Labour policies

[drfchound]

It's not as worrying as Boris still being PM.

They both worry me.

[BillyStubbsTears]

If he's interim PM, he's not going to nationalise the Queen and move us all to Venezuela, is he?

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Nope hes going to end up in the same position as boris, powerless.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Nope hes going to end up in the same position as boris, powerless.

They'll all have planned together what they want to get done as a short-term Government before calling an election. If Corbyn strays from that that support will disappear and he'll just look a berk. It'll be much better for him to look like he's able to bring parties together and can work with others before going into a General Election. He'd look more statesmanlike, in sharp contrast to Boris and his petty gameplaying.

[albie]

New update on the opening post;
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFaij1AXkAAYk05.jpg

200 policies summarised in a box.
Discuss.

[Ldr]

New update on the opening post;
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFaij1AXkAAYk05.jpg

200 policies summarised in a box.
Discuss.

Irrelevant, the leadership is too big a problem in the eyes of a lot of the public to be elected in a majority

[albie]

Bit more detail on the Labour plans for the football industry;
https://labourlist.org/2019/10/corbyn-calls-for-football-reforms-to-empower-fans/

Steps in the right direction.

[Ldr]

As above

[BillyStubbsTears]

Well that's one of the 4Ms gone.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/08/karie-murphy-corbyns-chief-of-staff-moved-to-labour-hq-after-strategy-spats

Interesting stuff. Think where we are now.

The PM (that's Cummings, not Johnson, of course) has said in a rambling message to a Spectator journalist today that the Tory party is going balls out on a No Deal platform in the upcoming election.

That works for them because it neutralises the Brexit party threat and pretty much guarantees the Tories a 35% vote share from the No Deal Death Cult supporters.

Which means, if Labour and the LDs and Green continue to split the anti-No Deal support as they are currently doing, we are f**ked. We'll leave with a No Deal that no majority of the country has ever wanted or voted for.

So it's vital that the ideologically throttling stranglehold that the 4Ms have on Corbyn is broken, to allow some clearer thinking in Labour HQ on what needs to be done to unite the anti-No Deal vote.

Getting rid of Murphy is the first step.

[wilts rover]

Couple of other people gone as well Billy. Apparently it was over Andrew Fisher's resignation & wanting to 'clear out the amateur's' before a GE campaign.

On your stats I presume you have also seen the British Election Study out today that shows 49% of the population have no fixed political view and are floating voters.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-general-election-brexit-uk-study-opinion-poll-a9147376.html

And there is no possibilty whatsoever of formerly uniting the Remain parties. The LD's hate Labour more than they do Brexit. They are trying to grab Tory voters in the south, south-west because that is where they win seats and they think the further away they are from Labour the more chance they have of doing that.

As for informal, local tactical voting, well...

[albie]

The LD target seats list shows why Swinson pivots to the right;
http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/liberal-democrat

She thinks that greater gains are to be made from soft Tories by a strong anti-Corbyn line.
Ironically, Swinson may lose her own seat to the SNP, as she did in 2015, with a small 6% swing.

If Labour did not stand a candidate in her patch, the chance would be significantly boosted.

The LD do not pose a major risk to Labour in most marginal seats.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Albie

It's not about the LDs winning seats off Labour for God's sake.

It's about them splitting the vote and letting the Tories in in Lab-Tory marginals.

I'd have thought that was bleeding obvious.

[tommy toes]

God this is terrifying.
To think that thisTory bunch of liars and psychopaths are likely to win the next election is just madness off the scale.
But the likelihood is that they will and I can't comprehend it.
The opposition parties have got to get together somehow to stop it.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

The focus though has to be on attracting voters rather than getting votes because the opposition are shit, otherwise it isnt sustainable.

I still have yet to see who I'd vote for, I'd definitely be in the floating voter mix.

[tommy toes]

The focus though has to be on attracting voters rather than getting votes because the opposition are shit, otherwise it isnt sustainable.

I still have yet to see who I'd vote for, I'd definitely be in the floating voter mix.

Did you hear or read the details of Labour's policies outlined by Corbyn at the Confetence?
A raft of good policies to get the country moving.
But as I suspected it has largely escaped everyones notice.

[Sprotyrover]

Notice the opposition are in disarray when faced with a no deal Brexit or Corbyn as Priminister they would prepare the former not the later.

[albie]

BST,

You were arguing that the remain interests needed to bury the hatchett.
The reason I posted the LD targets is to show the reason why Swinson will not do that.

Her aim is to capture seats in Con/LD marginals.

As Wilts says, the key variable is the extent to which tactical voting takes place in about 70 seats.

It makes no sense to vote LD if you support remain unless that vote will count.
In most Labour seats it does not, so to vote LD in those seats is irrational in the present system.

[RedJ]

inb4 Wolfie PR rant

[BillyStubbsTears]

Albie.

It will certainly be about tactical voting but you are assuming that voters will be sophisticated enough to make those decisions AND not do what people on the far left did in 2010, which is to put principle above pragmatism. As I've said times many, it's hypocritical for people on the Left who refused to vote for Brown on principle in 2010 (and gave us this shit tip of a decade) to expect people who are anti Brexit to criticise those who put their principles first and vote for an avowedly anti-Brexit party.

The Corbyn office didn't need to put Labour in this position. It's their decision to fudge Labour's position over the past year that has resurrected the LDs and split the Left vote. I truly hope that this doesn't give Johnson a majority in Nov/Dec but I think it's likely that it will.

[wilts rover]

Here's something to bookmark and keep because you wont see it in the Tory press:

Posters on social media - Labour will ruin the economy

Yer actual real world economists (OK its that noted left-wing think tank, The Institute for Fiscal Studies along with that noted leftie institution Citi Bank for that leftie rag, the Financial Times) - studying the policies announced recently:

A Corbyn led Labour Government will leave the country 5% better off than a Johnson led Tory one by 2022.

Thats £110 billion pounds.

https://twitter.com/ChrisGiles_/status/1181443140143779840
https://www.ft.com/content/7cdfa832-e908-11e9-a240-3b065ef5fc55

[tommy toes]

inb4 Wolfie PR rant

In the 1951 election Labour received more votes than the Conservatives and the Liberals combined, yet Churchill won a majority and came back to power.
Incredible int it. Surprised we weren't clamouring for PR back then.

[RedJ]

Aye but we don't really have one big election for the Prime Minister. We have 650 elections, right across the country, and you're electing the MP in your area, not the PM (directly at least).

[BillyStubbsTears]

BST,

You were arguing that the remain interests needed to bury the hatchett.
The reason I posted the LD targets is to show the reason why Swinson will not do that.

Her aim is to capture seats in Con/LD marginals.

As Wilts says, the key variable is the extent to which tactical voting takes place in about 70 seats.

It makes no sense to vote LD if you support remain unless that vote will count.
In most Labour seats it does not, so to vote LD in those seats is irrational in the present system.

That misses the point though Wilts.

In 9 of the LDs' top 11 target seats that they want to take from the Tories, the Tory majority in 2017 was less than the Labour vote. So if the LDs and Labour had a deal whereby Labour stood down in those seats and the LDs did the same in a similar number of Lab-Tory marginals, that would most likely make a 36 seat swing against the Tories (18 more non-Tory MPs, 18 fewer Tory MPs).

It's a no brainer IF you put stopping Johnson with a majority as Aim No1.

It won't happen, I realise that. And when Johnson gets a majority, the people who stop it happening will bear a heavy responsibility.

[BillyStubbsTears]

By the way. On the topic of what the electorate thinks of Labour's Brexit policy.

https://mobile.twitter.com/britainelects/status/1181585075282087936

Yes, I know all the arguments about why it is brilliantly nuanced and why it's the fault of the media for not giving Labour a fair hearing.

I know all that and it means f**k all. Because out there, in the real world, Labour's Brexit policy, foisted on the party by Corbyn's cabal is an utter car crash which is very, very likely to give Johnson unfettered power after the Election.

Self-indulgent stupidity by people who have put ideology above pragmatism. Like the Far Left always does.

This was easy to avoid. If the message for the last year had been "We think Brexit will be a disaster. We will give you Ref2 and we will campaign enthusiastically to Remain. We know that 20% of our supporters don't agree with that, but we have a raft of other policies that are what they want and need." Labour now would be on 35% in the polls and the LDs would be on 7%.

[wilts rover]

The only party to offer the option for ALL the people to decide what happens.

A second referendum with a viable leave option and remain.

There you go, feel free to take that and use it, no need to thank me.

You wont see it written like that in the press or media though because they don't want to simplify the message, they want to present it as confusingly as possible so as to make Labour unelectable and turn voters against them. And there are plenty of people out there ready to help them...

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts..
That doesn't help. At all.

Labour's problem has been the complexity of its Brexit message. That was what lost the f**king Brexit vote in 2016 for a start, when Corbyn was wringing his hands and saying 7/10 while Johnson was hammering the table and shouting Take Back Control.

It's a total lack of simple, crisp clarity. It's no good YOU saying you understand what Labour's policy is. I do too. Because we breathe this. It's the 68% out there that haven't picked up a clear message that is the issue.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

The other point to add to BST, is how many voters really sit on the fence on the issue?  If Brexit is your main reason for choosing a party and you've made your mind up on what you want you're voting LD, Tory, SNP, a NI party or Brexit party in reality.

Note sensible people will realise an election is much more important than just Brexit despite it dominating everything.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BFYP.

Corbyn's stance comes from 2 sources.

1) He doesn't want Brexit to be the key factor in how people vote. He wants it to be about other policies because he (probably correctly) thinks Labour will do well on that.

2) He cannot, for ideological reasons, bring himself to unequivocally support Remain. Despite leading a party whose members and supporters are overwhelmingly Remain supporters, Corbyn is in a tiny group that still see the EU as an block to the true road to socialism. Watch how he campaigns on domestic issues that he cares about. It's brilliant. Full of passion and fire. Then go and see if you can ever find that side of him when (supposedly) campaigning for Remain in 2016.

So. For both reasons, he needs Labour's policy to be that we don't have a stance on Brexit. But that is a disaster because it's the defining issue in politics now.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

I don't disagree, it's obvious to me that the labour party has a huge issue in that at some point they will have to support leaving or remaining.  Their problem even more so than the Tories is their voter base and the party MP's are much more aligned to remain whereas the leader is not.  We could see a Corbyn government in and there would still be a problem for them.

Likely irrelevant though as I don't see them winning an election as mentioned without tactical voting they just don't have the vote share.

Also worth adding I actually agree with Corbyn's points that there are other important issues to consider.  We need to know what those policies are for all parties, in the last election that came a bigger issue which undermined Theresa May's campaign, I don't at this minute see that the Tories have learnt from that but we are in unpredictable times.

[Padge_DRFC]

Labour voters overwhelmingly are remainers? Try telling that to labour voting Doncaster with one of the highest leave vote percentage.
If the Brexit party stood in Doncaster they would wipe the floor with labour this year.