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UK Politics: Who Pays the Andyman?


Tywin Manderly

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I heard a quick analysis this morning by a CBC reporter based in the UK, and she was saying the areas that traditionally voted Labour had voted for Brexit in the referendum and people were sick and tired and angry about the fact that 3 1/2 years later it was still up in the air. The Tory message of ‘get Brexit done’ is what moved them to vote Tory for the first time.

Also, I gather the Tory party had a very good campaign manager, who really kept BJ under control and both kept him out of situations where he could step in crap, like certain debates and interviews, and used gimmickry to make him appealing, like delivering milk, driving a bulldozer and baking pies (‘A Brexit deal is a pie I have in the oven already’). Looks like it worked very well.

And as for Scotland, the immediate reaction was no way will Westminster give permission to hold a referendum. I guess it’s more complicated and subtle than that, but time will tell.

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After 3.5 years of political chaos, it is no surprise that the message of Get Brexit Done was a winner for people who voted Brexit.  When the opposition party was instead promising more dickering and uncertainty, it is even worse.  This was a horribly run campaign for Labour and to a lesser extent the LD.

That said, my condolences to the British posters out there.  I hope the UK still has a functioning health care system in ten years.  Don't know how optimistic I am about that. 

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I think what Labour are missing is clarity, and they have been for a long time. The Conservatives always, always drive the narrative of general elections and leave Labour fumbling an answer. Tories drove home ‘the debt we inherited’ in 2010, and Milliband didn’t have a coherent response. Now they’ve driven ‘get Brexit done’ home successfully, and Labours primary problem I think, wasn’t that it was too long a plan or fell one way or the other, it was simply not catchy. It took too many words to explain.

Swing voters, it appears, think not in paragraphs, or sentences, or bullet points. Just words. Five words is two words too long. The Tories understand this, latch onto the most simplistic message imaginable and Stay. On. Point. Constantly. As an analyst said on the radio yesterday, keep repeating your phrase until the thought of saying it again makes you want to throw up, and then maybe, it might be getting through to people.

I hate the Tories, but there’s no denying they know how to win an election.

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1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Why?  Any particular reason?

Because the Tories said that we should hate Corbyn. I might take some flack for this, but I don’t think there’s been a party leader in my lifetime who cares about the British people as much as Corbyn. In fact, if you think Boris Johnson cares more, I have nothing constructive to say other than that you’re a fucking idiot. Mormont has a point that he’s not a great leader, but there’s really nothing about him that anyone should find detestable, that level of passion comes from the Tories constantly calling him ‘dangerous’. It never comes with any further details about what these dangers are, and it’s been absorbed by the public that, regardless of how you feel, voting Labour would be a risk.

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A big problem for Labour was that there was no position they could take on the EU that would not cost them votes.  They either had to shed Labour Leave voters to the Conservatives and Brexit Party, or Labour Remain voters to the Lib Dems and Greens.

Someone as gifted at politics as Tony Blair might have pulled it off, but only someone like him,

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30 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I think what Labour are missing is clarity, and they have been for a long time. The Conservatives always, always drive the narrative of general elections and leave Labour fumbling an answer. Tories drove home ‘the debt we inherited’ in 2010, and Milliband didn’t have a coherent response. Now they’ve driven ‘get Brexit done’ home successfully, and Labours primary problem I think, wasn’t that it was too long a plan or fell one way or the other, it was simply not catchy. It took too many words to explain.

Swing voters, it appears, think not in paragraphs, or sentences, or bullet points. Just words. Five words is two words too long. The Tories understand this, latch onto the most simplistic message imaginable and Stay. On. Point. Constantly. As an analyst said on the radio yesterday, keep repeating your phrase until the thought of saying it again makes you want to throw up, and then maybe, it might be getting through to people.

I hate the Tories, but there’s no denying they know how to win an election.

To be fair to Corbyn, he had a plan for this and he tried. There was the 'for the many, not the few' message that didn't really get any traction, but he abandoned that for the constant hammering about 'our NHS is not for sale'. Labour's problem wasn't the message, it was the messenger. Poll after poll suggested that swing voters didn't like Corbyn. In 2017 many of them were willing to give him a chance. In 2019 they had decided they didn't like what they saw. Which brings me to:

22 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Because the Tories said that we should hate Corbyn. I might take some flack for this, but I don’t think there’s been a party leader in my lifetime who cares about the British people as much as Corbyn. In fact, if you think Boris Johnson cares more, I have nothing constructive to say other than that you’re a fucking idiot. Mormont has a point that he’s not a great leader, but there’s really nothing about him that anyone should find detestable, that level of passion comes from the Tories constantly calling him ‘dangerous’. It never comes with any further details about what these dangers are, and it’s been absorbed by the public that, regardless of how you feel, voting Labour would be a risk.

I disagree with this. Corbyn cares, but he comes across as caring in a very paternalistic way, and that's a real hazard for left-wing politicians in general: the 'killjoy' label, if you like. He comes over as very serious, even humourless. He's also given the impression over a long period of being slow or unwilling to respond to concerns about his leadership, to reach out to others in his own party let alone swing voters, and to be flexible. On Brexit specifically, he could never escape the impression that he wasn't being open about his opinions and that he was always having to be pushed into talking about it. In sum, he had a huge PR problem and he didn't do anything about it. The Tories always do the 'Labour are dangerous' line. It's not as if that was hard to foresee. How effective it is, depends on the Labour leader and how they tackle it. 

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Quote

 

Citizens of the UK are tired of Brexit, and BJ offered them an end date, albeit one that was a form of self-mutilation. Corbyn, OTOH, offered them something that could takes years, maybe even a decade, to resolve.

 

The truth was the reverse. Corbyn's deal would have essentially been May's deal but with a customs deal and regulatory alignment, which would keep us under the extended EU umbrella for the foreseeable future. The EU would accept that with alacrity, because it's more in their interests and would have made it a lot easier to negotiate deals as we'd almost have been a +1 to the EU. Johnson's plan requires us to negotiate 170-ish trade deals with other countries simultaneously, including with multiple countries (Japan, South Korea and the US to start with) who've already said they're going to make us sweat for a better deal than they could get from the EU, as we have very little leverage in comparison.

Of course, Labour didn't even try to push back on that bullshit, so there we go.

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36 minutes ago, mormont said:

I disagree with this. Corbyn cares, but he comes across as caring in a very paternalistic way, and that's a real hazard for left-wing politicians in general: the 'killjoy' label, if you like. He comes over as very serious, even humourless. He's also given the impression over a long period of being slow or unwilling to respond to concerns about his leadership, to reach out to others in his own party let alone swing voters, and to be flexible. On Brexit specifically, he could never escape the impression that he wasn't being open about his opinions and that he was always having to be pushed into talking about it. In sum, he had a huge PR problem and he didn't do anything about it. The Tories always do the 'Labour are dangerous' line. It's not as if that was hard to foresee. How effective it is, depends on the Labour leader and how they tackle it. 

Isn't that one of the common Corbyn criticisms (I think Grieve once said something to that extent), that he [Corbyn] is essentially holding the same speeches he held 15 years ago, and is basically just preaching to the choir and is not really bothered with reaching out/convincing other people?

From the outside this looks to be at least based somewhat in an observable reality. That Corbyn simply assumes to know what's right, and thus he will just keep on going and not listen to non-believers. It would at least partly explain how on earth he thought there was a happy ending to be had with his approach.

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13 minutes ago, argonak said:

Ouch.  so like when the GOP won all three branches in the 2016 election.

Probably worse than that, at least for citizens in the UK (the wider world won't suffer as much).  The US has midterm elections every 2 years and that means there's a very limited window to get stuff accomplished (made even shorter by the campaign season before November).  In the UK, if Johnson and parliament don't choose to call an election, they won't have to face the voters for 5 years. 

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11 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Looking at the electoral map is depressing as shit.  The whole country is blue (obviously except for Tyne and Wear which is the only place that is totally red because my people are awesome).

 

 

Even when the Conservatives lose, most of the map looks blue.  But, the changes in Durham were a real eye-opener.

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So, who are the obvious and not so obvious candidates for the Labour leadership? In the obvious category, I'll put Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper. Not sure who the Corbynite candidate would be, McDonnell seems to me to be both too old and too closely linked to him, and Long-Bailey is too young and inexperienced.

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4 hours ago, Maltaran said:

If you lose but show improvement on last time you might stay on (Corbyn in 2017, Kinnock in 1987), but this kind of disaster means he has to go sooner rather than later.

Sorry I should have added in if you fail to make significant gains too as in 2017 Corbyn did improve and I didn’t hear any calls for him to resign then, saying that though Howard gained 30 ish seats in 2005 but still stepped down, although overall it does seem the Tories are more likely to get rid of their leader than Labour.

I think everyone agrees in this instance Corbyn has to step down though.

4 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Just listened to him speak and seems this is more or less what he will do. Stated he will not lead the party in any future GE but will remain leader for now while the party holds discussions on future policy etc. So i imagine he will be gone soon

That’s fair and a pretty standard approach in this situation, it will be interesting to see who they choose.

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Personally I heard Corbyn as saying that he is intending to stay on long enough to set the direction in which Labour will go next, and to choose and anoint a successor.

This is of course absolutely not the norm. By normal standards, he should have resigned already, and be walking away now.

 

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Not really on the topic of the election, but I’ve been meaning to look this up for a while and finally remembered: had the Brexit referendum used the FPTP system, Leave would’ve won 270 to 129. Not that there’d be any reason to, but it’s an interesting look at how skewed it makes things, considering it was famously close. It might almost have been a mercy, it would’ve given the illusion that there was no appetite for remaining at all and we might have reached the same conclusion a bit sooner. The cry of ‘but the popular vote...’ would be dismissed, just as it was by Emily Maitliss earlier when a Lib Dem pointed out they got more votes than last time. 

Are we stuck in a catch 22 with this, FPTP will never return a government that would eliminate FPTP?

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2 hours ago, A wilding said:

Personally I heard Corbyn as saying that he is intending to stay on long enough to set the direction in which Labour will go next, and to choose and anoint a successor.

This is of course absolutely not the norm. By normal standards, he should have resigned already, and be walking away now.

 

If that isn’t the norm after a defeat why is Labour allowing him to do this?

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