Current Affairs The Labour Party

[bring the ghost on]

That is one of the most oft-used wrong statements in British politics. That election was in serious jeopardy the moment the SDP came into being, and lost once the Falklands War started; by the time the manifesto was announced it was too late to do any more damage.

Agree that there were a lot of contributing factors to Thatcher's electoral success, probably the biggest being Falklands. However, the "longest suicide note in history" remark does carry some weight in the sense that it reflected how popular opinion had moved away from the post-WW2 leftist/Keynesian progressive politics and towards the free-market, profiteering, services-centric, neo-con philosophy which has been dominant ever since.

Michael Foot himself said that the note was "as much a failure for human decency as the Labour party" (paraphrasing). It was about people rejecting the values which had previously been part of popular opinion as anything else.

Tony Blair gets a lot of stick for how far he pushed the party to the right in order to make it electable again, but you could make a serious argument that anything resembling the Old Labour values was dead in the water post-1980, and those values have shown no signs of coming back around, in my opinion.

 

[tsubaki]

The SDP came into being because of the far left positions the party took.

No they didn't - they had already formed a faction in the Labour Party ("the Manifesto Group"), and flounced off when it became apparent they had little support in the PLP, and less in the party. There is even some evidence (in Crewe and King's SDP book) that some MPs who left to form the SDP actually voted for Foot over Healey before leaving.

 

[1966efc]

No they didn't - they had already formed a faction in the Labour Party ("the Manifesto Group"), and flounced off when it became apparent they had little support in the PLP, and less in the party. There is even some evidence (in Crewe and King's SDP book) that some MPs who left to form the SDP actually voted for Foot over Healey before leaving.

I'm reasonably well aware of the circumstances surrounding the foundation of the SDP. I don't recall too much in the way of flouncing.

They had very little support at any level of the party. There had been factions in the party from its beginning and, of course, during the mid and late 70's. The Manifesto people were a counterweight to the Militant people and some (very few) walked at a point where they could see no future for their ideas in the party.

I can't see that any of this is arguable. When a party offers its plans at an election, they might hope to attract a wide range of support because of the merits of their positions. A small part of the Party disagreed with its own manifesto. That manifesto attracted 27.6% of the voters. For each constituent part of that disaster, SDP, voters, those who shied away from the polls, it's more than reasonable to suppose that the root cause was a belief that far left policies were not for them.

 

[tsubaki]

So how about this, then:

Peter Mandelson, the architect of New Labour, has said he is working every day to undermine Jeremy Corbyn, as Blairite peers stood up in the House of Lords to lambast their party’s leadership for backing Brexit.

Mandelson, a former cabinet minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, told an event for the Jewish Chronicle that he was actively working to bring an end to Corbyn’s leadership.

His comments will be inflammatory at a time when Labour MPs have toned down their public opposition to Corbyn, after his second leadership election by a huge margin in the autumn.

Mandelson, who has made no secret of his antipathy to Corbyn’s leadership, told the newspaper’s editor, Stephen Pollard: “The problem with Jeremy is not that he is a sort of maniac – it’s not as though he is a nasty person. It’s that he literally has no idea in the 21st century how to conduct himself as a leader of a party putting itself forward in a democratic election to become the government of our country.”

He added: “Why do you want to just walk away and pass the title deeds of this great party over to someone like Jeremy Corbyn? I don’t want to, I resent it, and I work every single day in some small way to bring forward the end of his tenure in office.

“Something, however small it may be – an email, a phone call or a meeting I convene – every day I try to do something to save the Labour party from his leadership.”

This is the same Mandelson who once said, when he was near power, that we were living in a "post-democratic age".

 

[Woolly Blue]

but many of their northern constituents aren't socially left at all

That's not a new thing, many traditional Labour voters have been economically left leaning but socially conservative ( small c) most of my life. All that's really changed is that a significant % of that vote has become better off economically over the years so the social aspect of casting your vote now has greater weight.

For all his faults, Blair kind of understood that, and so tweaked Labours economic policies to look more appealing to both the traditional voters and the middle ground.

Most people vote on a "What's in it for me basis", whereas most posters here are more philanthropic ( I've wanted to use that word for ages ) and like to think that people will vote as much for the common good as for themselves.

 

[roydo]

That's not a new thing, many traditional Labour voters have been economically left leaning but socially conservative ( small c) most of my life. All that's really changed is that a significant % of that vote has become better off economically over the years so the social aspect of casting your vote now has greater weight.

For all his faults, Blair kind of understood that, and so tweaked Labours economic policies to look more appealing to both the traditional voters and the middle ground.

Most people vote on a "What's in it for me basis", whereas most posters here are more philanthropic ( I've wanted to use that word for ages ) and like to think that people will vote as much for the common good as for themselves.

Ironically, Thatcher did the exact same thing by appealing to much maligned Essex/White Van Man. She used buying your council house and shares in British Gas as the bait, but rightly or wrongly, it worked.

 

[Woolly Blue]

Ironically, Thatcher did the exact same thing by appealing to much maligned Essex/White Van Man. She used buying your council house and shares in British Gas as the bait, but rightly or wrongly, it worked.

Indeed she did.

I said on here the other day that the situation with UKIP isn't massively different to the rise of Thatcher being in power.

Luckily UKIP are operating from a much lower base than the tories were back then, and you can't compare the state of the country now to what it was in the seventies.

Both the Tories and Labour need to up their game though. If they don't, then it's possible to see a situation were UKIP hold the balance of power in the future.

 

[roydo]

Indeed she did.

I said on here the other day that the situation with UKIP isn't massively different to the rise of Thatcher being in power.

Luckily UKIP are operating from a much lower base than the tories were back then, and you can't compare the state of the country now to what it was in the seventies.

Both the Tories and Labour need to up their game though. If they don't, then it's possible to see a situation were UKIP hold the balance of power in the future.

Maybe, UKIP balance of power that is, but with the SNP having 50 plus MPs, see that a long way away. Different if Scotland chips off mind.....

Personally, I think UKIP will wither and die. Folk aint daft, and in the absence of a populist figure like Fargage, I just cant see enough normal folk massing behind the likes of Nuttall.

 

[peteblue]

Indeed she did.

I said on here the other day that the situation with UKIP isn't massively different to the rise of Thatcher being in power.

Luckily UKIP are operating from a much lower base than the tories were back then, and you can't compare the state of the country now to what it was in the seventies.

Both the Tories and Labour need to up their game though. If they don't, then it's possible to see a situation were UKIP hold the balance of power in the future.

Not really. Farage was actually a decent leader of UKIP and has shown his political nous in helping the UK to Brexit. He also managed somehow to get really close to the POTUS and has a degree of credibility. This other guy is a lying chancer who has the abilities of your average local councillor but with a nasty streak. UKIP without Farage are a busted flush........they will win for one or two years, then fade away.......

 

[WycombeToffee]

Labour all but guaranteed to win Stoke now IMO. UKIP (Nuttall) bottled an open goal there. If anything, the Tories may gain the most votes.

 

[edge]

Labour all but guaranteed to win Stoke now IMO. UKIP (Nuttall) bottled an open goal there. If anything, the Tories may gain the most votes.

cant see them losing it unless there is another twist in the tale somewhere along the line.

 

[neil999]

Not really. Farage was actually a decent leader of UKIP and has shown his political nous in helping the UK to Brexit. He also managed somehow to get really close to the POTUS and has a degree of credibility. This other guy is a lying chancer who has the abilities of your average local councillor but with a nasty streak. UKIP without Farage are a busted flush........they will win for one or two years, then fade away.......

Interesting to see where their votes go...

 

[tsubaki]

Not really. Farage was actually a decent leader of UKIP and has shown his political nous in helping the UK to Brexit. He also managed somehow to get really close to the POTUS and has a degree of credibility. This other guy is a lying chancer who has the abilities of your average local councillor but with a nasty streak. UKIP without Farage are a busted flush........they will win for one or two years, then fade away.......

Farage was decent in the sense that he had access to a lot of money (via Banks) compared to his rivals (or even his own party TBH) and his tenure at the top coincided with favourable political times - the end of New Labour (after shedding millions of votes and tens of thousands of members), then the rise of the Cameroons (which led to an almost unprecedented decline in Tory membership) and finally the Coalition which effectively took the Lib Dems out as a "well, I hate those two so will vote for this third lot" party, leaving only UKIP in that slot.

 

[Neveryourfault]

Interesting to see where their votes go...

Even Labour can't loose that!

 

[tsubaki]

Interesting to see where their votes go...

It depends what happens with Labour this week. If they win both elections and Corbyn stays, you can see the disaffected in the PLP, the Lib Dem rump under Farron, and some of the ex-Cameron Tory lot like Soubry (and Osborne probably, who has no other game in town) and her ilk coalescing into this pro-EU "movement" that we keep hearing about, advocating Remain mixed in with calls for a PR electoral system, some form of federalized UK, and all the usual demands of "centrists".