Why Labour lost

Spartacus_Mills

StevieJ wrote: »

Certainly would They won't be leaderless, they would bring forward the election, the one trump card - No Brown in the cabinet, they could still make a Balls up although highly unlikely.

Ed Balls has been the standout Labour performer since the election yet he is making no headway at all in this election.

I listened to Diane Abbott on Politics Weekly last week and she was an incoherent mess. Interrupting and not addressing the point yet she is gaining in this contest - unlikely to win though.

As to Balls, I am surprised he is getting nowhere. Why is that ?

Too close to Gordon Brown ?

lynzpower

I actually agree that if there was a snap GE tomorrow Labour would win. There are a lot of 1st time lib dem voters out there who feel very aggrieved with whats going on. I have seen many posts on here saying "I voted tory but I didnt expect this" so maybe they would change to. There are a lot of people out there who voted non labour due to the Brown element.

There are many LD constituencies that this government isnt representing. IF LD want to be genuinely democratic they need to listen hard to their local parties.

In the meanwhile Simon Hughes is the "lightning rod" to the left of the party, and as IMO holds a lot of cards here

eg:

The message just has to get out this is now being floated by the prime minister – if he wants to pursue it then there are the proper channels to do so. We're very happy to have the discussion."

Hughes said proposals for council house allocation had "always been controversial".

"It's very important that if we're going to debate any changes to the fundamental issue – which is that if you're given the tenancy, you pass a probationary period, you have it for life – we do it very sensitively and carefully, mindful of all the difficulties," he said.

"The fundamental reason why council properties are so desirable is because you have security. You know you can have affordable housing for the rest of your life and for people in many walks of life – out of work, retired, on low incomes – that's fundamentally important."

Hughes said he believed council tenants could be persuaded to move to smaller, more suitable homes if the options were explained to them. "The question is do you make it compulsory to move? The danger then again is you start breaking up ... communities."

He said Labour had floated the idea of fixed-term tenancies in the past, but "very quickly withdrew it because they saw the pitfalls".

Hughes, who took over as deputy leader of the Lib Dems in June after Vincent Cable stood down to concentrate on his cabinet job of business secretary, is seen as being on the left of the Lib Dems and a lightning rod for those in the party uncomfortable with the Tory coalition.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/aug/04/grant-shapps-council-house-swap-scheme

All this goes to underline that Hughes intends being a very vocal and visible sceptic about the Coalition. Moreover, it serves to illustrate, the difficulties ahead for the Government when it comes to making policy outside of that included in the formal Coalition agreement.

6pm update: Hughes' tone was less confrontational when interviewed later in the afternoon by the BBC:

"We need to make sure that people don't continue in housing that is excess to their needs when actually they would be better off, life would be cheaper, and they would be more comfortable somewhere else.

"So we need to work out ways, and many councils have already thought of this, to incentivise people to move from accommodation thats too big, releasing it for other families."

"We are a party open to debates about these issues. We have never said that there isn't an issue we are unhappy to debate and the prime minister is quite entitled to float an idea. But the debate hasn't happened extensively within the coalition."

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Meanwhile, in his column for The Times (£) today, Daniel Finkelstein emphasises that the Lib Dems had no realistic option but to go into Coalition with the Conservatives:

"It is true that opinion polls show the Lib Dems being squeezed. The junior partner in a coalition often finds it hard going. But there is only one way that the Lib Dems could have avoided this problem. They could have avoided it by never holding power at all. They could have clung on to their 20 per cent or so then. But what on earth would be the point?"

"The price of joining with Labour might well have been greater. In May Labour lost the election, had an incredibly unpopular and uncooperative leader, and couldn’t have formed a majority government even with the Lib Dems... If Mr Clegg had gone in with Labour in these circumstances, it is hard to see any circumstances in which he would not have gone in with Labour. And if there were to be no circumstances in which the Liberal Democrats would go in with anyone but Labour, what would be the point of them as an independent party? ...What Labour was offering the Lib Dems wasn’t a higher poll rating, it was extinction."

Posted at 16:34 in Housing, LibDem-Tory relations, The Coalition | Permalink

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2010/08/simon-hughes-cements-his-position-as-the-lib-dems-coalitionscepticinchief.html

kaya

the statistics are worthless, the only people that gave an opinion/voted are the ones with an interest in politics, labour lost because they gave our childrens money away to there friends in the banking industry, took us to war illegaly and put an idiot in number ten who nobody voted for, thats my personal opinion and its every bit as valid as the survey that gave the results you are discussing atm

chucky

flyingscotno1 wrote: »

If they get an AV or PR through Parliament it will, even given 2 poor election results actually be worth it for them IMV.

if their popularity is crashing, i'm not sure they would be too happy even if AV or PR came in

lynzpower

I think AV coming in isnt a guarantee to be honest.

Much as Id like electoral reform, I don't like the idea of reducing the number of MPs while we have an ageing and growing population.

I actually think many MPs work extremely hard in a very un-family friendly environment and I cant see how increasing the amount of work they do would make them"work smarter", it wouldn't. It seems to me that democracy ( ie access to your local MP) would be significantly reduced, and I cant support that.

So I'll be voting against on this basis, even though Id like electoral reform in the main and have campaigned for it myself.

Spartacus_Mills

chucky wrote: »

if their popularity is crashing, i'm not sure they would be too happy even if AV or PR came in

If STV came in, on current constituencies, the Lib Dems would have more seats than current.

chucky

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

If STV came in, on current constituencies, the Lib Dems would have more seats than current.

that's why i said

if their popularity is crashing,

no good in having AV or PR if people aren't voting for the Lib Dems anymore...

Spartacus_Mills

lynzpower wrote: »

I actually agree that if there was a snap GE tomorrow Labour would win.

The evidence of the polls says you are wrong. UK Polling report has the lead as an average of 6%. So what makes you think Labour would win ?

I quote Anthony Wells.

The Conservatives and Labour meanwhile remain steady in the low 40s and mid 30s respectively. Last night’s poll had a Conservative lead of 8 points, the largest for a couple of weeks, but more generally I think we are just seeing random variation around a Tory lead of about 6 points or so.

Spartacus_Mills

chucky wrote: »

that's why i said

no good in having AV or PR if people aren't voting for the Lib Dems anymore...

But people are voting Lib Dem. People are continuing to vote Lib Dem. We are still winning (and sometimes losing) council seats up and down the country.

PR and AV would increase our return of MP's on a smaller percentage vote so of course we would be happy with a fairer system of voting.

lynz is right that there is no guarantee we would get AV and if we lost the vote on AV that could put electoral reform into the long grass for a generation but it is worth taking the risk.

As for the popularity thing it would have happened whichever side we got into bed with as the party is a broad coalition which goes from the old right of the Labour party to the Orange book brigade. A section of the party would be disenchanted whichever side we propped up.

lynzpower

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

The evidence of the polls says you are wrong. UK Polling report has the lead as an average of 6%. So what makes you think Labour would win ?

I quote Anthony Wells.

People say very different things in polling to what they vote. People say different things mid term, early term late term to what they vote.

These sorts of results are simply opinion polls, I said in OP that I was going to vote LD in GE, and I voted labour in the end ( on the strength of an excellent serving local MP) whereas If Id have lived over the road I would have voted differently ( different constituency) People do vote very differently to what they say they do, and what they say they think. I learned this throughout my degree where I did quite a bit on voting behaviour.

A snap GE tomorrow would be useless though as Labour dont yet have a leader, depending on which leader is secured, outcomes may be different.

If we do have a second credit crunch ( if its not already happening) and a double dip ( again if its not already going on) then this will change voters perceptions It has to.