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Election night 2019 / aftermath II

matthewr said:
There are some really interesting graphs kicking around that show the correlation between class and the Labour vote over that period and the line of best fit gradually moving from 45% of correlation with a strong r squared number to nearly flat.

Although I would suggest this is more Thatcher's fault than Blair's.
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No argument, but then when Labour could have come to the rescue but didn’t...and then the Labour councils...and then the perceived betrayal over Brexit. It’s not hard to see why someone might vote Tory out of sheer anger, or cold calculation (at least get it done), or just stay at home out of disillusionment.

I’m very angry with myself for forgetting all this after 2017 and for going along with the clever footwork. The people who complained about triangulation here were right. We should just have accepted the result of the referendum and pushed for the softest possible result at every stage. Certainly we should do that now.
 
Seanm said:
No argument, but then when Labour could have come to the rescue but didn’t...and then the Labour councils...and then the perceived betrayal over Brexit. It’s not hard to see why someone might vote Tory out of sheer anger, or cold calculation (at least get it done), or just stay at home out of disillusionment.

I’m very angry with myself for forgetting all this after 2017 and for going along with the clever footwork. The people who complained about triangulation here were right. We should just have accepted the result of the referendum and pushed for the softest possible result at every stage. Certainly we should do that now.
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Yeah, if you want to lose the next one too.
 
Seanm posted:

I’m very angry with myself for forgetting all this after 2017 and for going along with the clever footwork. The people who complained about triangulation here were right. We should just have accepted the result of the referendum and pushed for the softest possible result at every stage. Certainly we should do that now.

Fair point......woulda, coulda, shoulda .....voted for May’s deal perhaps?
 
Yes it would have perhaps won them this election. But Corbyn played a blinder and lost everything and now BJ continues unabated with his no deal brinkmanship. Why simply because he can. No doubt the people who put him in power will cheer him on.

Another year of rancour and fighting with his beloved European friends. What a hero.

thebigfredc said:
Seanm posted:

I’m very angry with myself for forgetting all this after 2017 and for going along with the clever footwork. The people who complained about triangulation here were right. We should just have accepted the result of the referendum and pushed for the softest possible result at every stage. Certainly we should do that now.

Fair point......woulda, coulda, shoulda .....voted for May’s deal perhaps?
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Seanm said:
Well, not really. The theory is logical enough: areas of the country that had got a raw deal since the war and been actively dismantled by Thatcher expected some remedial attention from a Labour government (especially given, yes, 3 victories), and it never came. The numbers back up the theory. Why wouldn’t they blame Labour? Especially when it’s often Labour councils that are directly implementing cuts and often doing very little to engage with communities or do anything to help. What’s really dismaying for a supporter is not that Corbyn tanked the party’s vote in places like Bishop Auckland but that he failed to reverse the trajectory:

“Labour Majority in Bishop Aukland:

1997: 21,064
2001: 13,926
2005: 10,047
2010: 5,218
2015: 3,508
2017: 502
2019: Lost

It's convenient & politically-lucrative for many to scapegoat Corbyn. It won't change the fact many of Labour's #GE2019 losses have been decades in the making.”
https://twitter.com/hichamyezza/status/1207350122838921218?s=21

It’s a while since I posted this, which gives the context:
https://newleftreview.org/issues/II105/articles/tom-hazeldine-revolt-of-the-rustbelt
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If you look at the numbers the biggest % drop happened post 2010, even more so 2015 - 2019.you can quote these 'facts' all you like but blame lies with Corbyn not Blair/Brown.

You could probably do a similar exercise with every Govt post landslide victory, the number can only go one way.
 
Woodface said:
If you look at the numbers the biggest % drop happened post 2010, even more so 2015 - 2019.you can quote these 'facts' all you like but blame lies with Corbyn not Blair/Brown.

You could probably do a similar exercise with every Govt post landslide victory, the number can only go one way.
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As I said yesterday, the facts don't support your narrative
 
matthewr said:
That doesn't look like what voters reckon to me.
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You are both right in your own way. Immigrants do suffer from low wages & therefore set an earnings benchmark that indigenous population does not choose to limber under.

It probably has the biggest impact on the poorer sectors of society.
 
Joe Hutch said:
So who was to blame for Labour's defeats in 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992?
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79 Wilson for the Social contract
83 Falklands and SDP
87-92 SDP-Liberal splitting the vote (add 2010, 2015, 17 and 19 plus Blair for losing Scotland and the C2DE vote)
 
Seanm said:
No argument, but then when Labour could have come to the rescue but didn’t...and then the Labour councils...and then the perceived betrayal over Brexit. It’s not hard to see why someone might vote Tory out of sheer anger, or cold calculation (at least get it done), or just stay at home out of disillusionment.

I’m very angry with myself for forgetting all this after 2017 and for going along with the clever footwork. The people who complained about triangulation here were right. We should just have accepted the result of the referendum and pushed for the softest possible result at every stage. Certainly we should do that now.
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The above just illustrates the difference between making decisions in real time & then reflecting with hindsight. Ultimately Labour didn't really make a clear decision & created a fudge. What's the old saying, 'a camel is a horse made by committee'.
 
matthewr said:
That doesn't look like what voters reckon to me.
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I don't think so either, so to return to your 3 points and my comments on them, are you mistaken, partially mistaken or absolutely right and no bugger believes you?

Here's what I think for each point, as it applies to this case in the UK:
"-- Immigration has minimal effect on wages because what downward pressure it does have is offset by the growth from adding more workers to an economy." Maybe so, but no bugger believes you. They have their examples (the plasterer) that suggests that it isn't the case here.
"-- What effect it does have is mostly on low-skilled, low wage jobs." Not in the case of our plasterer, who as you point out is skilled and who has seen a dramatic negative effect on his revenues. He is not protected by min wage, whereas the majority of our low skilled jobs are.
"-- You are much more likely to have your wages affected by immigration if you are in fact an immigrant." I don't see how this can be the case in countries with a min wage such as ours and where immigrants work alongside indigenous workers.
 
matthewr said:
They are not "my three points", it's a well studied area https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-and-jobs-labour-market-effects-immigration/
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report said:
In the UK, studies suggest that immigration has a small impact on average wages but more significant impacts along the wage distribution - low-waged workers lose while medium and high-paid workers gain
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Doesn't this mean immigration increases relative poverty? That's defined as living at under 60% of median earnings..
 
Woodface said:
If you look at the numbers the biggest % drop happened post 2010, even more so 2015 - 2019.you can quote these 'facts' all you like but blame lies with Corbyn not Blair/Brown.

You could probably do a similar exercise with every Govt post landslide victory, the number can only go one way.
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Well, that's one way of looking at it, although I don't quite get it. But what's staring you in the face is a clear pattern of steep decline over an extended period. I'm sure there are demographics factors but the political dimension needs to be acknowledged, and not just laid at Corbyn's feet.

Blair's approach to the north amounted to neglect. It was ameliorated slightly by spending on public services and public sector jobs. But you can only do that in government. The coalition government turned the taps off. This is the biggest tragedy of the New Labour era: that its achievements were so easily reversed the moment they were out of government.

So it's not surprising that Labour continued to take the blame for decline after 2010, especially given that they supported austerity in opposition. The Brexit policy finished Labour off, but it was a coup de grace, not the interruption of a successful political or electoral strategy.
 
Woodface said:
You should go & work for Labour's strategy dept, you'd keep them in opposition & idealogical purity for generations.
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The Labour moment currently includes antiwar activists supporting a party committed to renewing Trident, antiracist activists supporting a party that still fudges issues of immigration, straight-up Marxists supporting a party which at its most radical is proposing pretty mild social democratic reforms, barely adequate to the task of keeping capitalism on its feet. The "ideological purity" thing is all in the heads of Labour right wingers, and it's dangerous: lots of them (especially in the press) were so traumatised by the idea that people might think them Wolfie Smith types, student activists, ideological puritans that they felt compelled to demonstrate their pragmatism by cheerleading for obviously disastrous wars.
 
Seanm said:
The "ideological purity" thing is all in the heads of Labour right wingers, and it's dangerous: lots of them (especially in the press) were so traumatised by the idea that people might think them Wolfie Smith types, student activists, ideological puritans that they felt compelled to demonstrate their pragmatism by cheerleading for obviously disastrous wars.
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That was all very much an internal Labour thing, the Lib Dems, SNP, Greens etc all opposed Labour’s war. As such you really can’t pin it on the centre/social democratic mindset. Basically the Labour Party is a mess. Unlike the Tories, who are clearly only in it for themselves and their paymasters, Labour try to be ideological, but fail as they can never make up their minds WTF they actually stand for! The LDs, SNP and Greens are all far more coherent.
 
She may not be the best option for leader, but she was right about this.

Labour gifted Boris Johnson his ‘Brexit election’.

As I said at the time, it was absurd for the opposition to give Johnson what he wanted.

They should have let him limp on and dragged concessions out of him.

I've been listening to the excellent Cautionary Tales by Tim Harford.

Together we weave stories of human error, of tragic catastrophes and hilarious fiascos. Oil tankers crash in broad daylight, vital military ideas are carelessly given away to the Nazis, and a shouty man in a uniform pulls off an audacious heist. Alongside the drama, each story has a moral that emerges from psychology, economics, even design. Each story will make you wiser.

I'm sure he'll be covering the 2019 Election soon.

Stephen
 
gavreid said:
The longer it went on the worse the outcome would have been. They waited far too long in my opinion
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Absolute fantasist nonsense.
As she says, rather more eloquently than I would and with less expletives:
"Boris Johnson proposed an election at a time of his own choosing, on an issue of his own choosing, and we went along with it – like crackers voting for Christmas. The Liberal Democrats agreed to it because they thought it would work in their favour, and Labour because we imagined we could change the subject. That was a total delusion.

I wrote to the leader’s office warning it would be “an act of catastrophic political folly” to vote for the election, and explained exactly why we should not go along with it. I argued that the single issue of Brexit should not be enough to give Johnson a five-year mandate to enact his agenda on every issue. Instead, I said we should insist on a referendum on his proposed deal, to get the issue of Brexit out of the way before any general election.

When I raised this at the shadow cabinet, and spoke forcefully against an election, some colleagues nodded along, but the loudest voices were pro-leave colleagues insisting that we should vote with Johnson. So we wilfully went into a single-issue election with no clear position on that issue and, as every pollster predicted, we were brutally squeezed by all the other parties with an unequivocal policy on Brexit, all of them sharing a clear strategy to eat into Labour’s base."
 
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