. The only leadership candidate to attend the March was Jeremy Corbyn, who is not going to become leader.

It seems like the most important leadership contest since Blair was elected. They will need a large swing in 2020 to win a majority, much larger than in 2015. It is possible but only if they recapture most of the voters who supported them in 1997 but have since deserted them. And to do this they need to move back to the centre. If they don’t – if they stay on the left with e.g. Andy Burnham in charge – they could be out of government for a very long time.

[gravy]

I don’t want to live in a country where extremists get to write even some of the laws

Same here mate, fingers crossed for this shower of cunts getting ousted in 2020 then.

this country is mostly centre right.

Yes

There isn’t broad or strong support for left wing policies

No, that's a false equivalence. If the labour share was low you'd be right. It's not a majority not incosequenatial either. Less than half isn't zero

[Dio]

What we've got in this country is, at its broadest generalisation, a very strong north-south split: much of the North wants genuine socialism, almost all of the South doesn't.

It explains some of Labour's severe difficulties if you think about it that way. Blairite New Labour is way right of the average view of the north of england and Scotland - hence the wipeout up there, and part of the reason for the UKIP vote shares in the north where people feel entirely disenfranchised. But only a centrist left party is possibly electable for most of down south, except a limited number of inner city constituencies.

That's the real dilemma for Labour.

But it's partially sorted out by a PR system. Labour could adopt the moderate (as opposed to centre) left stance that the majority of the members want, and take a few seats down south, with a separate centre-left party such as the libdems forming a natural coalition partner, and we might even get to 50% of the voters being represented in the country.

Yes, a similar argument applies to the possibility of a UKIP + Tory coalition. But a centre-right Tory party might actually find a centre-left party more palatable than a hard right one in coalition - at least, if the Tories didn't still have a fairly decent percentage of hard right remaining themselves. As I said before the election that given the stances of the two parties, a New Labour-Tory coalition might make more sense than any of the alternatives.

It's a risk I'm prepared to accept in order to actually get something more approaching representative government.

[merman]

It's now going to take longer to report than our soldiers were involved in combat operations in Iraq - and it will be Cameron who gets a load of negative flak for not getting it finished.

Cameron ? The Inquiry was set up under Labour, on something that happened when Labour were in Government. They clearly wanted it to have a broad remit, not focussing on e.g. just the decision to go into Iraq. I.e. Labour sought to spread the blame around as much as possible, which is taking more time both to compile and to give everyone a right to reply.

Labour probably did not anticipate it still having not been published now, but must have quietly celebrated when it became clear it would not appear before the election, which would have led to many pointed questions about Iraq for Miliband. Now it will be much easier for them to ignore. Especially if they elect Liz Kendall as leader, who has already distanced herself from the economic failures of Blair/Brown, and who will find it easy to put the report behind her too as belonging to a different era of Labour politics.

So now we know. Pogo doesn't read posts before he replies.

I said CAMERON because Cameron and the current government ARE getting flak over the Chilcott Report not being published. That's a fact.

[VNVObit]

What we've got in this country is, at its broadest generalisation, a very strong north-south split: much of the North wants genuine socialism, almost all of the South doesn't.

It explains some of Labour's severe difficulties if you think about it that way. Blairite New Labour is way right of the average view of the north of england and Scotland - hence the wipeout up there, and part of the reason for the UKIP vote shares in the north where people feel entirely disenfranchised. But only a centrist left party is possibly electable for most of down south, except a limited number of inner city constituencies.

That's the real dilemma for Labour.

But it's partially sorted out by a PR system. Labour could adopt the moderate (as opposed to centre) left stance that the majority of the members want, and take a few seats down south, with a separate centre-left party such as the libdems forming a natural coalition partner, and we might even get to 50% of the voters being represented in the country.

Yes, a similar argument applies to the possibility of a UKIP + Tory coalition. But a centre-right Tory party might actually find a centre-left party more palatable than a hard right one in coalition - at least, if the Tories didn't still have a fairly decent percentage of hard right remaining themselves. As I said before the election that given the stances of the two parties, a New Labour-Tory coalition might make more sense than any of the alternatives.

It's a risk I'm prepared to accept in order to actually get something more approaching representative government.

That sounds about right

think it would create splits within the main parties or at least see a number of defections to Libs and UKIP as no single party would hold sway hence the blurring of gaps between the parties (still think of UKIP as the Tory faction that dare not speak its name)

What really annoys me is the complete lack of vision shown by any of the parties as to what the country should/could/would look like with more of a focus on how we get there rather than the continual duplicitous crap of pretending to want to do one thing while quite openly doing the direct opposite in a piecemeal and incoherent approach

[zip accident]

What we've got in this country is, at its broadest generalisation, a very strong north-south split: much of the North wants genuine socialism, almost all of the South doesn't.

Oi! It's a city:country (not that country workers wouldn't vote labour, just that they're vastly outnumbered by suburbanites) rich:poor split.

What is genuine socialism these days anyway? Marx's theory always was bilge, what is new is that that's recognised by most people now I think. Socialism to me means something based on marxist theory, but without the extreme anti-rich sentiment of communism. At the moment there seems to me to be one meaningful theory (Darwinism) and no political factions based on it. The Tories are based on Classical Economics, the one where one guy offering another guy 5% of a property they jointly found doesn't get his teeth kicked in, and in so far as it has a theoretical basis, Labour is based on a wishy-washy version of Marx, even though everyone agrees it's bonkers.

[Dio]

I'm not at all sure that's the case. I think there's a genuine difference in attitude in southern vs. northern England and Labour needs very different policies to please both. I definitely don't think it's a rich:poor thing; the same disappointment with Labour is shown by all types of northern Labour voters, not just the poor, as far as I can see.

(Indeed, given my circle of friends and acquaintances, I know far more about the opinion of white collar professions like engineers, teachers, doctors. lawyers and accountants than I do about people who work in shops or factories).

[pogo]

There’s certainly a London/everywhere else split. London was the one part of the UK that Labour actually did well in, taking seats off the Tories and Lib Dems (though the Tories also took some Lib Dem seats so came out roughly even). Everywhere else in England the Tories did much better, claiming more Lib Dem seats and taking a few off Labour.

I wonder if this had anything to do with their loss. A lot of their policies seemed aimed at London: the Mansion Tax obviously but also rent controls to limit rent rises, a problem mostly if not only in London. Other policies such as the benefit cap have most impact in London, so Labour’s opposition to it is supported much more in London than elsewhere. Outside London these are much less relevant; instead people just see the cost of them – there is e.g. broad support for the benefit cap.

Outside London the downturn has been felt more keenly, with unemployment much higher, so people have been more supportive of the coalition’s efforts to get the economy back on track, get unemployment down, and get the economy and wages growing again. Labour’s focus on those with exceptionally high housing costs, whether private renters or benefit claimants, had little appeal. Other things such as the heavy investment in London projects (Crossrail, the Olympics) which were decided under Labour.

I don’t think this was their main problem, which I think was still economic competence. But it perhaps accounts for much of the regional variation in their performance.

[zip accident]

There’s certainly a London/everywhere else split.

London is a city. There may be a North:south divide on country vs city, in the North perhaps the countryside is less Tory?

[pogo]

Yes, there’s normally an urban/rural divide. But this election the Tories did much better than Labour, other than in London. Here’s a map from the BBC (where they say Labour “bucked the national trend”)



If Labour had repeated that across the country, claiming Lib Dem and Tory seats, they could have won. But that only happened in London; elsewhere in England the Tories did much better. That with their wipeout in Scotland led to their worst result for decades. I.e. they lost in part because they focussed too much on issues that resonated in London but not elsewhere.

[zip accident]

That with their wipeout in Scotland

Scotland didn't matter. The Tories didn't win in Scotland at all.

[pogo]

Until Scotland gains independence it matters, as they elect MPs to Westminster.

Labour actually gained seats in England, half of them in London, but their losses in Scotland more than cancelled those out. Even worse for Labour the loss of Scotland eliminates their main source of electoral bias, which let them win a majority with fewer votes than the Tories. Now to get an overall majority they need to win convincingly in just England, which will be much harder for them. They will need a swing of around 10%, and so need to appeal to a much broader range of voters.

[gravy]

Seats from the scottish vote hasn't enabled Labour to govern for decades.

What are you on about?

[pogo]

In 2010 the Tories got 36.1% of the vote, a 7% lead over Labour but were unable to form a majority. But in 2005 Labour with only 35.2% of the vote, a 3% lead over the Tories, had a very healthy majority. Labour needed a much smaller lead in the vote to win a majority of seats. They have never won outright because of this, but they probably denied the Tories a majority in 2010 because of it. It also made a difference in 1992; then the Tories got 41.9% of the vote but only scraped a majority, something that made a difference as by-elections further eroded their majority.

For decades it has been much easier for Labour to win, as on average it takes fewer votes to elect a Labour MP. The constituencies they are strongest in are on average smaller. And a lot of those were in Scotland. Were because of the SNP’s near clean sweep there. Labour do still have a constituency size advantage in England and Wales but a smaller one.

[gravy]

Even worse for Labour the loss of Scotland eliminates their main source of electoral bias, which let them win a majority with fewer votes than the Tories.

Sorry, when did this happen in recent times?

The last time Scotland votes would have changed Labour's ability to form a government was the 2nd election in 74.

Rerun it without scottish seats and it would have put Labour OUT of power and the the cons in.