UK Politics Omnishambles: Page 119 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

UK Politics Omnishambles

goon

Has to be one of the most unusual elections. Very hard to analyse.

The Labour campaign strategy just about paid off, but they definitely can’t afford to just court the economically conservative seats, otherwise they may start losing in more in areas they’ve taken for granted. Wes Steeeting hung on by his fingernails which is pretty incredible for a prominent cabinet minister on the winning side of a landslide victory.

Greens actually won as many seats as Reform, which is pretty incredible too. With some very respectable majorities.

JazzG

Not often I agree with Alastair Campbell but he is right here. Labour have got a mandate to make massive change, they need to be bold now because when you scratch beneath the surface the results are not as strong as the majority suggests.

JazzG

Another interesting thing is Labour have had a few issues in some areas with pro Palestine candidates, I think a few have won seats as well. Wes Streeting just sneaked through as well. I think some areas with large Muslim populations who feel very strongly on the issue and that Labour are not listening to their concerns. On the flipside you'd hope there can be an end to the fighting in Gaza and I think in 5 years time this probably won't be as much of an election issue.

Also reckon Starmer will be annoyed Corbyn won his seat, not unexpected because he has always been locally very popular. Probably was hoping to see him gone lol.

Wow

RocktheCasbah

Burnwinter I'm not saying he wasn't right about stuff, but there's no point in being right if people don't listen to you.

I work for Citizens Advice - not sure if I've said this before - and everyone who knew anything about politics and policy making in our organisation was in despair when he got elected. It's great that he appealed to so many young people but overall people found him to be utterly toxic. And he was leading Labour down a very dark path.

Qwiss

RocktheCasbah And he was leading Labour down a very dark path.

What does that mean?

RocktheCasbah

Qwiss well, it basically means he was making Labour unelectable. As evidenced by the scale of the 2019 defeat.

I totally understand that this election is more a repudiation of the Tories than a ringing endorsement of Labour, but it's only thanks to Starmer's work that Labour have been in a position to take advantage of the Tories implosion.

People were talking ten years of Johnson after the last election, Labour seemed essentially unelectable, that was down to Corbyn. Obviously, the desire to "Get Brexit done" also played into it, but there was an almost wholesale rejection of Corbyn by voters. Even staunch Labour people I know and love talked of "holding your nose" before voting.

Burnwinter

RocktheCasbah it's only thanks to Starmer's work that Labour have been in a position to take advantage of the Tories implosion.

Labour achieved its biggest swing since WWII in 2017 when Corbyn had already been leader for over a year, so one can't credit he was always electoral poison.

I'd agree Corbyn was unelectable by 2019, though I can't imagine other leaders having done much better, given Labour couldn't then take a clear line on Brexit that would satisfy its split constituency. You rarely see specific Corbyn policies or incidents used to justify the claim he was especially unelectable.

Starmer's approach can probably be credited with sweeping a diverse range of seats despite a lukewarm vote.

Mirth

Watching this prick get booted out and having a breakdown was my most satisfying result of the night. JRM, Liz Truss and the rest were rabble but this guy has been an arsehole across every Tory Prime Ministers reign.

goon

So under PR a theoretical centre left-left coalition would have had about 53%, a centre-right/right coalition would be on 38-39%. It is highly unlikely a single party would ever get close to 50% on their own.

Under FPTP, Labour have a huge majority on their own, with two centre-left parties making up 75% of parliament and imo, a much more decisive government.

I personally don't get the clamour for PR. Feels like you'd be favouring a 'more democratic' system for a bunch of negative consequences. The last 'pure' democratic exercise we had here resulted in one of the biggest acts of self harm we've had.

invisibleman18

PR is what we have had in NZ since 1996 (previously FPTP but a referendum at the 1993 election resulted in the change. What happens is the major centre left/right party always needs to form a coalition with one or two further left/right parties to scrape 50% as in your graphic above. So the main party ends up getting a bit hamstrung by having to give the coalition partner things they want as they need their seats - it's what seems to be happening with the current government (just voted in late last year) as the main party needed to partner with two smaller parties and even gave the leaders of the other two a joint deputy PM role. There's only been a single party majority once under this system - during COVID in 2020 the people voted for stability in keeping the incumbent major party in (the opposition had also been a shambles and were changing leader almost weekly at one point).

Qwiss

invisibleman18 So the main party ends up getting a bit hamstrung by having to give the coalition partner things they want as they need their seats

Thats a good thing though. It means there is representation for more people. We have PS-STV in Ireland and I'd hate to have a FPTP system. At the moment our coalition is 2 of the large centre right parties plus the Green party. The Greens are the only ones in the government pushing any decent legislation. Right now our 3 biggest parties are all polling at 20%-ish. None of those parties represent a majority of people so having them as the only party in government would be incredibly undemocratic IMO.

To put it in a UK perspective I think they'd be much better off with a coalition that had parties dragging Labour a bit more to the left than their current blue Labour. Coalitions also temper extreme moves like Brexit or some of the crazy fiscal stuff Truss and co were up to.

Mirth

FPTP is problematic but this time around it's returned a fair result, the majority of the country voted for the centre or to the left. It's usually been a problem in the past because the left wing is fragmented but the Tories were united.

Qwiss Coalitions also temper extreme moves like Brexit or some of the crazy fiscal stuff Truss and co were up to.

Honestly Brexit and the following events was because Cameron circumvented the entire Westminister system by making the whole thing a popular vote about a poorly defined foreign policy issue.

Qwiss

Mirth and that would topple a coalition government so he'd be far less likely to do it.

goon

Not sure I get the logic there, they’d have likely been in coalition with UKIP or some other iteration who’d be the ones pushing hardest for it.

As it is, he had to resign in disgrace after he lost anyway.

Mirth

Burnwinter Starmer's approach can probably be credited with sweeping a diverse range of seats despite a lukewarm vote.

But that's how elections are won - whether you think the system is fair or not. Theresa May had more of the popular vote than David Cameron ever did and was just shy of Boris Johnson's popular vote but she's remembered as someone who was a political disaster because it never translated into seats.

It's true that the manifesto Labour ran on in 2019 was benign but both Corbyn and McDonnell spent the past 30 years making their views known, their voting records are public and no one really felt that they would reel it in once they got into power and actually the 2017 election success prevented that introspection. Obviously I would have preferred Corbyn over Johnson but, genuinely, he got out maneuvered badly in 2019 by the Tories as a whole lot of people mistakenly thought Boris was unelectable even though he's never lost a vote.

goon Patrick Vallance as Science Minister too. It's refreshing to see these roles given to people with some understanding of the field and not as a political reward, or worse, on the basis of whether they voted Remain/Leave

RocktheCasbah

Jezza was incredibly popular with younger voters - ironically, a little like Reform apparently now are - but I don't think the country as a whole was ever conviced by him. And I'm telling you for a fact that at Citizens Advice, where we should have been lapping a guy with his policies up - his leadership horrified everyone. Whether that was wrong of us, maybe, but I don't think Corbyn was ever interested in actually leading.

Burnwinter

RocktheCasbah And I'm telling you for a fact that at Citizens Advice, where we should have been lapping a guy with his policies up - his leadership horrified everyone. Whether that was wrong of us, maybe, but I don't think Corbyn was ever interested in actually leading.

Corbyn obviously isn't a natural leader, he'd been a fringe character for generations in Labour—albeit one whose fringe positions were often commendable. I guess what I'm trying to get out of you very gently is why you were horrified. I assume his inability to sell himself to the establishment was a big part of it, but it has always seemed that if creeps within Labour weren't bent on wrecking his leadership—and eliminating his former supporters, a task they're still diligently trying to complete—2019 could've been less of a shitshow.

goon

Starmers choice for prisons minister is pretty encouraging for anyone looking for indicators that he’s going to be bolder after winning power.

It’s definitely not a safe choice, you can already see the right wing press frothing at the mouth.

goon

Corbyn is the Wenger of politics.

Burnwinter

Mirth But that's how elections are won - whether you think the system is fair or not.

Yes, my point was that it's a very good achievement in tactical terms to get this huge majority on a pretty trifling turnout. My concern is that it's an achievement in spite of, not because of mass politics, which points to future problems.

Burnwinter

Mirth But that's how elections are won - whether you think the system is fair or not.

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