UK General Discussion: 2017 and onwards, Mayhem

[parochial boy]

I'd love to have Priti as the next Tory leader, but for very diffrent reasons than her right-wing fans.

Because having a thick Thatcherite in charge would basically hand the next election to Labour on a plate?

[parochial boy]

Ok, another thought, is no-one faintly horrified by the prospect of the UK government relying on the support of the DUP in the midst of an ongoing constitutional crisis? The potential implications of this are huge.

[parochial boy]

This is absolutely sick, people at the landlord should be going to prison do the rest of their lives. It's also emblematic of where the housing crisis in London stands today - political decisions have helped cause this. Something needs to change

[parochial boy]

He's Mayor of London, rightly or wrongly voters might blame him too.

Housing is a matter for the borough councils, not the Mayor.

I hope enough people knows the difference.

The electoral calendar helps. London borough councils are up next year, Khan in 2020.

I'm ashamed to admit the local government dynamics in England is very confusing to me.

It's simple, surely?

There are some counties that have elected councils, and then elected local authorities underneath them

Some counties don't have an elected administration, but have unitary authorities making them up.

Some counties, like Hampshire, are a mix of both, with a county council that doesn't actually cover the whole county, and some unitary authorities

London has a mayor and an assembly, but also boroughs underneath it.

And then there are this city region things.

And who the actual  thought this mess was a good idea?

[parochial boy]

No-one going to mention that the Tory-DUP deal basically amounts to a giant bung for Northern Ireland?

Pork barrel politics at its most blatant.

[parochial boy]

Calling NuLab centre-left in the context of the 1990s is kind of a sop to cultural relativism though isn't it? Just because absolutely everyobody was totally convinced by the unshakeable superiority of free market economics, doesn't mean that signing up to a slightly softer version of it makes you left wing.

Blair did of course very deliberately move Labour towards the centre both in terms of actual policy:abandoning ideals such as nationalised rail (the whole saga with network rail nonwithstanding), openness towards privatisation (he wanted to sell of the Royal Mail), laissez-faire banking regulations, repackaging the dole as a conditional "jobseekers allowance" and so on. But he also moved them to the right/centre in terms of spirit or whatever you want to call it, with abandoning Clause IV and all that.

So yeah, that Labour government may have been left leaning in the context of the 90s, but they were still definitely on the right of Wilson or Attlee.

[parochial boy]

To elaborate a bit on my last post, the problem with Blair isnt just that he didnt renatioanlise anything (and its not just trains, compare Thames Water to the water you get anywhere else in europe and its hysterical, you would think it would be hard to mess up the stuff that comes out of taps, but there you go).

The problem with Blair is that he still signed up to the ideology that markets and competition are the best way of organising things.not just in a deregulate and prvatise sort of way, but in thr way public services were organised. Which is why for instance you have school league tables and a country which thinks it is acceptable to give standardised testing to 7 year olds.

That and, whether with the intent of redistributing or not, he still signed up to ideas about "flexible labour" and the idea that the London based financial sector could make up for the chronic neglect in the rest of the country (exceptin the odd feel good project to the North East).

[parochial boy]

What people forget is that, taken together, Labour voters are the section of the electorate least interested in Brexit.

This, and in addition, Brexit is a bed that the Tories made by themselves and that the Tories get to lie in. If Theresa May and co also want to set that bed on fire, then it is entirely not Labour's problem.

[parochial boy]

I loved Laura Pidcock before finding out that she voted for a £42m worth of cuts in her time on Northumberland county council. And no, nothing about her comments on Tories are in any way objectionable.

I've always found it a little unfair to blame Labour councils for cutting spending over the last 7 years - given it was a direct result of being starved of funds by the Tory government (and for some reason, the funds that Labour councils were getting cut by a lot more more than Tory councils)

[parochial boy]

OK, I've got to ask, What exactly has David Davis done to give the impression that he would somehow be capable of running the country?

[parochial boy]

I mean, if Labour are to win bac Nuneaton and Dover, it is not going to be by having a nice, centrist leader like Chuka Umunna. The state that Britain is in is definitely not one that calls for "moderate" social liberalism.

[parochial boy]

true, but that's more cause of Chuka in particular. I could certainly imagine a "moderate" leader winning a majority, just as much a a Corbynite; but that moderate wouldn't be Chuka Ummuna or Tristram Hunt, RIP, or whatever.

Yeah, Chuka was exactly the sort of example of the kind of person who would be a terrible fit for the current politial climate.

But I do feel there is a case to be made that being centrist/moderate is almost something of a vote loser in the current political climate - if you have a big segment of the population for whom nationalist rhetoric appeals; and a big (often overlapping) number of people who are open to a radical eonomic agenda (see polling numbers on nationalisation or whatever), I don't think the current climate is particularly conducive to "moderates" (as opposed to centrists) whatever their personality is.

One thing that both the Brexit referendum and the 2017 GE seem to have shown is that the truism that elections are won from the centre, and the only way to win is by winning over Tory voters, is patently false. The results in both 2016 and 2017 were a lot to do with large numbers of normal non-voters turning out, and in particular the kind of non-voter who wouldn't bother with the normal kind of politician who sticks firmly inside the overton window.

[parochial boy]

In the context of 2017, I don't think that a Tom Watson or similar would have been ny more successful than Corbyn. He certainly wouldn't have been able to mobilise the same electorate.

As for whether it would be possible for someone like Watson or whoever  to win, that is more or less what I was getting at as the difference between Centrist and Moderate; but I don't think anyone closely associated with the Labour elite would have gone far in 2017.

Ultimately though, it's about selling a story more than specific policies, so yeah, the actual position on the spectrum doesn't matter - but there is still an appetite for the kind of radicalism, at least in rhetoric, and in either direction , that would have been toxic in the recent past

[parochial boy]

Also, neither Watson nor Healey are exactly Progress types - so touting them as moderates already says something about where the party has moved

[parochial boy]

Some typical British upper-class antisemitism right here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/prince-charles-blames-jews-middle-east-turmoil-1986-letter-a8050586.html.

Meanwhile, there's this.

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/local/localbrad/15652178.Fresh_anti_Semitism_row_as_Labour_shortlists_woman_who_faced_criticism_for_posts_about_Jews/

Labour is an institutionally anti-semitic party.

It's last leader was Jewish - and was the victim of a hell load of dog-whistling from the right wing press

[parochial boy]

Bear in mind varyingly that

1. Most people don't pay attention outside of election season and probably are unaware or don't care about the details of BoJo's mishaps or May's hillarious fail of a reshuffle

2. May probably can't go before Brexit

3. The next GE probably can't be before Brexit

4. Brexit will be a disaster in any case and there will be a lot of furious Brexit and remainer Tories hanging around (and we already know Brexit Labour supporters were largely happy to stay with Corbyn Labour)

5. The British economy will be weaker, and this will hurt the public's confidence in the Tory's economic management

It seems like the context of the next GE will be hugely beneficial to Labour, regardless of who is in charge of the Conservatives at that point

[parochial boy]

In April, Corbyn polled poorly in Labour voters' approval, sometimes even net negative, while Theresa May led in overall net approval by over 50 points. So I'd trust no indicator over a horizon of more than three months.

That change happened because of the major disrupting factor of the General Election. There aren't really any significant events on the horizon that could even have such an impact. Arguably the ongoing Brexit negotiations, but we already know that the general public aren't interested or concerned enough about these for them to have much on an impact on anybody's view of anybody.

Another GE could pop up: but knowing what we know about Corbyn and May's respective abilities at campaigning, I don't see why either of those would have a major impact.

What happened last year happened precisely because May and Corbyn were both largely unknowns for the General Public (as in, the impression that the public had been through the prism of media reporting, and people hadn't been in a position where they had had an opportunity to judge either May or Corbyn on their actions). Whereas now; Corbyn, May and Bojo are all now well known figures, and people generally know what they are about.

Arguably, a David Davis or Jacob Rees Mogg are both more of an unknown factor, but, I would tend to say that both would only sink in terms of public approval. When May became PM, people who followed politics already knew of her track record of incompetence and general weakness, David Davis is that taken to the extreme.

[parochial boy]

The 2017 Locals were before May was finally exposed as the Empress with no clothes though... and even then, whilst the Labour result was bad, it was a lot less bad than the national polls at the time were predicting in the general. I remember thinking at the time that, even allowing for the differences between local and national elections, the result showed that the Tory position was far less unassailable than many people assumed.

I guess I just don't believe voters only ever change their mind once, so May and Tories might become popular again, and whisper it, hero V.I. Corbyn might not win? I am old enough to remember pro-husky pro-sweatshirt hero David Cameron, rubbish at campaigning anti-Greggs Cameron, surprise majority pro-bacon anti-Salmon tactical wizard Cameron, and Brexit loser Cameron.

Who exactly is disputing the above? It seems like it's you and Miles who have came closer in surety of the next GE outcome, because HE SHOULD BE LEADING BY MILES apparently because muh liberalism and of course your time-served knowledge stretches back a whole ten years.

First, the Conservatives are too competent

Wait? Why would you think that? You can say alot about Theresa May, but competent isn't really a vibe she has ever given off. Neither have David Davis, BoJo and friends

[parochial boy]

There's a certain irony in it being the Sun who are printing an article like this

[parochial boy]

Corbyn did lose by 55 seats against Theresa May of all people, which is the usual trigger for reconsidering party leadership in the UK. But, trust me, all the rest of us outside Labour are happy for your guy to keep "winning" as well as he did in 2017.

Yeah it's not like he closed a massive gap in six weeks or anything, and it's not like the Tories are going to not by dealing with the consequences of Brexit in the next year or so. Everything is nice and dandy for the Tories, right? 

I am being serious. I hope the Labour Party wins every election as well as it won 2017. And the Tories certainly hope they keep losing like in 2017 forever if it means they stay in Downing Street forever.

But there we are, that certainty of yours that I pointed out.

In the last few months, it has become clear that the anti-Brexit forces in Parliament will fail, and then the pro-Corbyn ironic Europhile Londoners will fall back. It has also become clear your guy has learned nothing. He is still pushing puerile anti-American and anti-Israeli causes, to the point of disingenuity when people are being killed in his country (but maybe that was the CIA). He just commiserated upon the obliteration of graffiti featuring, I kid you not, an international conspiracy of rich men with big noses (link to coverage by vile capitalist kulakite rootless-cosmopolitans in the Guardian).

Don't, uh, fall into the trap of thinking that Corbyn's overperformance in 2017 was purely down to London/Brexit/whatever. That's not entirely what happened (certainly doesn't explain the huge swings in places like Worthing or Cornwall. I mean, even Fareham swung towards Labour last year, middle class Brexiteers of all people shouldn't have been swinging left in 2017. Or the consistent polling showing that Labour voters are much less concerned about Brexit than supporters of the other parties).

Tbh, it's very hard to predict what post-Brexit is going to look like seeing as we don't even know how much time the Tories are going to spend kicking the actual leave date further and further down the road.

[parochial boy]

Labour's problem

Definitely Labour's problem

[parochial boy]

Labour's problem

Definitely Labour's problem

Of course not Labour's problem, but why get vicarious hurt feelings when the vast majority of the Labour P.P. also recognises this as a problem? The cause of vicariously supporting other country's ideological leaders is a fun one, but not one ultimately worth defending anti-Semitic art for.

If there is a difference, I suppose it is that the Leader of the UK Labour Party supported a mural depicting an international conspiracy of big-nosed men with stacks of money propped up on the backs of humanity, rather than standing beside a man who did a Nazi salute. If the leader of the Conservative Party also supported anti-Semitic art, the Conservatives would also be widely perceived as having a problem, I think.

See, I actually do think that there are issues with antisemitism within the Labour party that it needs to address. What frustrates me is that the UK media seem to have only just discovered that anti-semitism is a problem since Corbyn became leader of the Labour party; and this is even after 5 years of not too subtle dog whistling about Ed Milliband.

As David pointed out earlier, there is a nasty level of anti-semitism that exists within the British middle class across the political spectrum; but it has seemingly only become relevant as a stick to beat the Labour party with (which in turns fuels more paranoia and resentment of the media among Corbyn supporters, and so on a so forth in a continuous cycle).

[parochial boy]

Brexit will be reversed and Chukka Umuna will come back from the dead to lead Very New Labour to a stunning 12 point landslide in 2021

Ok, maybe not, but I reckon narrative and appearance is much more important than ideological triangulation in terms of winning elections, a fact that seems to pass some people by sometimes

[parochial boy]

The one take away from everything to happen since 2015 is that politics in Britain is deeply divided. Just look at the Scottish indie referendum, which has managed to virtually flip decade old voting patterns.

The same with Brexit\Corbyn. No leader/party is popular within British politics; 45% of the electorate hate it, the other 45% will love it and then 10% won’t care.

It’s why assertations that higher borrowing or other corbynite polices are unpopular are questionable; all the polling shows that Labour voters e.g now 40% of the electorate support it.

Heck Corbyn said that are foreign policy causes terrorism: a position that made Westminster shriek, but one which what 40% of the public agree with.

Divided yes, but if 2014-17 has shown us anything, it's also that the electorate is increasingly volatile. More or less the only thing a substantial majority of people agree on is that they are intensely dissatisfied with politics as is, which means they are increasingly willing to vote for riskier options than has historically been the case.

I mean, between them, probably 80%of the population votef for the "radical" option in either Brexit or Corbyn (which is a simplistic analysis, but underlines the general point)

[parochial boy]

Janan Ganesh has set out the most compelling argument for why a centrist party could be successful so far: https://www.ft.com/content/29587d86-414f-11e8-803a-295c97e6fd0b?emailId=5ad546be0c0c9100040063a6&segmentId=2f40f9e8-c8d5-af4c-ecdd-78ad0b93926b (Paywall)

Some great writing as usual:

"The unavailability of such leader is one of British centrism’s besetting curses, but there is an even more obvious problem. Nothing has happened yet. The hard but crucial thing to remember about the great age of populism, the historic rout of the centre, globalisation’s writhing ordeal, is that almost all of it is prospective. It amounts to a series of electoral shocks that have not had time to work much tangible effect on the governance of nations, and therefore on people’s lives."

As ever, Anthony Well's blog probably has the most sensible perspective on this. As much as the "it's all hypothetical, we don't know how people will react" angle, it is worth remembering that while alot of people call themselves "centrist", this tends not to be the liberal-third-wayish type centrism that such it is anticipated that such parties would be.