Why Labour lost

tomterm8

lynzpower wrote: »

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 .

Any opinion poll whice states a % figure you have to be very wary. Our electoral system is not in any sence proportional, there is no such thing as uniform swing.

Spartacus_Mills

lynzpower wrote: »

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.

The big polling companies understand this and weight their responses accordingly by asking a variety of questions including what people voted for last time. Yougov were renowned for increasing the labour share from what they polled based on their labour loyal/labour disloyal rankings. We had an interesting thread on it at politicalbetting.com.

All of the polls since the GE have Tory leads, the average being 6%.

They may be just opinion polls but they are a better guide to the feeling of the voter in the country than your personal view, or for that matter my personal view or anyone else's.

All of the evidence points to a Tory win so, apart from this babble about your university course, why do you think Labour would win a GE tomorrow ?

nickj_2

labour lost because the average hard working class man/woman knew that they had been totally shafted by new labour , all the stealth taxes , huge rises in council tax , fuel , unaffordable housing prices , immigration , crime the 2 wars , people being better off not working and living off th state -etc etc the list goes on and on . add to that the list of sleaze , the fact that mandleson was caught with his hand in the till 2-3 times and yet he was still welcomed back .
despite brown and blair telling us that things were better under labour it certainly didn't appear that way . they displayed an arogance beyond belief , they forgot that they were there to serve us .
also brown was just a deeply unlikable figure - his false smiles and his belief that he knew what he was doing with the economy , there were plenty of early warnings that the economy was going down the pan and yet he chose to ignore them , if he had stepped in earlier we might not be in quite the state that we are now in

lynzpower

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

The big polling companies understand this and weight their responses accordingly by asking a variety of questions including what people voted for last time. Yougov were renowned for increasing the labour share from what they polled based on their labour loyal/labour disloyal rankings. We had an interesting thread on it at politicalbetting.com.

All of the polls since the GE have Tory leads, the average being 6%.

They may be just opinion polls but they are a better guide to the feeling of the voter in the country than your personal view, or for that matter my personal view or anyone else's.

All of the evidence points to a Tory win so, apart from this babble about your university course, why do you think Labour would win a GE tomorrow ?

Well the point is people say different things if there is not an imminent election. Dont they?

jamespir

they didnt exactly lose did they cause no one party won

Spartacus_Mills

lynzpower wrote: »

Well the point is people say different things if there is not an imminent election. Dont they?

That is hardly evidence to support your premise that if there was an election tomorrow Labour would win.

Spartacus_Mills

jamespir wrote: »

they didnt exactly lose did they cause no one party won

Wrong.

The Tories won.

They came first.

They got the most votes.

They got the most seats.

They won.

They just did not win enough to get an overall majority. They still won.

As for Labour, of course they lost. Even their senior people admit they lost. Mandy said as such on Andrew Marr a couple of weeks back.

Thrugelmir

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

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

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

Too close to Gordon Brown ?

His true personality lacks a certain charm ....

Spartacus_Mills

Thrugelmir wrote: »

His true personality lacks a certain charm ....

Ouch !!!!
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Thrugelmir

marklv wrote: »

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.

Precisely my point. New Labour was born to take Labour into middle ground. That was Blair's appeal in 1997 something fresh, not the the "old labour". Union dominated, union funded etc. Predominately all the candidates for the leadership are leaning "leftwards" , more towards pre 1997 political views. Having the endorsement of individuals such as Bob Crowe fills me with dread.

So at the next election there will most likely be a difference in what the electorate at the ballot box will be voting for. So I can envisage"LibDem" picking up liberal socialists vote from the middle ground.