Why Labour lost

Thrugelmir

marklv wrote: »

The Lib Dems are pretty much finished as a party. If they rebelled now and caused the fall of the government the Tories would probably win an outright majority in a general election and the Lib Dems would be slaughtered. They have staked everything on the AV referendum and they will want to see that take place - and they must now hope and pray that the referendum is favourable to them. It would be a disaster for Clegg and his party if they lost the AV referendum; it really would destroy the Lib Dems for decades.

The danger for Labour is that the general populace will vote for AV. Even more so if Labour desert the middle ground and return to their traditional roots.

marklv

leveller2911 wrote: »

But have you thought that Joe Public wouldn't vote Labour if there was a General election soon given the fact that they are leaderless and have no clear direction to take the country in......

You never know Stevie it possible that the Tories could get an outright majority next time.............. That would surpise you ...;)

Well, the right wingers in the Tory party certainly want an early election; they know that an autumn election would certainly result in an outright Tory majority. Cameron is trying to stop them, probably because his own position would be much more precarious in the case of a right wing backlash. Cameron's toffish libertarianism doesn't go down well with a large section of the party and he knows that; in many ways Cameron is more of a Liberal than a Tory, no wonder he gets on so well with Clegg.

Bullfighter

Gorgeous_George wrote: »

Labour lost because The Sun newspaper wanted them to lose. People are brainwashed into thinking what The Sun wants them to think.

Gordon Brown had a tough time. The global economic meltdown was a disaster not of his making but the country could have been better prepared for the problems. I don't think any party would have prepared us regardless of what they might say with the benfit of hindsight. I believe that Gordon Brown's leadership steered the World away from far more serious consequences of the credit crunch.

Others are welcome to disagree. I'm happy with any Government.

GG

Christ.

Unless you are Sarah Brown undercover you really need to have a word with yourself.

Surely you Keynesians really can't still believe that big state and debtonomics works? Even the poster boy for stimuli Paul Krugman has been discredited and ripped to shreds...

What? "It started in America".... please. I'm not party political, in fact I think that democracy is fundamentally flawed.. but defending Gordon Brown's fiscal record.....

We should have let the gamblers lose. Banks and over-leveraged entities should have paid the price.. made way for new growth. A short sharp shock.. reversion to the mean... instead Gordon decided to socialise the losses.. c{_}nt.

Wookster

Its very simple why Labour lost: the got drunk and arrogant on power and started believing that the population were there to serve them rather than the other way around. They thought they knew better than anyone else what was best. Add to that their complete inability not to listen.

Posts such as yours are typical of this fantasy land arrogant thinking: skirt around the real issues and blame other things when actually you are the problem.

ruggedtoast

StevieJ wrote: »

A bit cloud cuckooish that, election tomorrow and it would be a Labour win, in 12 months it will be a Labour landslide, LibDems stripped down to one or two seats in Cornwall and the Scottish Isles (if they are lucky).

That's not going to happen. In fact the coalition government looks like it might go the term.

marklv

Wookster wrote: »

Its very simple why Labour lost: the got drunk and arrogant on power and started believing that the population were there to serve them rather than the other way around. They thought they knew better than anyone else what was best. Add to that their complete inability not to listen.

Posts such as yours are typical of this fantasy land arrogant thinking: skirt around the real issues and blame other things when actually you are the problem.

Drunk and arrogant on power? And the Conservatives under Thatcher weren't? Hmmmmm. I don't think so. Politics is about power and being able to wield it.

marklv

Bullfighter wrote: »

Christ.

Unless you are Sarah Brown undercover you really need to have a word with yourself.

Surely you Keynesians really can't still believe that big state and debtonomics works? Even the poster boy for stimuli Paul Krugman has been discredited and ripped to shreds...

What? "It started in America".... please. I'm not party political, in fact I think that democracy is fundamentally flawed.. but defending Gordon Brown's fiscal record.....

We should have let the gamblers lose. Banks and over-leveraged entities should have paid the price.. made way for new growth. A short sharp shock.. reversion to the mean... instead Gordon decided to socialise the losses.. c{_}nt.

I agree fully that we should have let the 'gamblers' lose, but Brown - like all major politicians - was in the pockets of the influential stringpullers behind the scenes, the 'establishment', call them what you like. He took orders from them - and Cameron would have been no different. It was a disaster to 'nationalise' the losses, and it accelerated the recession. If the banks had collapsed a lot of shareholders would have lost money - tough. As long the ordinary depositors were protected, few would have cared about the losses of the shareholders. But absorbing the losses into the national debt hurt every UK taxpayer, for no reason. In effect, the nation was forced to foot the bill for the incompetence of some bankers. Madness.

marklv

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The danger for Labour is that the general populace will vote for AV. Even more so if Labour desert the middle ground and return to their traditional roots.

I'm not exactly sure how AV will affect the political landscape of the country; however, as this is accompanied by boundary changes that benefit the Conservatives it will help the latter, at least in the short term. I don't think the Lib Dems will benefit hugely - they will win more seats but remain very much the third party.
I disagree with you about Labour going back to its roots. I don't think Labour will ever become a far-left party again as it was under Michael Foot, but it could go back to the Kinnock-Smith period, when it still believed in economic socialism. I don't see how this can harm Labour. The electorate wants to have a choice, and a broader choice will make Labour more interesting and appealing to voters. Labour's mistake with Blair was to focus too much on trying to grab middle class voters while ditching the policies that appealed to ordinary working class people. It worked for a time, but eventually it became a mess and Labour ended up being a party without an identity or a soul.
If Ed Miliband wins the leadership of the Labour Party he will make it more socialist and egalitarian, while David Miliband is much more of a Blairite. It should be interesting to see how it all develops.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

StevieJ wrote: »

No I just wonder how long it will be before some of those genuine LibDem MPs jump ship

Lib Dems will be annihilated at the next election.

The party is toast after betraying their centre left core constituents, thus the 50% fall in poll share and 8% (:rotfl:) approval rating for Clegg.

I rather suspect the MP's will stay the course, as no matter how much guilt they must surely feel for abandoning their values and principles, an early election would result in them getting first hand experience of their own unemployment benefit cuts. Perish the thought.:cool:

Fortunately for the country, the Tories will have successfully detoxified their brand by then (after dumping it all on the lib dems), so the prospect of another Labour government is still a very long way away.

I do hope "Dave" at least gave Nick a kiss before screwing him so Royally....

Spartacus_Mills

StevieJ wrote: »

A bit cloud cuckooish that, election tomorrow and it would be a Labour win, in 12 months it will be a Labour landslide, LibDems stripped down to one or two seats in Cornwall and the Scottish Isles (if they are lucky).

I know Labour are experts at gerrymandering but can you explain based on this :-

YouGov/Sun August 5th: CON 44% LAB 36% LDEM 13%

How Labour would win an election tomorrow ?

You may be right in 12 months but based on these numbers the Tories would get a majority and both Labour and the Tories would take seats off us.

Our vote will be fine over the electoral cycle. I am not unduly concerned.