I'm sure that the Tories don't pretend to be Keynesian. It's a dirty word to most Tories. You are quite right about the household budget being wheeled out as an economic model too. Easy to understand, easy to use to justify imposing any amount of financial hardship on those least able to stand it, easy to defend by their followers. Easy, simple to understand and wrong. Perfect.
Lib Dems win in Shropshire
- Thread starter Heckyman
- Start date
richardg
Admonishtrator
Don't forget they failed to reinvigorate manufacturing when they had a chance in the 70s and 80s, preferring to focus on and consequently open the door for smash and grab service industries like finance, insurance, investment. Industries where people don't actually do any work.
gavreid
Pretty Words...
If Labour is serious about winning they shouldn't have stood aside being the 2nd placed party in the constituency. I'm concerned that Labour isn't profiting from the Tory slide and I'm a bit fearful that it's the Tory extreme that might capitalise over the coming months. I agree with you that Starmer's strategy of trying not to take a position on anything much at all is failing the Party.
SteveS1
I heard that, pardon?
Labour are never normally the second placed party there, to use past abberations over the reality of current polling woud have been incredibly stupid. An average of previous elections shows that it is very definitely a Lib Dem option, even more so given that it was pissed off Tories that were up for grabs. Had I lived there, as a Labour voter I would have voted Lib Dem. Strategy is knowing which seats to fight at the time, not relying on hope or spurious results from the past.
Time will come when Labour is the best polling alternative in a seat and Lib-dem voters will be needed to get them over the line. If the opposition can't get basic co-operation like this going, God help us.
gavreid
Pretty Words...
At the last general election Labour won 12,500 votes, more than twice the Lib Dems’ 5,500. And at the 2017 election Labour had almost six times the Lib Dem vote.
Robert Shrimsley, the FT's British chief political commentator said, "A Labour Party on the verge of returning to office would have made itself the challenger here". Labour’s share of the vote was down 12 percentage points.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
I'm a little confused at what you mean by the term 'old fashioned Keynsian monetarists'. I'm no economist, and have only a shallow lay understanding, but I though that Keynsianism and monetarism were somewhat diametrically opposed?
droodzilla
pfm Member
Would be interested to see your workings here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Shropshire_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s
The LDs were second in elections up to 1992. From 1997 onwards they have come second just once and have been a rather distant third to Labour.
If the argument is that recent polling showed LDs in second place, fair enough (I believe they performed well in last May's local elections) but you have to ask whether amplifying those polls then became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The result also raises questions about Labour's strategy. The whole point of Starmer is to win over Tory voters by reassuring them that Labour will let them keep their loot. Why didn't that strategy work in North Shropshire.
Hard to care much about this one way or another. It's clearly a protest vote and I expect the voters will return to their true blue home at the next general election.
SteveS1
I heard that, pardon?
Yes but the polling was definitely and consistently showing the Lib-dem candidate was best placed, fortunately enough Labour voters switched and let's be honest the candidate in her speech immediately recognised that in among the usual yada of the speech. Unseating enough Tories will leave Labour better placed in many other situations.
SteveS1
I heard that, pardon?
Totally accept that, I was looking more at the locals my bad. But if I was Starmer I wouldn't be over-concerned with placing the resources for campaigns away from seats where the current polling is giving a Green, Lib-dem or whoever a decent chance of unseating a Tory. I have to assume a decent chunk of Labour's voters lent a vote to the LDs for this. You would hope the LD voters will act similarly in areas where Labour are polling better. You don't need pacts but getting Tories unseated wherever possible doesn't seem a bad strategy.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
I think this makes sense. Don't fight the LibDems if they look most likely to take a seat from the Tories. They're still going to come third in terms of overall seats but do stand a better chance of taking the safer Tory seats than Labour does. If they do that, they could peel away enough blue seats to let Labour get over the line or force the Tories to try to form a minority government; at which point a Lib/Lab coalition could be on.
Seanm
pfm Member
They won’t: they’ll use this result against Labour in constituencies where they have been and will always place a distant third.
Starmer didn’t have much choice here as he’s got nothing positive to offer: better in the short term to make a virtue of Labour’s lack of appeal. But longer term he’s opened up another flank and the Lib Dems will attack it pretty ruthlessly. Crazy to expect any different from them as this stage.
Arkless Electronics
Trade: Amp design and repairs.
That's the problem!! Labour need to cease even attempting to placate tory voters and should be aiming to increase their share of the vote by advertising that their voters lives will be immeasurably improved for the better using wealth taxed from the likes of wealthy, greedy North Shropshire tory voters. If tory voters don't consider Labour to be in league with satan himself then Labour are doing something very wrong.
The vast numbers of natural Labour voters who in fact don't vote and have zero interest in or understanding of politics (unfortunately there is no tory equivalent) would soon enough all turn out to vote if they knew they would likely get a new council house etc under a Labour gov!!
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
My only point was that the idea that government spending comes from tax is a myth.
However, I’m not sure if this is the point of contention.
First of all I have to say that any idea that current government spending is based on anything but solid Monetarist ideology is indeed, I’m afraid, a misunderstanding.
Government itself fully understands that it’s spending is not constrained by an income from taxation, we know this because when it comes to war, vanity projects or bungs, government spending is not conditional. That government spends without constraint when it sees fit, but chooses to impose constraints when it comes to public spending is a matter of political choice.
That government spending on public projects has been forced into the headlines by Covid only proves that government has, and always has had, the capacity to produce money when required. The fact that our government chooses to attach a bill to the taxpayer for producing money when it comes to public spending that same political choice, a means to suppress demand for better public services. It is not an economic necessity.
To your second point then yes, any government such as ours that says that government spending is dependant on an income from taxation is perpetuating the same myth.
Finally, I am not presenting the idea that tax does not fund our government spending as irrefutable fact, I am happy to argue my case as best I can, but I have yet to hear a convincing argument that our government spending is indeed constrained by an income from tax
Rockmeister
pfm Member
The people who vote for them think they do was my point.