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Post by mark61 on Jul 5, 2024 15:56:47 GMT
So Labour got elected with 33.7% of the vote (2 seats to declare but not likely to go Labour) and received 412 seats on a turnout of 60%, so essentially 1 in 5 (might be even lower)of the eligible voters voted for them. There is no enthusiasm for Labour as the vast majority don't support them and didn't vote for them. How did your seat forecast work out? |
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Jul 5, 2024 15:57:03 GMT
Can anyone explain why the east of England is such fertile ground for RefUK and the Conservatives, It's as if God picked up England and shook it like a rug and all the reasonable People rolled West! A few Lab MPs in Norfolk and a Green now in Suffolk, can't be all bad. Something about the coastal towns though, perhaps the sense of isolation in them. Some pretty run down areas in both the east and the north of England have had a pretty crap deal for decades under governments of both persuasions. There is no point in just writing them off a knuckle-dragging racists. Make their lives better, give them a stake in the system, and they will vote accordingly. Last time I said we needed to better understand the problems of the white working class, I got accused of making excuses for racists. I hope after last night's results there will be less of that sort of thing. |
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Post by t7g4 on Jul 5, 2024 15:57:35 GMT
If PR were to be achieved, what would be everyone's preferred PR system? This way people don't have to vote tactically. They vote for the party they prefer.
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Post by barbara on Jul 5, 2024 16:00:49 GMT
Can anyone explain why the east of England is such fertile ground for RefUK and the Conservatives, It's as if God picked up England and shook it like a rug and all the reasonable People rolled West! When I was freelancing at the end of my career I took a 2 year assignment in North East Lincolnshire (Grimsby and Cleethorpes) as Interim Director of Children's Services. The fishing fleet had been decimated, unemployment was rife, the town was run down. These places on the East coast are often miles from anywhere. They're the end of the line and so do not get any through traffic. A siege mentality develops where they feel outside the loop, ignored and left to fend for themselves.When someone comes along and in some way woos you, you develop an emotional attachment. I found it a desperate place. |
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Jul 5, 2024 16:01:18 GMT
If PR were to be achieved, what would be everyone's preferred PR system? This way people don't have to vote tactically. They vote for the party they prefer. STV with constituencies of 5-7 members, except in special cases such as islands (with AV for by-elections, because by-elections are fun and I want to keep them). |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2024 16:02:12 GMT
If PR were to be achieved, what would be everyone's preferred PR system? This way people don't have to vote tactically. They vote for the party they prefer. Yes but then nobody gets a majority and you end up with a watered down version of Lab+LD/SNP/Green or Con+Reform for example. Is that better? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2024 16:02:56 GMT
Also who does Lee Anderson then stand for? It'll be mindboggling.
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Post by t7g4 on Jul 5, 2024 16:05:39 GMT
If PR were to be achieved, what would be everyone's preferred PR system? This way people don't have to vote tactically. They vote for the party they prefer. STV with constituencies of 5-7 members, except in special cases such as islands (with AV for by-elections, because by-elections are fun and I want to keep them). My preference is the voting system that we previously used in EU elections. |
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Post by richardstamper on Jul 5, 2024 16:05:43 GMT
"It would be possible to go slower by offering in 2028/29 manifesto implementation first for local elections, and if that goes well then putting a commitment for national elections in the manifesto for 2033/34, so first implemented in something like 2037/38" Given that the 18-28:age cohort overwhelmingly support PR would be delighted to wait until their pushing 40. Labour had a perfectly workable plan under Blair, didn't stop them breaking their manifesto pledge and not having a referendum on it. The party conference voted for the implementation of P R , I suspect that request will be ignored as well. Yes, the slow version risks looking cynical and 15 years is a long time (bit like 14 really), and I agree that there are lots of other scenarios, but I think the one I sketched has quite a lot to recommend it to the Labour leadership. It gets conference off their back, probably suppresses Lib Dem, Reform and Green votes in 2028/29, and gets to PR in an orderly way while probably giving them a solid 10 years with a big majority, which is enough time to make big changes. |
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Post by mercian on Jul 5, 2024 16:06:22 GMT
A few Lab MPs in Norfolk and a Green now in Suffolk, can't be all bad. Something about the coastal towns though, perhaps the sense of isolation in them. Some pretty run down areas in both the east and the north of England have had a pretty crap deal for decades under governments of both persuasions. There is no point in just writing them off a knuckle-dragging racists. Make their lives better, give them a stake in the system, and they will vote accordingly. Last time I said we needed to better understand the problems of the white working class, I got accused of making excuses for racists. I hope after last night's results there will be less of that sort of thing. Well said. Labour used to be the party of the white working class but that hasn't really been true for decades. They still have working class MPs of course - e.g. Angela Rayner and Jess Philips but both of those rely on asians voting for them. Labour still pay lip service to supporting the WWC (though of course they daren't mention the word 'white') - it's 'working people' nowadays. Most of their support now seems to come from ethnic minorities and university-educated white people who look down on the working class. It's no wonder a lot of WWC voters look for alternatives. |
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Post by t7g4 on Jul 5, 2024 16:06:53 GMT
So Labour got elected with 33.7% of the vote (2 seats to declare but not likely to go Labour) and received 412 seats on a turnout of 60%, so essentially 1 in 5 (might be even lower)of the eligible voters voted for them. There is no enthusiasm for Labour as the vast majority don't support them and didn't vote for them. How did your seat forecast work out? Extremely off! |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2024 16:14:28 GMT
Some pretty run down areas in both the east and the north of England have had a pretty crap deal for decades under governments of both persuasions. There is no point in just writing them off a knuckle-dragging racists. Make their lives better, give them a stake in the system, and they will vote accordingly. Last time I said we needed to better understand the problems of the white working class, I got accused of making excuses for racists. I hope after last night's results there will be less of that sort of thing. Well said. Labour used to be the party of the white working class but that hasn't really been true for decades. They still have working class MPs of course - e.g. Angela Rayner and Jess Philips but both of those rely on asians voting for them. Labour still pay lip service to supporting the WWC (though of course they daren't mention the word 'white') - it's 'working people' nowadays. Most of their support now seems to come from ethnic minorities and university-educated white people who look down on the working class. It's no wonder a lot of WWC voters look for alternatives. What policies that favour white people would you like to see? Genuine question. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 5, 2024 16:15:36 GMT
Hi @sotonsaint , I agree. Naturally, there will be a tendency for LD activist and politicians to start to view and present this as primarily a vote for them rather than the success being driven by ABT sentiment (and their expressed strategy of persuading Lab voters to vote tactically for them). Hmm. In one sense, yes, lots of voters have voted tactically. But all the way back to Blair, libs do well when con do badly. There is a pattern: con voters who have gone off con tend to prefer to switch to lib than lab. That pattern cannot really be an accident. Libs seem to have settled as a centre right party, the moderate conservatives. Though they always threw in some classically libertarian policies such as legalisation of cannabis and the right to a free education. Caring tories. The fact they exist might have been one reason driving con towards the extreme right. You could argue their voter group overlaps with those lab has been targetting, but maybe the difference is this label 'labour' and that parties roots amongst the poor, whereas libs seem a lot more middle class. Some Con voters somehow cannot stand labour but can countenance voting lib. This creates a bias so that libs do better in strong con seats and then the tactical anti tory vote coalesces around the alternative party which starts with this advantage. As an example, both hastings and bexhill seats used to be con-lib contests. But over time the proportions of working class have grown and with this change the libs have faded from second place to third (or worse). This happened first in Hastings, a town recognised as deprived all the way back to Thatcher. But some 20/30 years later the makeup of Bexhill has also changed, with fewer retired right wingers in a retirement destination town and more deprived youngsters in a town without industry. This led to libs being supplanted in second place by labour. Again, you might argue the libs having strongholds in Scotland, wales and the west country is to do with an aversion to the central national labour party (or indeed con). Those people feel they are different, in a weaker form of Scotland supporting SNP (ok SNP in bad odour just now, but they will be back).
Again, ex cons have this tendence to prefer libs, they really arent the same as voters willing to switch to lab. It may therefore be in the interest of lab to assist them, so as to prevent con recovering into the centre. And libs too want to be able to demonstrate achievement. I think there is potential for the libs and lab to try to cooperate so both are seen to be working in the national interest. Not in the stupid way libs were seen before as abandoning their own policies in coalition with con, and lab do not need vote support, but both could see working together as good publicity. I would think both lab and con would see it in their interest if in 5 years libs hold those seats they took from con instead of them returning to con. Yep. I am starting to be sceptical about all the descriptions of this as a landslide, rather than the normal action of FPP in changing government. It always encourages sharp flips instead of gradual changes. My lifetime experience has really been step changes where a strong majority for one party reverses to a strong majority for the other. Not necessarily such a big change in voters on either side, but the system creates a big flip in MP numbers. Big flips should perhaps be regarded as a property of FPP, which tends to happen every few elections.
Thatcher secured a second term with the Falklands war victory. Blair secured it by actually delivering on his promises and general rise in everyones feel good factor. It seems much harder for Starmer to do the same as Blair because the economy is much worse, but it is possible this is significantly tory spin coupled to their deliberate policy of dismantling state services and putting any saving dividend into tax cuts. Whereas a commited management might be able to improve services. I still note we are under taxed, but also that taxes get spent back into the economy and also become added income for those being taxed. Its a delusion taxes necessarily make you worse off, which labour has failed to challenge. |
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Post by richardstamper on Jul 5, 2024 16:18:01 GMT
It will be interesting to see how Labour plays this one. How about this for an approach, assuming the Tories remained wedded to FPTP? - Acknowledge that the disproportionality of the 2024 election is an impediment to rebuilding trust in politics, so establish a commission to determine what proportional system would be best.
- Include in the manifesto for the election in 2028/2029 a commitment to hold a referendum to confirm changing to the recommended system for the following election.
<snip> You don't need a referendum to change an electoral system. The Conservatives didn't have a referendum on changing the system for electing Mayors and PCCs. I agree, they could implement it with emergency legislation before the summer recess and hold another election under PR this autumn, but that would betray the manifesto commitments did make. Indeed, since the manifesto made no mention of PR I think it would be strange to make such a big change without consulting the populace again in some way - election or referendum. One point of the scenario I sketched is that it would allow Labour to move towards PR in a way that is readily defensible as prudent and deliberate while (conveniently) taking two (or maybe three) full parliamentary terms to get there. So idealism with just a dash of realpolitik. |
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Post by davem on Jul 5, 2024 16:18:26 GMT
The truth is Labour got fewer votes than they did in their “worst election in a century “ That is a sobering thought and reflects the problems Labour has for the next election, unless they find a way to reconnect with the working class Reform voters. Their lives must improve to hold off the hard right. How awful for them. Tories are fine though? That was not my point, as you would know from my posts about the work I have put together n to get Labour Councillors and MP’s elected. The point as someone else has pointed out is that the large majority is not secure and we must st government well or risk a collapse in seats. The Tories are not n an even worse place, but they are in opposition and they will have to work out who they want to be and where they sit with regards to Reform. If they don’t resolve this they could be in opposition for a long time. The Greens could do to Labour what Reform have done to Labour if things don’t go well in government. It won’t happen but offering some form of cooperation with both the Greens and Lib Dem’s and a commitment to some form of R in the next manifesto might be a very good idea and lock 🔐 n a second term. |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jul 5, 2024 16:26:50 GMT
Some pretty run down areas in both the east and the north of England have had a pretty crap deal for decades under governments of both persuasions. There is no point in just writing them off a knuckle-dragging racists. Make their lives better, give them a stake in the system, and they will vote accordingly. Last time I said we needed to better understand the problems of the white working class, I got accused of making excuses for racists. I hope after last night's results there will be less of that sort of thing. Well said. Labour used to be the party of the white working class but that hasn't really been true for decades. They still have working class MPs of course - e.g. Angela Rayner and Jess Philips but both of those rely on asians voting for them. Labour still pay lip service to supporting the WWC (though of course they daren't mention the word 'white') - it's 'working people' nowadays. Most of their support now seems to come from ethnic minorities and university-educated white people who look down on the working class. It's no wonder a lot of WWC voters look for alternatives. No, Labour was/is/should be the party that has the interests of the 'working class' (no qualifier) foremost in mind. |
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Post by shevii on Jul 5, 2024 16:31:18 GMT
Bizzarely Kemi Badenoch is odds on favourite. Then Tom 2 gun hat (won't happen), Priti Patel (no) then Suella. Its crazy stuff In Hunt they have a dull but worthy guy who would bring back a lot of those who didn't vote, but no....Onwards and Downwards! I disagree about Hunt- he was supposed to be the moderate Tory but then produced a political budget that left us with a financial black hole with unfunded tax cuts just to give them a chance of winning an election and if not then to stitch up Labour when they came to power. All at a time when public services were in a dreadful state. I was really disappointed he didn't lose his seat. |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jul 5, 2024 16:32:35 GMT
Goddam reform get the last word by scraping Thurrock by 98 votes after recount.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 5, 2024 16:32:50 GMT
Acknowledge that the disproportionality of the 2024 election is an impediment to rebuilding trust in politics, so establish a commission to determine what proportional system would be best. a commission is usually a device to prevent something happeneing because it creates years of delay before the matter has to be brought up again. if you want a change, pick one and do it. There have been many reports on electoral reform. I dont think commons reform is going to happen except perhaps STV. Lords now, they might finally pick a method to elect lords which is proportional and comes into effect at the next general election. They might even pick a fight with the lords to provide the rationale for doing it now. |
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Post by alec on Jul 5, 2024 16:34:41 GMT
shevii - "I disagree about Hunt- he was supposed to be the moderate Tory but then produced a political budget that left us with a financial black hole with unfunded tax cuts just to give them a chance of winning an election and if not then to stitch up Labour when they came to power. All at a time when public services were in a dreadful state. I was really disappointed he didn't lose his seat." Bang on. Compare & contrast Ken Clarke pre 1997. He got criticised by his own side for not focusing on election gimmicks.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 5, 2024 16:38:32 GMT
Other things outside Labour’s control played a significant part in the landslide. Tory polling collapsing due to Partygate, then Truss etc., Reform splitting the vote Farage's choice caused reform to split the vote. Before he became a player the effect was a lot less. I think now this is the reason Labour wanted to replace Corbyn, because it was all about appealing to con voters at least enough they could hold their noses. Farage seems to have hollowed out this plan diverting a lot of votes to himself, but not in the end making much difference to the outcome. We could have had a situation where both lab and con got maybe 5% more votes each, but the result was the same. I suspect Starmer doesnt actually dislike Corbyn, and Corbyn did indeed get more votes than Starmer. But the tactics required a more right seeming leader. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2024 16:42:02 GMT
Some pretty run down areas in both the east and the north of England have had a pretty crap deal for decades under governments of both persuasions. There is no point in just writing them off a knuckle-dragging racists. Make their lives better, give them a stake in the system, and they will vote accordingly. Last time I said we needed to better understand the problems of the white working class, I got accused of making excuses for racists. I hope after last night's results there will be less of that sort of thing. Well said. Labour used to be the party of the white working class but that hasn't really been true for decades. They still have working class MPs of course - e.g. Angela Rayner and Jess Philips but both of those rely on asians voting for them. Labour still pay lip service to supporting the WWC (though of course they daren't mention the word 'white') - it's 'working people' nowadays. Most of their support now seems to come from ethnic minorities and university-educated white people who look down on the working class. It's no wonder a lot of WWC voters look for alternatives. What is it with your obsession with the colour of people’s skin?!? It’s very weird. Given your prejudice I imagine you must be much happier with the prospective Labour front bench than the last Tory one (yesterday…) Or aren’t you bothered so long as they’re bloody rich? |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 5, 2024 16:44:42 GMT
There is no enthusiasm for Labour as the vast majority don't support them and didn't vote for them. Judging from results, the most popular party and leader was Ed Davey, who increased his nuber of MPs x6 and did it with a fun campaign. It was the sort of result Farage would want next time. |
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Post by thylacine on Jul 5, 2024 16:46:40 GMT
I disagree about Hunt- he was supposed to be the moderate Tory but then produced a political budget that left us with a financial black hole with unfunded tax cuts just to give them a chance of winning an election and if not then to stitch up Labour when they came to power. All at a time when public services were in a dreadful state. I was really disappointed he didn't lose his seat. Jon Craig, Naughtie and Marr would beg to differ with bardin1 but I don't want to upset @the-ever-popular-crofty by being explicit about their opinion. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 5, 2024 16:48:28 GMT
As has been mentioned quite a few times now much, if not almost all of the LD vote (including mine and several on here) was with a Lab gvt in mind (I did exactly the same thing in 97). Certainly in 97 the lib goal was to have enough MPs to hold the balance of power. Which they sort of did but wholly messed up. Libs could well envisage something similar in 2029. But done better! |
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Post by shevii on Jul 5, 2024 17:05:36 GMT
To a large degree the debate about Lab %share is irrelevant - Labour's electoral strategy has delivered a landslide. As was the case with the US Pres election in 2016, piling up big majorities in areas you are going to win anyway doesn't get you victory - its winning in battleground areas.
Well that’s the thing. Certainly, Labour appeared to have a strategy to optimise the distribution of voting. * It may have delivered some more seats. But to conclude that it delivered the landslide itself is more of a stretch. There may well have been a landslide anyway., without optimising where they campaigned or the message et cetera, just not quite as big. Other things outside Labour’s control played a significant part in the landslide. Tory polling collapsing due to Partygate, then Truss etc., Reform splitting the vote, the resurgence of the LDs and so on. Teasing out what part each component played is the tricky part, but useful if one can do it * to some extent Tories did this in 2015 to spring their surprise, along with targeted social media ads et cetera. They ferried coach-loads of young activists around the country to swing seats. (This might be less jarring than ferrying seasoned local campaigners to other constituencies). I agree with this- I don't think this is tactical genius to be honest with you. I think mostly it just happened that way. The idea that stacking up voters in safe seats is somehow replaceable with a focus on the marginals using your manpower and resources seems a bit of a stretch to me. This has always happened anyway. It was a bit more brutal than normal (turning off apps etc) but was this really an unusual trade off that no-one had tried before? I would say though that their campaign promises (or lack of them) will have played a part as it was more aimed at not scaring Tory horses so in that sense you could say it was definitely effective but as we've seen with Scotland and Red Wall you cannot rely on what was a core vote forever and they definitely lost votes because of this while gaining more votes (or abstentions) in areas that hadn't been Labour but they do risk some of their inner cities turning over the next two elections cycles and duplicating the type of thing we saw in Bristol Central. By all accounts they threw the kitchen sink at Brighton and Bristol (and places like Islington North) because they didn't want an alternative to Labour developing but that failed and quite badly in the end. Greens are well off the pace in a lot of these core city Labour seats but they have now picked up a lot of second places in those types of areas and we also now have a group of independents which I don't think is simply down to Gaza but a feeling of neglect (which is what happens if you go after Tory votes too heavily). The treatment of Diane Abbott would be an example that plays well with the soft Tory (although even that backfired a bit) but very badly with black voters. Plenty of muslim women in the party have been treated badly, not because they were muslim exactly but because they were "left" but in being "left" they represent their communities. Labour won big because the Tory vote collapsed due to partygate, corruption and cost of living and state of public services. Labour did nothing to scare the Tory vote like Corbyn had so that's why the got the result they did but in doing so they may have created a new floating voter in their city strongholds. |
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Post by pete on Jul 5, 2024 17:19:14 GMT
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Post by jimjam on Jul 5, 2024 17:40:09 GMT
Carfew - re Cons in 15 " They (Cons ferried coach-loads of young activists around the country to swing seats"
Labour did this for this election for sure with some success I reckon
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Post by jimjam on Jul 5, 2024 17:44:42 GMT
t7g4,
Problem with the D'Hondt divisor is that it gives too much control imo to the party machines who select the hierarchy of their candidates.
STV allows voters to choose who to back and many will choose to transfer to different parties so is more pluralistic.
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Post by robbiealive on Jul 5, 2024 18:01:34 GMT
10 days ago Labour were hovering just above 40 in the polls. Two days ago they were about 38. Yesterday 33. So Polls showed trend but not outcome.
Where did all the support go, leaving labour to make such an efficient conversion of votes into seats.
The crucial defeat of Mordaunt contrasts with the fortuitous survival of the hard right: Braverman, Badenoch & Patel.
As Mandleson said Mordaunt (never tested) would fight Reform, while the others, from whom the next leader is quite likely to be chosen, would try to become it
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