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General Erection 2019


Gus Mears

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2 minutes ago, quote the raven said:

Don’t under estimate the British public sticking two fingers up to May. The way she called the election thinking she would wipe labour away and the almost contempt she treated the country with when she refused to debate in any form. 

Labour lost this on two issues Brexit and Corbyn. Both of which won’t be an issue in 5 years time  

Brexit, Corbyn and the manifesto.....

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3 minutes ago, quote the raven said:

Don’t under estimate the British public sticking two fingers up to May. The way she called the election thinking she would wipe labour away and the almost contempt she treated the country with when she refused to debate in any form. 

Labour lost this on two issues Brexit and Corbyn. Both of which won’t be an issue in 5 years time  

And May's Social Care policy cost her. Which absolutely baffled me as I actually agreed with it. 

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1 minute ago, quote the raven said:

Don’t under estimate the British public sticking two fingers up to May. The way she called the election thinking she would wipe labour away and the almost contempt she treated the country with when she refused to debate in any form. 

Unlike Johnson, who interviewed and debated at every turn. One of the big differences for me was how favourable the press were to Johnson compared to May. I’m sure that had an effect, not an election winning effect but it added. 

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19 minutes ago, MPDTT said:

knife crime will be key.

It won't be key for 65 year old plus white people, it isn't them who are getting stabbed. 

What will affect them is if they have to pay for social care. My uncle has just passed away, he has spent the last 6 months in a care home since his wife died. His daughter looked at a lovely care home for him that was 5 minutes from her house, it would have been perfect. They were told by the owners that unless she had as a minimum £100k in the bank that they wouldn't take him. She didn't have the money so they had to find him another one. They finally got him into 1 an hour away from where she lived. I know that this isn't common practice from care homes, but it is heading that way. When it is all those 65+ tories might change their views. 

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@MPDTT What do you know about Rebecca Long-Bailey that makes you so sure she'd be an awful leader? From what I've seen of her, she's competent and highly likeable, she performed well covering at PMQs and on one of the debates during the campaign. She's female(Labour need a female leader soon), Northern and from a "working class" background. She started her working life in a pawn shop before getting herself a law degree, working as a solicitor and ending up as an MP for her local constituency. She embodies opportunity, aspiration and meritocratic values,  everything the Leader of the Labour Party should. 

While I believe the two main factors in Labour's defeat was Brexit and the media's treatment of Corbyn (I full accept he didn't help himself with either of those), it's idealistic to suggest there weren't issues with their manifesto, they can claim they won the policy argument all they like but it was simply too much, too soon. Whether it's fair or not Labour are seen, my many, to be an economic basketcase and the party of shirkers and giveaways. Policies such as increased spending in education and health and nationalisation of key public services are absolutely popular but you raise eyebrows when you start talking about a 4 day week, free broadband for all and seizing 10% of companies for employee ownership. These might be progressive policies that make sense but it was unbelievably naive to think they wouldn't be pounced on by the media and the Tories. Get in to Government, prove your economic competence and keep your more radical stuff for the next election. This country will never be up for revolution, so evolution is all that's left. Labour undoubtedly need to take a more pragmatic approach to the next election but in no terms does that mean there should be a paradigm shift to the centre.

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6 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

It won't be key for 65 year old plus white people, it isn't them who are getting stabbed. 

For an awful lot of people not getting stabbed, knife crime is an obsessive concern, because it allows them license to demonise the young black and immigrant youths they imagine are solely responsible for it, and it allows them to paint London under Sadiq Khan as a '70s New York style lawless hell hole (when it's not also a haven of latte drinking champagne socialists, obvs). 

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Just now, BomberPat said:

For an awful lot of people not getting stabbed, knife crime is an obsessive concern, because it allows them license to demonise the young black and immigrant youths they imagine are solely responsible for it, and it allows them to paint London under Sadiq Khan as a '70s New York style lawless hell hole (when it's not also a haven of latte drinking champagne socialists, obvs). 

Whenever there are stabbings or terrorist incidents here, you never hear it being “Andy Burnhams Manchester”. No idea why Khan gets the blame, no idea at all. 

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5 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Because he’s a Muslim Keith. I thought you were smart enough to get that.

Is he? I thought Khan was but didn’t know Burnham was. The clue is in the name isn’t it, burn ham, as in I despise porcine foodstuffs. 

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21 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

For an awful lot of people not getting stabbed, knife crime is an obsessive concern, because it allows them license to demonise the young black and immigrant youths they imagine are solely responsible for it, and it allows them to paint London under Sadiq Khan as a '70s New York style lawless hell hole (when it's not also a haven of latte drinking champagne socialists, obvs). 

I think this is also behind a lot of references to Corbyn's Labour being 'London-centric'. While there are certainly issues around the UK being London-centric, it surprised me as a complaint about Corbyn's Labour - until I realised that some of it was likely tied into the high profile of people like Diane Abbott, Sadiq Khan and David Lammy. But it's the kind of messaging that can fly under the radar, as so much of politics have been London-centric over the years.

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I think there's a lot behind the "London-centric" criticism - some of it is valid, some of it is perception, particularly when in an area where an awful lot of people don't feel that the Labour Party stand up for them enough. But, yes, a lot of it is a bit of a byword for ethnics, Jews and gays. 

As I mentioned before, there's a lot of people saying that Labour got too fixated on "diversity" - the "Blue Labour" group in particular - and I really want someone to hold them to account and say, "what exactly do you mean by diversity?", and then for them explain why that's a bad thing.

 

There's also a conversation that's honestly too broad-reaching for much of how our politics functions, that needs to be had, about the language we use and what it means. When we talk about Labour losing working class support - are the voters of Bethnal Green not working class? Are the young people, the second-generation immigrants, and the black and asian people statistically far more likely to fall into the lowest income brackets not working class? 

Along similar lines, talking up areas of the north as "Labour heartlands" is meaningless if we can't define what Labour means to them. It was frustrating - and again, I would argue London-centric - to hear so many key seats referred to as "former mining towns". In some of these towns we're three generations away from when the mines were closed. There are people of voting age who have never seen a working mine. We shouldn't be taking their support for granted for something that happened a literal lifetime ago for some people. We shouldn't be talking about "former mining towns" so much as about current towns propped up by zero hour contracts, warehouse work and call centre shift jobs. 

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37 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Is he? I thought Khan was but didn’t know Burnham was. The clue is in the name isn’t it, burn ham, as in I despise porcine foodstuffs. 

I remember when I got quote tweeted by Tommeh and the replies were all just “Bacon! 😂 but Muslims hate bacon!!! 😂😂😂” 

More gentle times.

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1 hour ago, stumobir said:

While I believe the two main factors in Labour's defeat was Brexit and the media's treatment of Corbyn (I full accept he didn't help himself with either of those), it's idealistic to suggest there weren't issues with their manifesto, they can claim they won the policy argument all they like but it was simply too much, too soon. Whether it's fair or not Labour are seen, my many, to be an economic basketcase and the party of shirkers and giveaways. Policies such as increased spending in education and health and nationalisation of key public services are absolutely popular but you raise eyebrows when you start talking about a 4 day week, free broadband for all and seizing 10% of companies for employee ownership. These might be progressive policies that make sense but it was unbelievably naive to think they wouldn't be pounced on by the media and the Tories. Get in to Government, prove your economic competence and keep your more radical stuff for the next election. This country will never be up for revolution, so evolution is all that's left. Labour undoubtedly need to take a more pragmatic approach to the next election but in no terms does that mean there should be a paradigm shift to the centre.

This was it, for me. They went way too far - not that it was unachievable, but it was asking too much of the electorate - still nowhere near enough had been done to challenge the narrative that the Tories are better at managing the economy and Labour are profligate. They should've just kept the 2017 manifesto, and really had a go at challenging the Tories on their economy record, which isn't difficult to do, if you actually do the research. Most of their claims are just lying through omission, cherry-picking, misleading figures, or goalpost-shifting.

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6 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

This was it, for me. They went way too far - not that it was unachievable, but it was asking too much of the electorate - still nowhere near enough had been done to challenge the narrative that the Tories are better at managing the economy and Labour are profligate. They should've just kept the 2017 manifesto, and really had a go at challenging the Tories on their economy record, which isn't difficult to do, if you actually do the research. Most of their claims are just lying through omission, cherry-picking, misleading figures, or goalpost-shifting.

I've been talking about this on twitter (at far too much length), but I think the biggest issue they had around this was their timing. It needed time to settle, and for people to believe that it was achievable. Instead, it all felt rather last-minute, and asking too much in too short a time. The same with Corbyn's 'honest broker' status. While it was all good stuff, it needed a good six months of them talking about it for it to sink in and feel like their position. Instead, while it didn't contradict their position, it did all feel a bit sudden.

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Agreed, the suddenness of a lot of it was definitely an issue, it reinforced the amateur narrative and made them look to be a tad desperate. There was a hint of Partridge around the free broadband for all policy. “Monkey Tennis!”

I was thinking about the similarities and differences between Corbyn and Sanders, who also gets his fair share of it from the press. The similarities in their ideology and grassroots base is obvious but what I find interesting is the difference in their approach to a hostile media. Sanders gives as good as he gets and doesn’t pull his punches, Corbyn on the other is placate, placate and placate - completely futile, of course. How often do you hear the parroted line “terrorist sympathiser” but more importantly how often does it go unchallenged? I can’t once remember him addressing this and calling it out to bullshit. If you won’t, at least, defend yourself then you’re all but saying it’s free rein. 

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