8-Dec-2021 : LAB: 40 / CON: 34 / LDEM: 10 / GRN: 4

[steve]

Paulnish

Given the lib dems and their predecessors haven't been in a position nationally to enact all their policies for around 100 years there's little choice if you want influence but to concede on some of them.

Where they are in a position locally to enact their policies in general they don't " abandon them at a moment's notice"

One of the issues with some elements of the left in the Labour party is the preconception that if you can't get sufficient support to enact all your plans it's not worth enacting any of them. That's why we end up with Tory governments despite routinely there being a majority of votes for centre left parties.

The Tories are far better at aligning the right of centre voters and when another right of centre competitor comes along like UKIP they just amend their policies to effectively become them.

Under fptp that's how you win.
It's a lesson Blair learnt and I think Starmer is as well.
I would fundamentally prefer a Labour government with or without a majority and if sufficient intelligence was put into the task of achieving it rather than the tedious debate of what a " real " socialist or " real " Labour supporter is then the task isn't even that difficult.

One of the primary reasons I left the labour party was I grew tired of being called a red Tory , I wasn't I am regularly described as " our resident socialist" by loc a l lib dems, not that either, the difference is it's done in good humour they know my politics places me at the left edge of the party and they have no problem with that.
The issue with Labour activists is it was said with genuine venom.
To expect such people to agree to compromise based on practicality is a lost cause.
They remain the Tories not so secret weapon.

[paulnish]

Steve

What a kind reply - thank you.

I only wanted to make the point that the Lib Dems went into that election on a manifesto that was to the left of the Labour Party (everyone can agree on that?)

Their amazing decision to form a government with the Tory party resulted in in policies far to the right of the Labour Party (can everyone agree on that?!!).

[patrickbrian]

Steve

"One of the primary reasons I left the labour party was I grew tired of being called a red Tory"

Quite. In my all too brief membership, I went to one meeting where i made the mistake of speaking up for Owen Jones (standing against Corbyn). The response was horrible, and the (perfectly nice) chair had to call the meeting to order. I never went to another meeting and soon left the Party. Many of those shouting me down were good people , but seemed to feel justified anger against anyone daring to express different views. I had the same experience in a "Devon for Europe" meeting chaired by Sarah Wollaston, where I dared to suggest that going for a second referendum might be counter-productive and maybe we should look for compromise. Why do political people always have to be so certain that their view is the only morally valid one? Puts a lot of us off.

[crossbat11]

Dec 27, 2021 15:03:35 GMT shevii said:

Dec 27, 2021 13:17:31 GMT crossbat11 said:

Maybe it gathers potency and salience on the Left when two factors align; long periods of Tory government and the emergence of a more centrist Labour Party. This was the case in 1997 , when some anti Tory tactical voting was actually orchestrated, needlessly as it transpired, and it may be that 2024 sees it emerge significantly again. 14 years of Tory led governments by then and a Starmer led less socialist more social democratic Labour Party on electoral offer. In tabloid speak, is this a perfect storm for anti Tory tactical voting, I wonder??

I do think there is some potential in a centrist not scaring Tory voters whether they simply move to LD or all the way to Labour.  Corbyn got a vote share in 2017 which would normally have been enough to get a majority (Blair did this on 35% and Cameron did it on 37%) but he scared the horses and turnout increased from the other side as well. Also I have no doubt that Blair was the right person at the right time to get Labour a landslide.

The problem I have with your comment is that a winning formula (and only ONE winning formula that wasn't relevant to Atlee or Wilson manifestos but did cover a few elections lost when fought from the left) from 25 years ago is not really relevant to today- different issues and a different electorate.  Is centrism actually going to be enough to convince someone paying high rents and not being able to afford a house that they should vote for you?  With the NHS and social care and public transport and Green issues all needing a huge injection of funds will anyone be much convinced by a steady as she goes outlook?  What will convince the "will not vote" group, most of whom would probably benefit from a Labour government to actually bother to vote Labour?

I think you are ahead of yourself with the creeping assumption that centrism will be a winning formula next time (of course this all comes down to what policies Starmer does eventually decide on).  Tories are low because of the breaking Covid rules issue and a heavy added sleaze- they were ahead before this.  It is a difficult one for them to get out of because Johnson has to go now I think and that opens up the problematic replacement and possible infighting but as the action hero films go "we've got out of more difficult situations than this before". I can see a situation where Sunak gets in, everything looks a bit better with Covid and brexit and energy prices settle down, he engineers a recovery just before election time and those key voters start to think everything is looking rosy.  The other one to watch is the tabloids and I feel they are in a holding pattern with Starmer as a decent enough sub for them if the wheels really do come off but if they want to go for him they will, and we're back to 2015 where it seemed right up to the last minute that we were going to get some sort of Miliband government and didn't.

I think there are some "creeping" straw men lurking here! While I'd always maintain that pitching electoral offers that appeal to the majority of voters isn't a bad formula for winning elections, and may well be a political verity for any era,  I'm not claiming for one minute that a repeat of what worked 25 years ago is relevant in all respects today. Of course, the electorate will have changed and, yes, different issues apply now that weren't pertinent 25 or even 10 years ago. Post Brexit Britain is a foreign land to the pre Brexit one, both politically and economically. Maybe socially too. Certainly culturally. 

Your reply to me is a thoughtful and helpful one though and I think it points up clearly where you and I diverge. I think you may be getting too hung up by your own definition of centrism as a political label and the policies you think may be implied by it. You seem to suggest that this style of politics will always be associated with accommodation, compromise and a failure to address deep seated social, economic and political challenges radically enough. I don't think that needs to be, or even ever is, the case at all. I'm defining centrism as a style of government and set of policies that chime with the majority of the voters. It's political ground where most voters will gather if a plausible leader and party can pitch their flag there. Sometimes voters flirt with extremes because of fear of a worse one. Johnson v Corbyn was such a Hobson's Choice. Johnson was the preferred Brexit Hobson on that occasion but I encountered little genuine enthusiasm for either him or his brand of Toryism. Voters sheltered there more than rallied there. The centre ground was largely vacated in 2019 and voters were forced into unpalatable camps. We haven't quite recovered from the ructions even now. 

This elusive centre ground (not centrism) is where people with some conservative instincts (maybe on the monarchy, security, law and order, love of country, family values etc) can gather peaceably and harmoniously with people who are much more socially liberal, also have a deep love of country and favour a more equal and fair society. The common ground is that both groups can and do share a real passion for change on occasions and a desire for the same thing. Properly funded and effective public services for example, a functioning health service, effective policing, good education, tolerance, compassion, decency and integrity in politics, a better constitutional arrangement, a representative electoral system, control of rip off landlords etc etc. The idea that only Corbynism or Britannia Unchained can provide you with these things is silliness.

Sometimes one nation Toryism gathers this coalition of voters, at other times social democracy does instead. When these political traditions eschew the extremes they win. Centrism is just a convenient label to describe a formula that tends to win because it's where the majority of voters want their governments to be, but they may want their governments to do quite radical things on their behalves too. The political centre ground is probably the most diverse and interesting place in politics. It can be a very radical place too at times. The more you stray to the political extremes, of both left and right, the more monochrome and conservative it tends to become.
 

[bantams]

Dec 27, 2021 15:44:47 GMT hireton said:

Scottish Parliament recalled to meet on Wednesday. Infection figures for Scotland over the weekend look serious: 8,252 on Saturday, 11,030 and 10,562 today. It will be interesting to see what teh figures for England are.

No changes in England before the New Year, the numbers were 113,628 new infections reported on 25 December, 103,558 on 26 December and 98,515 on 27 December. So a decline which might reflect the story in South Africa..................or not!

[lululemonmustdobetter]

@ Steve

Under fptp that's how you win

Well you win by getting at least 1 more vote in enough constituencies than any of the other guys, and there are a number of different strategies you can deploy in order to achieve the. Go for the middle ground or mobilises your own vote, voter suppression/depression, of opposition vote, dog whistling etc - the efficacy can often depend on the circumstances and what may work in one decade may not in another.

The problem for those who strongly identify for one party but also want to keep another party out of office is they have no guarantee once they have cast their vote that the party they 'lent' their vote doesn't do what the LDs did in 2010. The LDs have continued to stick by their record in the coalition years - so if you identify as a Labour voter and voted tactically in 2010 and feels strongly about the damage done by austerity and has believed they were 'betrayed' its perfectly reasonable not to want to vote for the LDs. That’s democracy for you and people are perfectly entitled to take that position. And as the Labour party says, if as a voter you want to make sure the Tories don’t win the best bet is to vote Labour.

In the psyche of the left at some point the principles for which you stand have to come into play and it can’t just be about be in power for sake of being in power. The extent to which Labour needs to keep its rank and file mobilised (as it does with all parties but is probably more pronounced in Labour) will act as limiting factor in terms of what compromises can be made.

[Deleted]

Dec 27, 2021 15:46:47 GMT mandolinist said:

Alec, I am not sure if you are playing games or my grammar was as bad as you suggest. I am a woman, who voted remain.

It was just a slightly weedy and forced joke by Alec, based on the the potential misunderstanding of your post (which was actually very clear of course.)

A suitable punishment for him will be sought.

[thexterminatingdalek]

Dec 27, 2021 16:27:27 GMT jimjam said:

I think Starmer did abstain too often in the first 12 months or so as he was worried about being seen to vote against popular measures, indeed measures the party would back.

Abstaining because there were elements that the party could not support but appeared indecisive. (Spy Cops being the obvious one were he was too timid imo).

Forgive me if am misrepresenting TED but now being willing to vote against these kinds of measures would be the kind of approach he would prefer.

I think we are in a period were Starmers' confidence is high enough to move to this m.o.

Thank you JJ, I think you represent my point well.

I thought it went without saying I don't think it's a good idea for Starmer to actually vote alongside Baker et al, abstention to show up the Tory divisions was what I had in mind, but my own thoughts haven't yet coalesced to a point where I can make a fully consistent argument.

Principally, I do not see what Labour expect to achieve by propping up Johnson against the nutcases in his own party, yet still allowing him to cut through at the Wednesday event by claiming the opposite.

[alec]

Reading a number of medical experts on twitter suggesting that:

1) Government guidance on when to get tested is wrong, with no emphasis on cold symptoms as potential Omicron
2) That the LFT test procedure of a nasal swab is ineffective, with numerous apparent examples of people who tested them selves with simultaneous nasal and throat swabs, where the 'correct' official method coming up negative and the throat swab positive.

I don't normally post twitter memes unless I can be sure they are accurate, and I can't be sure that this is accurate, but given the concerns any have about infecting others, I post this in the name of caution.

[alec]

Week to 25th England hospital admissions up 45%, London up 68%.

[guymonde]

Dec 27, 2021 17:39:16 GMT lululemonmustdobetter said:

"The LDs have continued to stick by their record in the coalition years - so if you identify as a Labour voter and voted tactically in 2010 and feels strongly about the damage done by austerity and has believed they were 'betrayed' its perfectly reasonable not to want to vote for the LDs. That’s democracy for you and people are perfectly entitled to take that position. And as the Labour party says, if as a voter you want to make sure the Tories don’t win the best bet is to vote Labour."

I agree but it does depend on the circumstances. In 2016 I campaigned for Labour in the hopeless seat of Richmond Park out of solidarity with a LP in my vicinity who often help out neighbouring constituencies. This was the by-election caused by the egregious Zac Goldsmith doing something honest for once and resigning his seat over Heathrow expansion. I had the bizarre experience of being sent to knock on the door of someone who had a LD post in her garden but was also a normally active LP member. The reasoning was very clear, Labour would not have a prayer but the LDs could win (as they did) and whatever you think of the LDs or the candidate, disposing (temporarily as it turned out) of Goldsmith could only be a good thing.
Personally I believe there's a strong case for voting LD in a Con/LD marginal rather than wasting a vote on labour.

[Danny]

Dec 27, 2021 17:19:26 GMT bantams said:

No changes in England before the New Year, the numbers were 113,628 new infections reported on 25 December, 103,558 on 26 December and 98,515 on 27 December. So a decline which might reflect the story in South Africa..................or not!

Zoe today has R in London down again to 1.2, which is the same for all UK. Probably representing Uk still rising, but London now cases slowing. It would seem national cases coming into alignment with Zoe figures. No sign of runaway cases. Yet another crying wolf. Less dramatically, this is what has happened time after time with new waves of covid- Sage worst case estimates are adopted by government and prove wildly alarmist and thus dangerous. R of 1.2 means cases doubling about once every 8 weeks.

I happened to speak to a retired nurse this week. Who said he remembers hospital overcrowding quite rgularly every year in winter with outbreaks of flu. This was managed by bringing in extra beds till wards were maybe 50% over nominal capacity. The irony is that in this epidemic, what we have done is remove beds from wards to reduce transmission. An interestingly different approach.

[steve]

Alec

More hospitalization doesn't necessarily mean worse outcomes depends how Ill they become. I also noted that around a third of those in the latest data set in hospital with covid were first detected in hospital.

If you are in hospital because for example you broke your leg but are found to have covid seems a bit bizarre to count it as a covid case.

[steve]

Alec
On about lft 100 now I've always tested by both a inner cheek and nasal swab.
Pretty certain that's what it says on the instructions.

Count so far 97 negative 2 positive and 1 both!

[graham]

Dec 27, 2021 18:01:18 GMT guymonde said:

Dec 27, 2021 17:39:16 GMT lululemonmustdobetter said:

"The LDs have continued to stick by their record in the coalition years - so if you identify as a Labour voter and voted tactically in 2010 and feels strongly about the damage done by austerity and has believed they were 'betrayed' its perfectly reasonable not to want to vote for the LDs. That’s democracy for you and people are perfectly entitled to take that position. And as the Labour party says, if as a voter you want to make sure the Tories don’t win the best bet is to vote Labour."

I agree but it does depend on the circumstances. In 2016 I campaigned for Labour in the hopeless seat of Richmond Park out of solidarity with a LP in my vicinity who often help out neighbouring constituencies. This was the by-election caused by the egregious Zac Goldsmith doing something honest for once and resigning his seat over Heathrow expansion. I had the bizarre experience of being sent to knock on the door of someone who had a LD post in her garden but was also a normally active LP member. The reasoning was very clear, Labour would not have a prayer but the LDs could win (as they did) and whatever you think of the LDs or the candidate, disposing (temporarily as it turned out) of Goldsmith could only be a good thing.
Personally I believe there's a strong case for voting LD in a Con/LD marginal rather than wasting a vote on labour.

A LP member who behaved in that way - ie openly displaying the election posts of another party - would surely have faced expulsion in the same way that Alastair Campbell lost his membership for voting LD at the 2019 European Parliament elections.

[Danny]

Dec 27, 2021 17:51:30 GMT alec said:

Reading a number of medical experts on twitter suggesting that:

1) Government guidance on when to get tested is wrong, with no emphasis on cold symptoms as potential Omicron
2) That the LFT test procedure of a nasal swab is ineffective, with numerous apparent examples of people who tested them selves with simultaneous nasal and throat swabs, where the 'correct' official method coming up negative and the throat swab positive.

I posted before evidence lateral flow tests used in the Uk were rejected by the FDA as insufficiently sensitive, and there is evidence they may be less sensitive still to omicron. While last year there was talk of inexperienced users getting fewer positive results conducting tests than experienced ones. While parliament twice investigated and concluded testing hadnt done anything worthwhile to prevent spread.

Testing was one of the planks government relied upon in its alternative strategy which replaced 'mananged spread'. Unfortunately, it failed and spread happened anyway, just more slowly at vastly greater financial cost.

[Deleted]

crossbat11

@"The political centre ground is probably the most diverse and interesting place in politics."

I agree.

In UK its a place where most people live and no political party exists. My own view is that the former begets the latter, most people having more pressing things to do than join political parties.

So its a place, in our political set up, where mistrust and suspicion abound in any party which attempts to govern from there.

So that's where Leadership is required .

[mandolinist]

There is a new You Gov poll reported in the Guardian. It suggests 203 seats for the Conservatives under Johnson, with 60 more when Sunak is mentioned. Oh my, seems pretty clear the knives will be out soon.

[mandolinist]

Oops, got that wrong, it was an Opinium poll!

[catmanjeff]

Dec 27, 2021 17:51:30 GMT alec said:

Reading a number of medical experts on twitter suggesting that:

1) Government guidance on when to get tested is wrong, with no emphasis on cold symptoms as potential Omicron
2) That the LFT test procedure of a nasal swab is ineffective, with numerous apparent examples of people who tested them selves with simultaneous nasal and throat swabs, where the 'correct' official method coming up negative and the throat swab positive.

I don't normally post twitter memes unless I can be sure they are accurate, and I can't be sure that this is accurate, but given the concerns any have about infecting others, I post this in the name of caution.

This is interesting as I was pinged on the 24th, and have been testing twice a day since. All negative.

I've had two brands of LFT, and all have just the short swabs for nasal only.

I had some LFT tests some months ago, and they had longer throat swabs with them.

[guymonde]

Dec 27, 2021 18:57:35 GMT graham said:

Dec 27, 2021 18:01:18 GMT guymonde said:

A LP member who behaved in that way - ie openly displaying the election posts of another party - would surely have faced expulsion in the same way that Alastair Campbell lost his membership for voting LD at the 2019 European Parliament elections.

True, but I wasn't about to dob her in. Whether anybody else did I don't know. I know it's the rule and it was daft to put up a banner, though what she did in the privacy of the polling booth is her own affair.

[guymonde]

Dec 27, 2021 19:54:44 GMT catmanjeff said:

Dec 27, 2021 17:51:30 GMT alec said:

This is interesting as I was pinged on the 24th, and have been testing twice a day since. All negative.

I've had two brands of LFT, and all have just the short swabs for nasal only.

I had some LFT tests some months ago, and they had longer throat swabs with them.


Me too. The only time I was throat swabbed was in a centre. The Director of Public Health here is adamant that although LFts are imperfect they are sufficiently reliable to be very effective

[Deleted]

From the G article mandolinist mentioned :-

"However, other potential leadership rivals the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, fared worse than Johnson, with the former estimated to lose 40 more seats and the latter 70 seats more.!

and

"The latest survey of party members conducted by the Conservative Home website showed her ( Truss) as their favourite successor to Johnson, with Sunak second."

!

[catmanjeff]

Dec 27, 2021 19:58:22 GMT guymonde said:

Dec 27, 2021 19:54:44 GMT catmanjeff said:

This is interesting as I was pinged on the 24th, and have been testing twice a day since. All negative.

I've had two brands of LFT, and all have just the short swabs for nasal only.

I had some LFT tests some months ago, and they had longer throat swabs with them.


Me too. The only time I was throat swabbed was in a centre. The Director of Public Health here is adamant that although LFts are imperfect they are sufficiently reliable to be very effective

I found this...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8105081/

[eor]

Dec 27, 2021 9:34:32 GMT crossbat11 said:

I'm second to nobody in my admiration of JamesE's and Graham's psephological prowess and, more seriously, their contributions on all matters polling are a valuable addition to the site, but I offer a thin defence of the pollster Focaldata. Their MRP, by the sound of it, is flawed but their headline VI figures look pretty much in line with other pollsters.

They must be getting something right in terms of overall methodology! I thought I'd come to their weak defence before we binned them entirely as a voodoo pollster!

I for one wasn't suggesting Focaldata are voodoo - as others have noted their headline VI is in line with others. Personally I just think that MRP models tend to get seized on because they give sexy seat results but in reality have a track record in UK GEs that increasingly suggests they got lucky with their VI sample the first time rather than that they provide particular insight or accuracy. 

[steve]

James
Tw provided the link earlier

[Deleted]

Dec 27, 2021 19:58:27 GMT colin said:

"The latest survey of party members conducted by the Conservative Home website showed her ( Truss) as their favourite successor to Johnson, with Sunak second."

Link: www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/12/our-next-tory-leader-survey-truss-leads-sunak-by-18-votes.html

I hope they conduct some 'A v B' polling as well (they mention: 'Perhaps next time round we should run a forced choice question between Truss and Sunak, and see what it produces' )

My n=1 as a member would vote for Rishi v any B or Hunt v anyone but Rishi in the final 2. Beyond that, then TBC who might get to final 2 but I very much doubt I'd vote for Truss and absolutely no way would I vote for Gove (or Baker) as both are toxic. I only rolled over my membership as I expect another contest in 2022.

PS Truss won't be able to 'go soft' with EU (see comments made some time ago when she took over Frosty's mandate) and Rishi will have to do more to appeal to 'RoC' wing (or at least be limited in raising any further taxes to increase spending) in the 'battle of the brands'. How much 'flex' Rishi can apply to borrowing is TBC but IMO he certainly needs to look at an assistance package WRT to energy costs (notably for businesses) and that will have to come from the magic money tree for now.

news.sky.com/story/business-secretary-kwasi-kwarteng-to-hold-crunch-talks-with-energy-bosses-as-gas-and-electricity-prices-soar-12504518

[James E]

eor

I think you should understand that not all 'MRP's are the same. YouGov's involves profiling each individual constituency, which produces some very varied results. Their 2017 MRP (with polling showing a 4-point Con lead) produced similar results to their general polling (which was around a 5 point Con lead, with smaller samples). So the accurcy of their 'interesting' constituency results was not the result of an unusual sample for the MRP.

Focaldata, though, appear to have done something very odd in Scotland and Wales, which has distorted their constituency results in the poll released 48 hours ago. Their figures for Scotland show the SNP on just 37%, 8 points below any Scottish Westminster poll in 2021, despite retaining 85% of their supporters from GE2019, where they got 45% of the votes cast in Scotland. I'm hoping that at some point they will explain or correct this.

[eor]

Dec 27, 2021 13:17:17 GMT Old Southendian said:

Dec 27, 2021 0:21:01 GMT tancred said:

Didn't Elgar get something like 14 entries?  Seems bonkers to me - 5 or 6 I could understand. I'm not saying that classical music popularity is related to Brexit but there seems to be a parochialism in musical taste in England at least. 

I guess it's not surprising that a radio station based in UK tends to favour UK composers - I'm sure other popular classical stations abroad would be similar.  I have a colleague who's a big music fan from Slovakia who was surprised at how much British classical music there is, he'd heard little before coming here.  It works both ways, how many Slovakian (as opposed to Czech) composers do we know?

While I'm partial to a bit of Vaughan-Williams (Lark Ascending is far from his best IMHO), it's clear there's too much Elgar, V-W, Barry, Finzi etc in the Classic FM Hall of Fame to be an objective assesment.  But it's not entirely English bias.  What other poll would put a entry by Hamish MacCunn in the top 300?  And the Welsh do even better with Karl Jenkins - I wonder how well known he is outside UK?  For his classical music anyway.

Indeed so - a poll like this can't try to be anything more objective than a survey of the audience of the station in question.

An American friend of mine (a Bostonian no less!) despairs of the domination of John Williams in what a popular UK audience reflects of American classical music. And from a more demographically curious angle, they are married to an Anglo-American who "votes straight-ticket Grieg" each year.

As for Karl Jenkins, I had the privilege of seeing him conduct the Benedictus at the Albert Hall - possibly the only man I've ever seen to sport three radically different hairstyles simultaneously. Quite remarkable. On the question of how well known it is outside the UK, that's a perfectly fair question, tho I suspect the same would be true of any contemporary composer, it's a field in which it's going to take a fair amount of time for new music to gain much international/global following, compared to stuff that has been around for hundreds of years.

[eor]

Dec 27, 2021 14:23:28 GMT Danny said:

Dec 26, 2021 19:27:43 GMT turk said:

So the explanation of exactly what is happening must lie in a proper breakdown of what gorups are getting seiously ill beyond saying more of them are unvaccinated.

Its obvious this explanation is not being given because once it was it would most likely confirm whole swathes of unvaccinted peope are at no more risk than the vaccinated and there is really no point their getting vaccinated.

Be nice if we could have a feature that whenever someone typed "it's obvious" automatically inserted "to me, given the conclusions I'm seeking to justify". It'd be wrong/unfair a few times but it'd save so much blood pressure all round the rest of the time...