Election night 2019 / aftermath

[TheDecameron]

or possibly Gove will kill again.

Lady McGove couldn’t get the stains off last time and he only managed to wing Johnson. Sarah will be hissing “no mistakes this time” .

 

[doctorf]

I know what you mean,

She was PM when that pic was taken, not an opposition leader.
Corbyn is a Marxist leader of the opposition and, in many Brits eyes, an IRA sympathiser, Hamas supporter, Russia supporter and anti Semite.
Not the best credentials for a prospective British prime minister.

 

[Marky-Mark]

The voting public appears to have a short memory, and limited critical faculties ...
you have to offer people what they think they want ...

Some of those voting public of people may have limited critical faculties, and some may be conned with offers of what they think they want, but if you think the lot doesn't know when they're dealing with elitists who think exactly this way about them it's a dead cold case of pot kettle black.

 

[TheDecameron]

She was PM when that pic was taken, not an opposition leader.
Corbyn is a Marxist leader of the opposition and, in many Brits eyes, an IRA sympathiser, Hamas supporter, Russia supporter and anti Semite.
Not the best credentials for a prospective British prime minister.

1999, years after she left office and shortly before he was arrested in an international warrant. Personally I don’t think it’s tenable to play this issue both ways.

 

[gintonic]

I went out twice canvassing with the local labour party. Without fail, the electorate around here appear to treat an election as a "beauty" or "personality" contest. Everyone we spoke to said things like "we are voting for Boris, he is a go getter a man of action. Jeremy, is a fence sitter, doddery, non-achiever......"

Few people talked about policy and Brexit. Those that did suggested that Labours aims were nice, but unaffordable

Soon became clear that this was more about Corbyns lack of credibility, than policy.

 

[notaclue]

McDonnell is gone from the shadow cabinet https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1205820399319162880

And interesting that he gives three names for the new leader. These will be the chosen ones to assume the role of the next Corbyn. Rebecca Long-Bailey, Angela Rayner and, yes, Richard Burgon. So Burgon for leader is no joke.

It's looking like Long-Bailey vs Starmer. I think North London and Remain won't be strong points for Starmer.

If Momentum are still in control, Long-Bailey looking like a good bet.

 

[tiggers]

Corbyn is a Marxist leader of the opposition and, in many Brits eyes, an IRA sympathiser, Hamas supporter, Russia supporter and anti Semite.
Not the best credentials for a prospective British prime minister.

And one can only wonder just how people got that idea....

 

[tiggers]

Raab, Patel, Kwertang, Truss.
Liar, liar, liar, thicko (and liar).

FTFY

 

[roman]

I view some of his policies as unrealistic though support many others. The main issue was he was a simply terrible leader. Some people are just best in the back room or in other roles, so its no slight on the guy beyond him being daft enough to accept a job he clearly didn’t have the wherewithal or personality to see through in a competent manner.

No one gets to be the least popular leader in UK political history or lead a party to its worst defeat ever by being the right person for the job. His failure is absolute and most of us have been predicting the outcome for years now. It was blindingly obvious he would never get to lead a majority government and he proved so bad a crass Bullingdon Club cartoon of elitism with a three word soundbite and a history of lying, cheating, bullying and failing at every job in his highly privileged life absolutely destroyed Labour. An absolutely epic failure and the Party now clearly needs to rebuild with something entirely different.

Mostly right but I think Johnson is more popular than many would like to admit. A stream of bullshit, lies and three word sound bites is where many people are at right now. It's harder to topple that than labours failed campaign would indicate.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

I went out twice canvassing with the local labour party. Without fail, the electorate around here appear to treat an election as a "beauty" or "personality" contest. Everyone we spoke to said things like "we are voting for Boris, he is a go getter a man of action. Jeremy, is a fence sitter, doddery, non-achiever......"

Few people talked about policy and Brexit. Those that did suggested that Labours aims were nice, but unaffordable

Soon became clear that this was more about Corbyns lack of credibility, than policy.

Mostly right but I think Johnson is more popular than many would like to admit. A stream of bullshit, lies and three word sound bites is where many people are at right now. It's harder to topple that than labours failed campaign would indicate.

Yes, this is what I mean by my point about the lack of critical faculties. I might wish it were different but you have to work with the materials you are given.

 

[sean99]

A quick question for those Labour supporters who loath Corbyn and also for the more enthusiastic door knocking Labour supports.

Do you feel that the loathing, either your own or those you’ve spoken to on the doorstep, is based on Corbyn himself, or his policies?

Frothing right wingers need not apply

I think it’s very simple. Brexit is the most divisive issue of our lives and was born out of a far right project to remove England from EU worker, environmental and most of all financial regulations. Most Labour supporters voted against it. Many were fooled or persuaded to vote for it based on xenophobic and nationalist rhetoric and grossly unrealistic promises (aka lies).

Labour was crying out for a leader who would call out Brexit for what it is, but Corbyn has spent three years painfully avoiding taking a position for fear of alienating anyone. Well it turns out that voters like a leader who takes a position and sells them on it.

 

[tiggers]

Right I'm off out for some fine wine and a light lunch, but I'm going to leave you with the concerns of a maths professor friend of mine.

He's always accepted that 50% of the population is by definition below average intelligence, but he is now worried that Brexit has proved this to be nearly 52% so Brexit has broken mathematical laws... who'd have thunk it

 

[thebigfredc]

How about this one..

 

[ff1d1l]

He didn't get any of that wrong, he probably knows what he's talking about.

I've pointed out Blair's assessment of the situation has been on the button for at least the last couple of years. There are people on here who need to learn to disregard baggage and recognise truth.

 

[PsB]

Naturally I don’t think any of those things, and of course I have to endure the crowing. But really, if you’ve got some ideas you go right ahead and share them.

I’m not crowing. I hate the result and despise Johnson and the interests he represents. But yes, there’s an element of told-you-so.

The only ideas I will share with you are unoriginal to the point of banality. The LP has to be a coalition of different tendencies, where people from the centre to the far left can feel comfortable. If your party persists with purges of centrists, red Tories and other sensibles, it will shrivel and become a fringe party, condemned to putting ramshackle coalitions together. It has to focus on the pursuit of power and forget ideological purity. It needs to find more effective leaders and communicators. Only when in power will it be able to make a difference for its members and for the country as a whole.

 

[MikeMA]

McDonnell is gone from the shadow cabinet https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1205820399319162880

And interesting that he gives three names for the new leader. These will be the chosen ones to assume the role of the next Corbyn. Rebecca Long-Bailey, Angela Rayner and, yes, Richard Burgon. So Burgon for leader is no joke.

It's looking like Long-Bailey vs Starmer. I think North London and Remain won't be strong points for Starmer.

If Momentum are still in control, Long-Bailey looking like a good bet.

Another decade in the widerness for Labour then. Perhaps there will be a Lib Dem revival afterall, only more slowly.

 

[Tony L]

Another decade in the widerness for Labour then. Perhaps there will be a Lib Dem revival afterall, only more slowly.

Hopefully they will have the sense to install Layla Moran as leader. Swinson was as stained by her past as Corbyn was by his, and clearly no more electable. Only Tories seem able to survive and even build on a dubious past, as the current vacuous lying bullying elitist piece of shit proves.

 

[ks.234]

I’m not crowing. I hate the result and despise Johnson and the interests he represents. But yes, there’s an element of told-you-so.

The only ideas I will share with you are unoriginal to the point of banality. The LP has to be a coalition of different tendencies, where people from the centre to the far left can feel comfortable. If your party persists with purges of centrists, red Tories and other sensibles, it will shrivel and become a fringe party, condemned to putting ramshackle coalitions together. It has to focus on the pursuit of power and forget ideological purity. It needs to find more effective leaders and communicators. Only when in power will it be able to make a difference for its members and for the country as a whole.

What purges? The truth is that for all his many faults, Corbyn is a coalition builder and consensus seeker, to much so for his own good. The fact of the matter is that he was up against a significant number in his own party whose anti Corbyn determination was a red line. The purges were in the early days and they were purges of ordinary people who had joined the LP to support Corbyn.

 

[ff1d1l]

 

[Dave H.]

A quick question for those Labour supporters who loath Corbyn and also for the more enthusiastic door knocking Labour supports.

Do you feel that the loathing, either your own or those you’ve spoken to on the doorstep, is based on Corbyn himself, or his policies?

Frothing right wingers need not apply

One thing that has struck me powerfully is how clear it is that anti-Corbyn figures are trying to turn the defeat into a repudiation of the policies. Even though there is concrete evidence available (see the graph in this thread, for example) that policy was a tiny issue compared to Corbyn himself and LP policy on Brexit specifically.

The evidence I have seen basically says the policies were mostly ok in spirit, certainly not catastrophic, but were considered implausibly excessive in degree. But the movement to use the defeat to force policy core values change began immediately with Tom Watson on the C4 results programme, and continues with eg Marina Hyde retweeting Freedland’s column today.