Here is a rather good post from musician, Labour activist and all-round good egg Billy Bragg on Facebook. I think it is well worth reading as an analysis:
PS As many know I don’t agree with screen-scraping, especially whole posts, and even more so in today’s publishing/copyright culture, but I honestly don’t think he’d mind it being reposted at all and will obviously remove it immediately if so. It also fits very nicely on what is primarily a music forum!
It's a really good thought piece on why Labour lost and what they should do in the coming months.
"Labour have long resisted the introduction of proportional representation for Westminster, but recent elections have shown us that the current First Past The Post system is no longer fit for purpose. Under PR, a coalition of pro-remain parties would have won the election on Thursday. More importantly, a system in which everyone’s vote counts is a crucial factor in restoring public trust in politics."
Billy could make a great Labour leader, but has said he doesn't want to be a politician.
I posted on pfm a while go that I thought Labour would lose. This was down to Corbyn's refusal to apologize for antisemitism and his sitting on the fence for three years about Brexit, other than to say that Labour would implement it.
Labour went downhill the moment Corbyn called for Article 50 to be triggered and he turned Labour into a Brexit Party. His sitting on the fence after that during a lot of PMQs was embarrassing, while May and Johnson huffed and puffed about how great and fair a British Brexit would be.
The Labour-supporting journalist Paul Mason said he met many Labour racists on the doorstep in northern towns, who were going to vote for Johnson. That's the unfortunate reality of modern-day Britain. Mason has been the Economics Editor of Newsnight and Channel 4 News, so I trust his judgement. Those who hate immigrants voted for racist Johnson.
Any move by Labour to please their former supporters up North, should be done very carefully, if at all. Labour has to find new supporters and shouldn't chase the old ones, who have just stabbed the Party in the heart.
Having said that, the chances are I will vote Green. Labour now seems like a Party of the past, while the Greens are very much about the future.
Jack