Fun and games with ballot papers

[teamsaint]

It would be interesting to know what kind of uniform swing Labour would need next time to get a majority.

I can't find anything online , or even a list of what will be marginals next time.

edit: Here it is.

They would need about a 4.5 % swing.

http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/labour

Not impossible if they get their thing together, although there may be boundary changes etc ?

[Andy Freude]

What is interesting is that the rout in number of seats doesn't really reflect the performance in vote share,which though pretty modest , is better than the LP did in 83, 87, 2010 and 2015.

But vote share does depend on how well a third party is doing. It would need a pretty ruthless alliance of the "progressive" parties to defeat the Tories in terms of seats. And whereas Greens, Lib Dems and Plaid got together to achieve … not very much (Tories defeated in Richmond Park?), other seats were lost to the Tories because a paltry Labour vote was greater than the Tory majority. As Raphael Behr said in the Guardian "The Labour idea of an Alliance is for the Lib Dems to admit the folly of their existence" and unite behind Labour. In this election, the Tory tsunami was unstoppable, but that might not always be the case. At some point Labour has to stop thinking of the LDs as Tories and the Greens as irrelevant. Surely?

[MrGongGong]

At some point Labour has to stop thinking of the LDs as Tories and the Greens as irrelevant. Surely?

How about NOW ?
The vitriol spilled out towards the Lib Dems from Labour supporters in this election says much.
Hated more than JRM and chums

There are many Labour folks who will be more than pleased with this result, Skinner & Co for example
they will get the Brexit they have longed for

https://newsthump.com/2019/12/16/jer...kYHvRChEbJ2jN8

[Joseph K]

In the aftermath of this rout, too much attention, to my mind, is being paid to what might happen within Parliament. Surely, those mobilised by Momentum will not now restrict their political activity to parliamentary politics?

Yes indeed. I'm not a member of Momentum, though.

I take issue with people using words like 'Corbynism'. The word you're (not you Bryn) looking for is socialism.

And yes, it appears -silly of me to think that it wouldn't be this way anyway, perhaps- that the parliamentary path to socialism is impenetrable and, like I stated upthread, any left-wing MP in Labour who might like to run for leadership will now be guilty by association with Corbyn.

So now I'd imagine we'll get someone with Tory-lite ideas.

[teamsaint]

But vote share does depend on how well a third party is doing. It would need a pretty ruthless alliance of the "progressive" parties to defeat the Tories in terms of seats. And whereas Greens, Lib Dems and Plaid got together to achieve … not very much (Tories defeated in Richmond Park?), other seats were lost to the Tories because a paltry Labour vote was greater than the Tory majority. As Raphael Behr said in the Guardian "The Labour idea of an Alliance is for the Lib Dems to admit the folly of their existence" and unite behind Labour. In this election, the Tory tsunami was unstoppable, but that might not always be the case. At some point Labour has to stop thinking of the LDs as Tories and the Greens as irrelevant. Surely?

In principle, alliances might be a good idea. And I accept your point about the Labour view of the Lib Dems.

As I said previously, I can see the virtue of a strategic Labour/Green alliance. Green politics is going to move increasingly to the centre of the news agenda, and Labour might usefully use them as an engine for ideas , and offer in return their weight of resources and media profile in their key targets.

Going back to the new marginals, they are almost all Tory/Lab marginals, so it is the vote share in those seats that matters. A 4/5 % swing in those seats is surely not out of the question if they get their policies and leadership issues sorted out, which might also easily halt any further Lib Dem resurgence outside of those seats where the Lib Dems are challenging the tories next time ? And of course Labour could always come to an agreement with the LDs in those seats as well.

[teamsaint]

How about NOW ?
The vitriol spilled out towards the Lib Dems from Labour supporters in this election says much.
Hated more than JRM and chums

There are many Labour folks who will be more than pleased with this result, Skinner & Co for example
they will get the Brexit they have longed for

https://newsthump.com/2019/12/16/jer...kYHvRChEbJ2jN8

That vitriol was very much two way. The LDs played fast and loose with the two party system and failed to meet their own pre election expectations quite disastrously.

[MrGongGong]

As I said previously, I can see the virtue of a strategic Labour/Green alliance. Green politics is going to move increasingly to the centre of the news agenda, and Labour might usefully use them as an engine for ideas , and offer in return their weight of resources and media profile in their key targets.

I think that Labour's recent enthusiasm for environmentalism is a bit "see through".
The narrative of the Labour party, heroic working class toil in big industry, hardly fits with the need to change the way we use the resources of the planet and many of the young folks who lent their votes to Labour this time won't do so again in a hurry IMV

[Serial_Apologist]

The BBC in particular seem to be getting their knickers into a bit of a twist over defining what they or anybody else means about "identity". On the one hand the Tory victory was a reaction against "identity politics", ostensibly a preserve of the North London elite with whom Corbyn is forever tied, to which the "socially conservative" northern working classes are opposed, while on the other it's ALL about identity - no nonsense get-on-wi'-it northern grit. (Just a bit of Norman Smith-style exaggeration there). So then, the term is OK if applied to people the Tories once despised - as some now come close to admitting - some even at one stage claiming they no longer existed - but are now courting, but not OK according to how the BBC interprets northern working class perceptions when applied to e.g. women, muslims and LGBT people, namely ready targets for stereotyping and scapegoating? Ah well, all will sort itself out when Labour elects the new MP for Wigan as its new leader - she being northern, working class and of mixed race - because the BBC will then be able to recover its self-proclaimed Eva Nandydness...

[teamsaint]

I think that Labour's recent enthusiasm for environmentalism is a bit "see through".
The narrative of the Labour party, heroic working class toil in big industry, hardly fits with the need to change the way we use the resources of the planet and many of the young folks who lent their votes to Labour this time won't do so again in a hurry IMV

That was kind of my point. But there are doubtless many in the Labour Party with very sincere desire to promote environmental issues. The Green New Deal was a central plank of their manifesto, and I'm sure it resonated with many voters. It certainly did with me.

[Richard Barrett]

I think that Labour's recent enthusiasm for environmentalism is a bit "see through".

So what?

[MrGongGong]

So what?

It means that many of the young folks who are inspired by the need to tackle climate change and voted for Labour in the hope that this might do some good are less likely to do so again (IMV)

[Andy Freude]

The LDs played fast and loose with the two party system and failed to meet their own pre election expectations quite disastrously.

Not quite sure what 'playing fast and loose with the two-party system' means. We have essentially a system which favours the two big beasts, and it was clear that this election was going to be a contest between the two. Any third party will be faced with trying to defeat both of them. The Greens took on Labour in Stroud (where arguably they let the Tories win the seat), Exeter, Dulwich & W Norwood. Neither Greens nor Lib Dems met their pre election expectations - in fact the MRP projections were dead right: Greens would gain no extra seats and Lib Dems would get more votes but, net, would lose one seat. The 'expectation' was that the Lib Dems would gain more seats because their poll support had risen enough to suggest that. They and the pollsters should have known better under FPTP.

[Richard Barrett]

It means that many of the young folks who are inspired by the need to tackle climate change and voted for Labour in the hope that this might do some good are less likely to do so again (IMV)

Either the Labour party was right to embrace environmental concerns or it wasn't. You're obviously not saying it wasn't. So what are you saying? That it should have done so earlier? Many people and indeed pretty much all Corbyn supporters would agree with you there.

[teamsaint]

Not quite sure what 'playing fast and loose with the two-party system' means. We have essentially a system which favours the two big beasts, and it was clear that this election was going to be a contest between the two. Any third party will be faced with trying to defeat both of them. The Greens took on Labour in Stroud (where arguably they let the Tories win the seat), Exeter, Dulwich & W Norwood. Neither Greens nor Lib Dems met their pre election expectations - in fact the MRP projections were dead right: Greens would gain no extra seats and Lib Dems would get more votes but, net, would lose one seat. The 'expectation' was that the Lib Dems would gain more seats because their poll support had risen enough to suggest that. They and the pollsters should have known better under FPTP.

By "playing fast and loose," I was really just suggesting that they were over ambitious in a system that does them few favours. They went along with the Tory push for an early election, sensing an opportunity to damage Labour, but their senses were wrong. It was Labour they went after, principally I assume because their target seats were mostly tory held.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes indeed. I'm not a member of Momentum, though.

I take issue with people using words like 'Corbynism'. The word you're (not you Bryn) looking for is socialism.

And yes, it appears -silly of me to think that it wouldn't be this way anyway, perhaps- that the parliamentary path to socialism is impenetrable and, like I stated upthread, any left-wing MP in Labour who might like to run for leadership will now be guilty by association with Corbyn.

So now I'd imagine we'll get someone with Tory-lite ideas.

Back before the Momentum phenomenon, scepticism regarding the political viability of a parliamentary road to socialism was what distinguished the "far left" from the reformist left, now described as social democrats in the definitional flux - the argument being that any revolutionary upsurge necessary to overthrow capitalism would grow its own alternative versions of democracy - eg soviets, worker and community councils in the original sense of the term - these coiexisting with the existing organs of "bourgeois democracy" (parliament) in a form of "dual power", then sweeping the latter aside - not for aspiring dictatorial reasons on anyone's part but because the sluggish processes of parliamentary legislation would not keep up with changes going on outside and would end up being a hindrance to them. One of the main problems of the Marxist left in the 1960s and 1970s was the legitimacy of its ideas in the working class that was envisaged as the leading force (the vanguard) of change. Extra-parlimentary action was one thing in countries such as Russia with little history or experience of parliamentary democracy in 1917, but quite another in countries such as the UK in which a long history of competitive advantage on the world stage had enabled the development of democratic institutions and a state apparatus that could be compasionate within means as well as repressive. Lenin's call to use parliaments as a megaphone for socialism was already shown to have little public echo as early as the 1920s when a number of left-wing MPs got elected and used the institution to these ends. These institutions then became the final arbiter in the public mind in legitimising change, the place where it was all decided and carried out; to his credit, Trotsky, while no defender of "bourgeois democracy", spoke in later life of the need to recognise that struggles for change were more likely to succeed if they were based on defensive actions, ie actions defending some long-term gain, such as the right to vote or, in today's Britain, the NHS, than if seeking to overthrow institutions; one might go further (as I have to come to conclude) that the gains in themselves indicate a change in the character of the capitalist state that from a left wing perspective will always favour defending institutions once drubbed "bourgeois" and reforming them from within, as and when necessary. At the moment I don't see either Momentum's or Extinction Rebellion's grass roots successfully leading an autonomous movement to success, in these terms.