Scrutable

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:56 pm

Prediction: people who mocked Corbyn supporters (and putting-up-with-ers) for lamenting the role of the mainstream media in undermining the Labour leader will suddenly now notice it happening to their spick-and-span media-friendly guy.

At least Blair had the gumption to be a bit slick with the media to get them onside.

Yeah, my problem with Corbyn, Milne et al, was that they didn’t appear to have any kind of strategy to get the media on side.

Blair and Campbell were masters of that.

discovolante wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:16 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:56 pm

Prediction: people who mocked Corbyn supporters (and putting-up-with-ers) for lamenting the role of the mainstream media in undermining the Labour leader will suddenly now notice it happening to their spick-and-span media-friendly guy.

At least Blair had the gumption to be a bit slick with the media to get them onside.

Yes, the Sun, Mail etc will always be hostile to the leader of the Labour Party. The point is to make that difficult.

Corbyn managed to mostly lose the Guardian. The f.cking Guardian for f.cking f.cks sake.

noggins wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 12:33 pm

Corbyn managed to mostly lose the Guardian. The f.cking Guardian for f.cking f.cks sake.

And don't forget, Corbyn's director of strategy was a Guardian journalist.

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 25, 2020 6:32 am

discovolante wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:16 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:56 pm

Prediction: people who mocked Corbyn supporters (and putting-up-with-ers) for lamenting the role of the mainstream media in undermining the Labour leader will suddenly now notice it happening to their spick-and-span media-friendly guy.

At least Blair had the gumption to be a bit slick with the media to get them onside.

Yes, the Sun, Mail etc will always be hostile to the leader of the Labour Party. The point is to make that difficult.

I thought the Sun backed Blair?

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:22 pm

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 25, 2020 6:32 am

discovolante wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:16 pm

At least Blair had the gumption to be a bit slick with the media to get them onside.

Yes, the Sun, Mail etc will always be hostile to the leader of the Labour Party. The point is to make that difficult.

I thought the Sun backed Blair?

I thought the Sun backed whoever it thought had the best chance of winning, even if only by a small margin.

noggins wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 12:33 pm

Corbyn managed to mostly lose the Guardian. The f.cking Guardian for f.cking f.cks sake.

Well TBF this is the same Guardian that hailed the election of Cameron's spiteful and incompetent Coalition as "the Liberal Moment" and wrote a hagiography for IDS when he announced his plan to starve the poor and disabled unless they stacked shelves for free. They continued to go out to bat for the Coalition's shameful actions right up to the next election while the Guardian's leader writer also served as Cameron's chief speech writer.

The Guardian is liberal not leftwing and those are not synonyms but only occassional fellow travellers.

Without the Fellow Travellers Labour can’t win a GE.

noggins wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 5:56 pm

Without the Fellow Travellers Labour can’t win a GE.

Yeah but you can't express apparent incredulity that the Guardian failed to support a left wing candidate when within recent memory they enthusiastically chose to back an openly right wing government over such hard left Labour leaders as Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband.

You may as well express incredulity that Corbyn didn't bring the Daily Mail with him either.

Little waster wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:44 pm

noggins wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 5:56 pm

Without the Fellow Travellers Labour can’t win a GE.

Yeah but you can't express apparent incredulity that the Guardian failed to support a left wing candidate when within recent memory they enthusiastically chose to back an openly right wing government over such hard left Labour leaders as Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband.

You may as well express incredulity that Corbyn didn't bring the Daily Mail with him either.

Having lived abroad for yonks, the 'centre' or Overton window in the UK does seem incredibly far shifted to the right. Any genuinely leftist candidate is going to have an uphill battle trying to drag the entire establishment - from political parties to mainstream media outlets to public conversation - with it.

It's important that it happens, though, so I think people need to be patient when it doesn't work out perfectly.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:22 pm

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 25, 2020 6:32 am

discovolante wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:16 pm

At least Blair had the gumption to be a bit slick with the media to get them onside.

Yes, the Sun, Mail etc will always be hostile to the leader of the Labour Party. The point is to make that difficult.

I thought the Sun backed Blair?

Yes, you’re right.

The Mail, Telegraph, Express will always be hostile.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:51 pm

Little waster wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:44 pm

noggins wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 5:56 pm

Without the Fellow Travellers Labour can’t win a GE.

Yeah but you can't express apparent incredulity that the Guardian failed to support a left wing candidate when within recent memory they enthusiastically chose to back an openly right wing government over such hard left Labour leaders as Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband.

You may as well express incredulity that Corbyn didn't bring the Daily Mail with him either.

Having lived abroad for yonks, the 'centre' or Overton window in the UK does seem incredibly far shifted to the right. Any genuinely leftist candidate is going to have an uphill battle trying to drag the entire establishment - from political parties to mainstream media outlets to public conversation - with it.

It's important that it happens, though, so I think people need to be patient when it doesn't work out perfectly.

Here’s Eric Hobsbawm in the late 70s writing about the decline of the British labour movement (which he said started 30 years before). http://banmarchive.org.uk/collections/m ... bsbawm.pdf

I’m wondering, as of 2020 what would we add to what was at the time a prescient analysis?

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:51 pm

Little waster wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:44 pm

noggins wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 5:56 pm

Without the Fellow Travellers Labour can’t win a GE.

Yeah but you can't express apparent incredulity that the Guardian failed to support a left wing candidate when within recent memory they enthusiastically chose to back an openly right wing government over such hard left Labour leaders as Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband.

You may as well express incredulity that Corbyn didn't bring the Daily Mail with him either.

Having lived abroad for yonks, the 'centre' or Overton window in the UK does seem incredibly far shifted to the right. Any genuinely leftist candidate is going to have an uphill battle trying to drag the entire establishment - from political parties to mainstream media outlets to public conversation - with it.

It's important that it happens, though, so I think people need to be patient when it doesn't work out perfectly.

Given this, it is important that leftwing candidates try and communicate to the public how they will benefit from leftwing policies, and try to get that across via the media wherever possible. Appointing a stalinist who praised the taliban as director of communications wasn't the way to go.

Yes, I'd like to see a lefty leader who had a chance of winning. Corbyn wasn't ever it. He looks like a morris dancer.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2020 4:50 pm

... Corbyn wasn't ever it. He looks like a morris dancer.

Are you now accusing Morris Dancers of having undermined Labor?

bmforre wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2020 5:03 pm

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2020 4:50 pm

... Corbyn wasn't ever it. He looks like a morris dancer.

Are you now accusing Morris Dancers of having undermined Labor?

Labor, maybe, but that's Australian politics.

dyqik wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2020 5:35 pm

bmforre wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2020 5:03 pm

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2020 4:50 pm

... Corbyn wasn't ever it. He looks like a morris dancer.

Are you now accusing Morris Dancers of having undermined Labor?

Labor, maybe, but that's Australian politics.

Ah, Morris Dancers, MP for Moonee Ponds North and Minister for Ignoring Aboriginal Culture under the Whitlam government. Tosser

Did alright this morning. Good speech.

There seem to be two sorts of Starmer-critical voices within Labour: Those who are still throwing their toys out of the pram because he isn't The Blessed St Jeremy, and those who think he's probably the right man for the job, but want to see more "oomph" in his attacks on the Tories. The latter group point to the fact that Labour and the Tories are only about level-pegging in the polls.

I think this is misguided. With a Tory majority of 80, Starmer has only one job, which is to focus on winning in 2024(*). That needs two things to happen. First, the current government has to lose support. Then, Labour has to pick it up. I think those are two very different processes. The first is already happening (a poll this week has approval of the government at its lowest since Johnson became PM), but the second will require a long process of rebuilding trust. Leave the fireworks to the Tories (in the form of the factory exploding) and present Labour as the sane alternative.

(*) For Labour to win a majority in 2024 would be an extraordinary achievement. A general election at which the electors replace a working overall majority (10+) of one party with a working overall majority of the other is a once-in-a-generation thing. 1970 and 1997 are the only examples I can think of since WW2.

Even 1997 wasn't particularly strong - the Tories had lost their overall majority by the time of the election, and only had 324 seats.

sTeamTraen wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 22, 2020 1:13 pm

(*) For Labour to win a majority in 2024 would be an extraordinary achievement. A general election at which the electors replace a working overall majority (10+) of one party with a working overall majority of the other is a once-in-a-generation thing. 1970 and 1997 are the only examples I can think of since WW2.

But the Party of Government has only changed 7 times since the war (counting the coalition as Tory, they could have been a minority Government instead). So that's something that only happens every ~10 years. And is it useful to look at the past? The political landscape is all kinds of wonky at the moment.

Anyway, I am someone who thinks Starmer could be giving it a bit more oompf, but I do see the logic in him not doing that. Mostly I don't like the way it makes it seem that Johnson is getting away with it. On the polls, I'm not sure people move parties, but move to don't know and aren't normally counted in the headline result, so a drop in Tory support might not be noticed till closer to the election.

Everyone knows Labour need to win back the deindustrialised towns that went Tory, but I reckon that should be fairly easy, and Starmer seems to be taking the easiest route of making Blue Labour noises (as much as I don't like Blue Labour). However, I don't think he'll get a majority without winning back Scottish seats, which is the harder task*. Labour is inherently split on Scottish independence. Many of their natural supporters in Scotland want a 2nd referendum, but any positive noises from Labour in that direction will lose them support in England (remember the reaction when McDonnell said Labour would allow a 2nd referendum a while back). This has been a problem for ages now, and I don't think they are any closer to solving it, especially with the factional shenanigans going on in the Scottish party at the moment. It's a similar problem to what Labour had with Brexit, which also split their supporters, but it's older and at least Brexit seems to be coming to a conclusion, for better or worse**.



*Labour would have been in Government without Scotland in the past, but it definitely makes things easier.

**It's worse, definitely worse.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 22, 2020 1:41 pm

Even 1997 wasn't particularly strong - the Tories had lost their overall majority by the time of the election, and only had 324 seats.

Is it just me, or were there more by-elections back then? You hardly hear about them these days, but I remember even in the 1980s when Thatcher had a decent majority, people would get rather exercised by them.

I read it rather than watched it, and it seemed good on paper. I like that he's realised Labour don't need to preach to the converted.

On Labour & Scotland, the potential for Scottish Independence is the bigger problem than winning back their seats. A hung parliament with Labour as largest party would probably end up as a Lab/SNP coalition or confidence and supply deal, either of which put the SNP seats in the helpful* column for Labour (unless anyone thinks the Nats could cut a deal with the Tories?). But independence wipes these seats out and further entrenches the Tory majority in England.