Fun and games with ballot papers

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

This country doesn’t want a Corbyn version of socialism. The sooner the hard left wakes up to this the better.

And yet Corbyn got 800,000 more votes in this election than Blair did in 2005, 1.5 million more than Gordon Brown in 2010, and 900,000 more than Ed Milliband in 2015. In this election, Corbyn gained the third highest number of votes for a Labour leader this Century - beaten only by Blair in 2001 (who had 500,000 more votes) and ... Corbyn himself in 2017.

Blair's landslide victory of 1997 was won with just 750,000 more votes than Corbyn got in 2017. Except, of course, it wasn't - because the voting system that we have does not represent the number of people who vote for a party throughout "this country" - just how those votes are distributed in the various constituencies. And whilst that isn't changed, then any "analysis" of "what went wrong" (and any number of rounds of the "blame game") is irrelevant.

[Richard Barrett]

Ah yes, someone mistakenly thought Corbyn wasn't an effective opposition leader, and I point out that he actually was, but so what when you can laugh and post an article from someone responsible for smearing him

Jonathan Freedland no less! I'd be quite embarrassed to find myself quoting that individual on any subject. For someone who disdains squabbling, Mr GG, you do rather a lot of it yourself.

Whatever anyone thinks of Jeremy Corbyn, it remains clearly true that not only the Tories but the vast majority of the media including the BBC, not to mention numerous members of his own parliamentary party, against the wishes of the membership, set out to discredit him through smears and lies, and they succeeded, and that is not the way politics should be done, and it's not the way that an honest, decent and committed person deserves to be treated.

Eventually the choice will be between some kind of planned economy or a catastrophic collapse of society through the effects of climate change. The drive to short term profit that's deeply inherent to capitalism isn't compatible with the survival of human society in anything like its present form. Whether the British people "want socialism" or not is a fairly insignificant question next to that. (And what is it that "the British people want"? Johnson's lies, racism and misogyny, and policy-free bluster? I don't think so.)

I've spent most of my life thinking that the changes that society needs in order to be organised for the benefit of all, and especially for those who need it most, are not going to come about through the process of voting for one or other established party. Then there seemed to be a window of opportunity where that might not be the case. Maybe that window is about to close again. Much depends on who takes over from Jeremy Corbyn as party leader.

[teamsaint]

Labour leaders ALL get trashed by the press. Corbyn even more so than usual

Thing is, categorically saying “ the British people don’t want this or that “on the basis of FPTP GE results is really basing arguments on unsafe ground. The system magnifies modest shifts in opinion.
Scotland would be a good example right now, where the SNP is hugely over represented.

Labour does have big lessons to learn. But ignoring the possibilities of the radical change, or indeed electoral reform isn’t Something they need to learn.
My off the cuff prediction ? A strategic link up with the Greens to develop policy, capture new demographics, and find an area where they can beat the tories.

Labour had a disaster. But full out Remain would have made it worse. Jo Swinson could probably confirm this.

[vinteuil]

.

Blair's landslide victory of 1997 was won with just 750,000 more votes than Corbyn got in 2017. Except, of course, it wasn't - because the voting system that we have does not represent the number of people who vote for a party throughout "this country" - just how those votes are distributed in the various constituencies. And whilst that isn't changed, then any "analysis" of "what went wrong" (and any number of rounds of the "blame game") is irrelevant.

... I agree that our electoral system is wretched.

But you have to accept that this time the Tories had the biggest share of votes, 45%, or about 13.9 million. whereas Labour had a 32.2% share, or about 10.3 million votes.

.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But you have to accept that this time the Tories had the biggest share of votes, 45%, or about 13.9 million. whereas Labour had a 32.2% share, or about 10.3 million votes.

Oh, I do - unquestionably. I just don't accept as genuine "democracy" any system that allows a party (any party) that had only 45% of the total vote (which is even less, of course of the total electorate) to have 56% of the seats of power, and, therefore, effectively unlimited power for the next five years.

(And the statistics were cited to provide evidence that deductions of what "the nation" wants - in the light of this Voting system - are unsafe.)

[ardcarp]

I remember Neil Kinnock [one of the best Prime Ministers we never had?] railing at the far left at the 1985 LabourParty Conference. His words were along the lines of "if you want the Labour Party in power, first of all you've got to get elected". What the Labour Party now needs is an eminence grise who understands the reality of public opinion and (however odious he may be to Momentum) knows how to get a new Leader into No 10. The Tories had one such. Every person has a price. Maybe Dominic could be persuaded to switch sides for next time?

[LMcD]

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Labour lost. It’s irrelevant how toxic or mendacious the Tories are. They got their act together and have wiped out Labour for a generation. This country doesn’t want a Corbyn version of socialism. The sooner the hard left wakes up to this the better.

Quite! I shall grit my remaining teeth and grudgingly give BoJo the benefit of the doubt, while keeping my expectations firmly screwed down. Any result which strips Arlene Foster and the ERG of influence can't be a bad thing, can it?

[Pulcinella]

Quite! I shall grit my remaining teeth and grudgingly give BoJo the benefit of the doubt, while keeping my expectations firmly screwed down. Any result which strips Arlene Foster and the ERG of influence can't be a bad thing, can it?

Sentiments echoed here.

[muzzer]

That Kinnock quote is spot on.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Any result which strips Arlene Foster and the ERG of influence can't be a bad thing, can it?

But wouldn't you agree that it is "a bad thing" for a party which mustered 244,128 votes to win 8 seats in the House of Commons, whilst another, getting 865,697 votes (three times as many) is granted just 1 seat?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My suggestion being that ardy's hypothetical Labour leader would not be able to gain any real insight into "the reality of Public Opinion" if s/he used the election results as a means of gauging what this is.

[burning dog]

I wonder how may objections Caroline Flint (Don Valley), one of the classic working class constituencies in England, heard on the doorstep to Labour's "hard left" economic policies?

This is the background noise I heard at my unionised, predominatley working class workplace. -Brexit, used to support the IRA, Brexit, supports the PLO, Brexit, soft on Islamist terrorism, Brexit, often disloyal as a back bencher, Brexit, comes from up "that" London. etc. -

The best question I heard, relating to economic policy, was "How can Labour do all this, pretending they can pay by merely by taxing the better off?"

Renationlising Power companies, workers shares - not mentioned.

Renationlisng Railways -popular.

The difference in 2017 was that Brexit was in lower case

The "background noise" echoes the vox pops heard from working class people in TV interviews.

PS I know some colleagues (staunch union people) voted Tory for the first time ever

[LHC]

But wouldn't you agree that it is "a bad thing" for a party which mustered 244,128 votes to win 8 seats in the House of Commons, whilst another, getting 865,697 votes (three times as many) is granted just 1 seat?

If we had PR, the election results would have been more like this:

CON: 285 (-80)
LAB: 211 (+9)
LDM: 75 (+64)
SNP: 27 (-21)
GRN: 16 (+15)
BXP: 13 (+13)
DUP: 6 (-2)
PLC: 4 (=)
SF: 4 (-3)
SDLP: 3 (+1)
UUP: 2 (+2)

[zola]

[QUOTE=LHC;768386]If we had PR, the election results would have been more like this:/QUOTE]

In terms of giving equal weight to everyone's vote is concerned, the case for PR is indisputable. But these figures illustrate the argument made against it, that it would produce permanently hung parliaments. Of course, it could be argued that our politicians ought to learn how to work together to a certain extent ?

[Joseph K]

an eminence grise who understands the reality of public opinion and (however odious he may be to Momentum) knows how to get a new Leader into No 10.

Public opinion chimes with much of what was in the Labour manifesto, if you look at polls (which I have). As Burning Dog states, many people were/are misinformed about Corbyn, who has never supported the IRA, who is not 'soft' on Islamist Terrorism - it is the Tories who sell arms to Saudi Arabia, who helped turn Libya into a terrorist training ground (and which consequently came back to bite us in the form of the Manchester bomber).