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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2021 12:31:29 GMT
Wes Streeting had the good grace to eschew concealment of his smile on Trevor Phillips ( Sky) this morning when pressed about Labour's vote. He said he was happy with the result & voters knew what to do. Labour voters certainly did -70% of them voted LD-whose own vote share improvement was three times as much from Lab as from Con. So not surprising to see that old chestnut the "Progressive Alliance" emerging from its hiding place this morning. I quite like this opinion from a ST journalist :- " Labour’s formal position is that it does not believe in a progressive alliance: an arrangement in which anti-Conservative parties agree to rally behind the candidate most likely to win and so withdraw candidates and resources in certain seats. Successive leaders have adopted this position because Labour cannot afford to say it can no longer win a majority. Doing so would prompt questions about who it would govern alongside and on what terms, and would amount to an acknowledgment it is no longer a national party." After examining the prospects for Labour of a Streetingesque Nelson's Eye, the writer concludes :- "Ultimately, a progressive alliance is not enough on its own. Starmer cannot rely on merely consolidating existing left or liberal-leaning voters: he will have to persuade Tory voters to switch to Labour.That is especially the case in the red wall. As Wager, Cheung and Bale argue, in many of these seats the progressive vote is not big enough to cause Tories sleepless nights. Start peeling off Conservative voters, though, and Starmer will be in business." So if Starmer reads this and believes it :- "Paula Surridge, an elections expert at Bristol University, said: “Conservative voters are no longer so held in place as they were during the Corbyn years because they’re not scared of Labour in the same way that they were.” perhaps he will be a little less Streetingesque next time ?  |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2021 12:39:56 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2021 12:44:24 GMT
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Post by alec on Dec 19, 2021 12:45:59 GMT
lululemonmustdobetter - "...I do think its [Brexits] centrality to the political debate in the UK and VI is very much on the decline." Fully agree. What I suspect I don't communicate so well on here is that I for one am really not going on about Brexit. My interest is in the effects of this Brexit. As soon as the B word appears in any post, some will assume that it is just anothe rpost about Brexit, but my central viewpoint is that, even if they don't know it, the Brexit deal has meant that Brexit cannot deliver for it's supporters. @tw wanted bungs for battery and hydrogen development and protections for UK areas of expertise; what he got is a UK lagging behind the EU in green tech development and open door trade deals, because the economy is stuffed and Liz Truss had to show something from Brexit. jib wanted an end to the CAP, growing more food here and high quality environmental regulation: what he got is a UK where labour shortages and open door trade deals make it harder to sustain a strong agricultural sector and a chemicals safety regime that drops some of the most dangerous chemicals from the mandatory monitoring list in favour of a voluntary code. The Red Wall wanted all sorts of things, but none of them are deliverable under Lord Frost's Singapore on Thames model, as Will Tanner points out today. There is no Brexit dream - that's the point. It means an economic hit - rather a large one - and that means anything good you wanted to see come from it just gets harder to deliver. So yes, people you meet may think that they are over Brexit, but everything else that they worry about is made more difficult because of the Brexit deal.
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Post by John Chanin on Dec 19, 2021 12:53:25 GMT
I’m afraid it’s only Piers Corbyn…. |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Dec 19, 2021 12:58:24 GMT
Thinking ahead to the next couple of weeks. I cannot see Johnson putting any more legally enforceable measures in place, no matter what the scientific advice.
He had a 100 rebel on quite modest measures, any more restrictions will likely result in many more rebelling.
Yes he could get through measures with Labour help, but because of his increasing precarious political position, he won't want to do that.
So I think at most he will fall into line with Whitty and others and suggest people prioritise social gatherings and think about reducing them when possible, but not make any legally enforceable restrictions.
I belive politics will drive his response rather than the science
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Dec 19, 2021 13:04:27 GMT
On a more positive note I thought Sajid Javid came across quite well this morning.
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Post by graham on Dec 19, 2021 13:34:12 GMT
Interesting piece by Robert Ford in today's Observer. Ford is professor of political science at the University of Manchester and co-author of "The British General Election of 2019". He's an independent political scientist of no little repute. In the article, he's reflecting on the recent North Shropshire by election and considering how much of an electoral headache a revived Liberal Democrat Party may now give the Tories on a number of different electoral battle fronts. He concludes that it's a considerable headache, He considers too what a LD revival may mean for Labour and how it could pose problems for them too. I thought his last paragraph was very moot: - "While a government defeat is always a happy result for the opposition, Labour strategists will also be wondering about the broader implications of the Lib Dems’ revival. Keir Starmer’s team will be delighted if the return of vigorous competition diverts Conservative resources to seats Labour have no chance of winning, but not all seats can be so neatly divided. North Shropshire itself is an example – Labour started in second place but have now been shoved to the margins. Should Labour candidates who often start in second place in pre-coalition Lib Dem seats accept a Lib Dem restoration or contest it? Even if Labour decide to aid the Lib Dem fightback, it is not obvious how best to do this. Signals of alignment may help encourage tactical Labour-to-Lib Dem switching but may impede Lib Dem recruitment of disgruntled Conservatives. Association with Labour in a national “progressive alliance” could kill off nascent Liberal Democrat revival in deeper-blue areas. Both parties might be better served fighting the next election as frenemies, formally opposed but informally co-ordinating. This could help preserve the fragile recovery of the Liberal Democrats’ greatest electoral resource: being “none of the above”.
I do not totally accept the learned professor's take on the North Shropshire result.In particular, we need to consider how it was that the LDs managed to win from a poor third place in 2019. The answer , I suspect, is to be found in the fact that for the first 2 to 3 weeks of the by election campaign Labour effectively DID stand aside with very little serious campaigning there at all.This gave the LDs a free run to repeatedly leaflet bomb the voters to convey the impression of being very serious contenders.Labour did significantly step up its activity in the final week to ten days , but by that time it was too late given the imminence of polling day. Had the Tories not moved the writ until January for a by election to be held in February, Labour might have been able to turn things around to the extent of ensuring a more even division of the Anti-Tory vote. With hindsight the Tories probably made an error in rushing the by election. However, I am not inclined to attach much wider significance to this by election.I suspect that national polling provides a better guide as to where things currently stand.Were there to be a GE anytime soon, I would expect Labour to regain its position as main Anti -Tory challengers from third place in 2019 in quite a few seats - Finchley & Golders Green and Cities of London & Westminster both immediately come to mind. I expect the LDs to fall back sharply in both those seats next time because the local factors which helped them in 2019 will no longer be relevant. Wimbledon too will be an interesting seat.Whilst the LDs ran the Tories very close last time, it was Labour-held 1997 - 2005 and there has to be a serious possibility of the party recovering sufficiently to make it a three - way contest in 2023 or 2024.
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bantams
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Post by bantams on Dec 19, 2021 13:39:39 GMT
Boris is acutely aware personally of how bad things will be if the NHS is overwhelmed, he's resisted the feelings of a rump of his backbenchers once and I don't doubt he will again if it's deemed necessary. And I think it will be necessary to take more measures, this variant is spreading like wildfire. It's not safe outdoors in crowded places at the moment.
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Post by statgeek on Dec 19, 2021 14:10:59 GMT
Interesting to see so many brexit supporters repeating the, "nobody wants to talk about brexit any more" meme. Don't talk about the war... |
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Post by shevii on Dec 19, 2021 14:12:48 GMT
colinI think a lot of words are written on "progressive alliance" by columnists when there is very little worth considering beyond is there an ABT vote developing among voters? The voters determine if they want to vote tactically not the parties. Most marginals are already squeezed between two parties while others, like North Shropshire last week, have 3 parties involved only because they are safe seats and it doesn't much matter who you vote for to finish second or third. So if North Shropshire stays Lib Dem next time no-one will have really needed a progressive alliance because Tories would be out on a landslide anyway. There might be a few exceptions, say, Kensington where it might be traded for Southport but would Labour really trade two second place chances to win for a debatable better chance of winning one? Or if they traded Kensington for Wimbledon would the Wimbledon Labour party members or the Kensington LD members really be happy to give up on a seat they could win and faced with being left in the cold for 20 years while the sitting "progressive alliance" MP mops up the tactical vote until they retire? If Labour gave LD 10 seats where Lab are in contention then that eventually makes an overall majority harder to come by. Also, could be wrong, but on the wider issue of one party taking it easy this surely happens naturally in almost every case. I would imagine Lab and LD have their target seats and very few coincide and they probably don't put any national resources into seats not on their target lists.
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Post by tancred on Dec 19, 2021 14:24:36 GMT
Are there different types of EU now then JIB? I'd vote for any type of EU rather than the mob we have governing us now. If they're what was meant by taking back control, I've never felt so out of control in three score years and ten. This with bells on. The idea that the UK would become a new Singapore with low tax and low regulation off the shore of Europe is a fantasy. Brexiters won the referendum but they have lost our future. The country was split and the Union itself is fractured. There is no way forward because people like me hate this country now because of the referendum and the future direction planned for us. We will always be an Island with a bloc of neighbours we have much in common with. The way forward for us was integration into the bigger project. I don't give a fig about national sovereignty; nationalism is a suspect emotion based on childish, rather nostalgic values. I hate Westminster and the suffocating English class system far more than any European project. Having people like Frost in public office is an insult to our future and the future of the next generation. His resignation is perhaps a sign we are changing direction again and I may start to feel a tad less shame about where I come from when I travel abroad. I completely agree. |
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Post by tancred on Dec 19, 2021 14:25:34 GMT
On a more positive note I thought Sajid Javid came across quite well this morning. He takes his job more seriously than Hancock. |
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bantams
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Post by bantams on Dec 19, 2021 14:30:20 GMT
colin I think a lot of words are written on "progressive alliance" by columnists when there is very little worth considering beyond is there an ABT vote developing among voters? The voters determine if they want to vote tactically not the parties. Most marginals are already squeezed between two parties while others, like North Shropshire last week, have 3 parties involved only because they are safe seats and it doesn't much matter who you vote for to finish second or third. So if North Shropshire stays Lib Dem next time no-one will have really needed a progressive alliance because Tories would be out on a landslide anyway. There might be a few exceptions, say, Kensington where it might be traded for Southport but would Labour really trade two second place chances to win for a debatable better chance of winning one? Or if they traded Kensington for Wimbledon would the Wimbledon Labour party members or the Kensington LD members really be happy to give up on a seat they could win and faced with being left in the cold for 20 years while the sitting "progressive alliance" MP mops up the tactical vote until they retire? If Labour gave LD 10 seats where Lab are in contention then that eventually makes an overall majority harder to come by. Also, could be wrong, but on the wider issue of one party taking it easy this surely happens naturally in almost every case. I would imagine Lab and LD have their target seats and very few coincide and they probably don't put any national resources into seats not on their target lists. Good points, they forget this has been tried before very recently and failed miserably. OldNat rightly mentioned this when discussing the possibility of the LD's, Tories & Labour only fielding one candidate against the SNP. It's a non-starter. The columnists also forget very few people read their observations except those already in the political bubble. |
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Post by tancred on Dec 19, 2021 14:30:25 GMT
I find it strange that the right wing in Britain is always fond of 'small government' libertarianism. In most other countries (the USA being the exception) libertarianism is an attribute of the centre-left. I can only assume that this is because Britain doesn't have a tradition of Christian Democracy, which is socially conservative but economically centre-leftist. British conservatism is very libertarian and focused on free market liberalism. |
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Post by mercian on Dec 19, 2021 14:45:34 GMT
Tancred
Could this be because at various times in the last 100 years the Tories have absorbed big chunks of the Liberal party? e.g. National Liberals
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2021 14:52:05 GMT
The voters determine if they want to vote tactically not the parties. Yes i'm sure that's right. |
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Post by tancred on Dec 19, 2021 14:53:39 GMT
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Post by steamdrivenandy on Dec 19, 2021 15:03:23 GMT
Someone is still looking for that book on Brexit benefits........ <button disabled="" class="c-attachment-insert--linked o-btn--sm">Attachment Deleted</button> Made his money in preservatives but nobody knows who shot him. |
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Post by tancred on Dec 19, 2021 15:04:12 GMT
Tancred Could this be because at various times in the last 100 years the Tories have absorbed big chunks of the Liberal party? e.g. National Liberals Possibly, but I see it as more of a cultural thing that is common in English speaking countries. |
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Post by statgeek on Dec 19, 2021 15:05:02 GMT
Just noticed the length of time Boris has been in office - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom_by_length_of_tenureAnd now consider where is on the list in relation to other PMs of more recent years and similar 'popularity':  So place your bets. Can he last another 170 days are get ahead of Brown? Will he go even further, and pass Theresa May with 227 days? For three gold stars, he can stretch it to 244 more days to pass James Callaghan. So mark your diaries: June 7th: Gordon Brown August 3rd: Theresa May August 20th: James Callaghan He'll have to add another 4 years to get into Cameron or Major territory, and we can guess Blair and Thatcher would be a pie in the sky so high, you wouldn't have the oxygen to eat it. |
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Post by robert on Dec 19, 2021 15:05:10 GMT
"It has now become clear that he was a highly ideologically driven and politically opiniated non-elected public servant. Was that ever the right sort of quasi-diplomat to head up the most serious and delicate set of trade negotiations the country has ever had to manage since we entered the EEC in the 1970s? "
That description applies just as much to Barnier as it does Frost.
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Post by robert on Dec 19, 2021 15:09:17 GMT
I find it strange that the right wing in Britain is always fond of 'small government' libertarianism. In most other countries (the USA being the exception) libertarianism is an attribute of the centre-left. I can only assume that this is because Britain doesn't have a tradition of Christian Democracy, which is socially conservative but economically centre-leftist. British conservatism is very libertarian and focused on free market liberalism. Essentially that's what I am, a Christian Democrat. Socially conservative but economically centre left. I don't agree that Brexit is right wing either. Plenty of left wingers support it and it's not that long since Labour was vehemently in favour of it. If Kinnock had won in 92, there might even have been a referendum. |
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Post by jimjam on Dec 19, 2021 15:20:20 GMT
Statgeek, I was talking about this yesterday with my son I reckon that if the locals go badly and he is forced out, he would surpass Callaghan just due to the process taking a few months.
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Post by lululemonmustdobetter on Dec 19, 2021 15:21:01 GMT
So Sophie Raworth is to replace Andrew Marr. I guess one benefit is that she has come through the BBC so not 'tarred' by involvement in fleet street, but I doubt she will have as much sway on editorial line taken as Marr would have had. On balancing am assuming she and the show will stay in line with Beebs current policy of appeasement/sycophancy towards Johnson and his govt.
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Post by jimjam on Dec 19, 2021 15:24:07 GMT
Robert,
One of Kinnocks first acts on becoming leader was to get the Labour Party policy changed as soon as he could.
The 1987 and 1992 manifestos both advocated remaining in the EC (as it then was I think).
You are right, though, but just the wrong GE, as in 1983 Labour was committed to leaving the EC without any referendum.
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Post by tancred on Dec 19, 2021 15:24:56 GMT
I find it strange that the right wing in Britain is always fond of 'small government' libertarianism. In most other countries (the USA being the exception) libertarianism is an attribute of the centre-left. I can only assume that this is because Britain doesn't have a tradition of Christian Democracy, which is socially conservative but economically centre-leftist. British conservatism is very libertarian and focused on free market liberalism. Essentially that's what I am, a Christian Democrat. Socially conservative but economically centre left. I don't agree that Brexit is right wing either. Plenty of left wingers support it and it's not that long since Labour was vehemently in favour of it. If Kinnock had won in 92, there might even have been a referendum. You're not a Christian Democrat because the EU was founded by Christian Democrats!! You're a conservative and a nationalist. Brexit is only supported on the left by the Trotskyist fringe who sees evil fat capitalists behind everything the EU does. A referendum in 1992 would have been a good idea because remain would most probably have won, and won easily. |
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Post by leftieliberal on Dec 19, 2021 15:26:20 GMT
I find it strange that the right wing in Britain is always fond of 'small government' libertarianism. In most other countries (the USA being the exception) libertarianism is an attribute of the centre-left. I can only assume that this is because Britain doesn't have a tradition of Christian Democracy, which is socially conservative but economically centre-leftist. British conservatism is very libertarian and focused on free market liberalism. I always like to remind people of www.flourish.org/2016/07/on-finding-political-axes-using-maths/ Francis Irving used to be on UKPR, which is how I came across the work. When you look at the Google slides it is quite evident that there are Thatcherites amongst the supporters of all the main parties, but the big distinction as Francis says is the axis that "combines opposition to the EU, support of capital punishment, dislike of state funded international aid and wanting to tax working people less." This is the axis that shows the most difference between Labour/Lib Dems on one side and Tories/UKIP on the other. |
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Post by tancred on Dec 19, 2021 15:26:27 GMT
Robert, One of Kinnocks first acts on becoming leader was to get the Labour Party policy changed as soon as he could. The 1987 and 1982 manifestos both advocating remaining in the EC (as it then was I think). You are right, though, but just the wrong GE, as in 1983 Labour was committed to leaving the EC without any referendum. You mean the 1987 and 1992 manifestos. We all know how well Labour did in 1983 don't we? In those days I backed the Tories, and again in 1987 - but never after that. |
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Post by tancred on Dec 19, 2021 15:30:21 GMT
"It has now become clear that he was a highly ideologically driven and politically opiniated non-elected public servant. Was that ever the right sort of quasi-diplomat to head up the most serious and delicate set of trade negotiations the country has ever had to manage since we entered the EEC in the 1970s? " That description applies just as much to Barnier as it does Frost. Barnier is a politician, not a civil servant. |
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