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Who to vote for?

Bob Buzzard

By Bob Buzzard
in The Lounge

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dbboy

dbboy

Posted
Posted

When constituencies in the North East who have been Labour through and through change and become blue, hen that really tells the story that even Labour's own voters could not stomach voting for Corbyn and Co. The sooner he and his sidekick step away from leadership, probably as MP's as well, the sooner Labour can elect a new leadership team.


Whilst Boris has a vast majority, good government only works when the opposition can argue with, hold to account and scrutinise the Conservative Government.


It was sad to see Swinson lose her seat, but their is no reason for her to come back as an MP. She's done it before so no reason why that cannot be repeated. Like Labour, The Lib Dems need to go away and re-group. I suspect the reason their votes fell away was because the remainers did not have her optimism of making such a difference.


As for those MP's who switched political alliances and parties, they got their just desserts and the electorate made it clear that if you switch parties you need to face the electorate and have a by election. What goes around comes around.


The election confirmed the voters decision of the referendum, that they want to leave Europe. Whether you like it or not Boris has done more in his first 100 days then May did in three years. At last the Parliamentary dead lock has finally been broken and UK plc at last can now move forward. It will not be easy and there will be pain ahead for all of us.

Loutwo

Loutwo

Posted
Posted

TheCat Wrote:

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> Does the 'working class' still exist? A decent

> tradesman will make more tha most office workers.

> So where does the 'middle class' begin and end....



The working class is fragmented. You have a welfare dependent class, many of which will of course appreciate the Corbyn message. You then have a hard working but low paid class, who might appreciate some of Corbyn?s offering but equally be offended by him as a person and therefore not vote for him. You then have the former working class, who?ve made good financially but hang onto there cultural roots, and probably vote for whoever makes them better off in the pocket. Which probably won?t be Corbyn. And then you have the hard core die in a ditch Labour stalwarts of northern towns and cities, who want a decent NHS and well funded welfare state, but despise Corbyn?s Islington socialism, whilst also being vehemently pro-brexit and patriotic, who will hold their nose in a ballot box to elect anyone who isn?t Corbyn.


Then you have people who live in 2 mil plus houses in Clapham, Putney and Dulwich, who will probably be shafted by Labour but vote for them because they want a scando-style socialist utopian bubble, which probably wouldn?t happen because the supposed 5% of multi millionaires who will be paying for this, will have already legged it to Singapore.


The class struggle is real, but it needs someone like Tony Blair from a social democratic centrist stance to begin to remedy it, not a boogey-man from the far left who will scare off the high earners. Sweden or Denmark we are not.


Louisa.

uncleglen

uncleglen

Posted
Posted
The path to Brexit was started by Blair and when Gordon Brown referred to Gillian Duffy as a 'bigoted woman' just because she asked about immigration the contempt that Labour had for poor white working class communities was made plain...they sowed the wind and Corbyn reaped the whirlwind
diable rouge

diable rouge

Posted
Posted

dbboy Wrote:

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> The election confirmed the voters decision of the

> referendum, that they want to leave Europe.


Not really, two different voting systems used, if you followed the referendum voting system that every vote counts i.e. proportional representation, you would've ended up with a very different looking parliament, as the split in the total votes cast was actually around...wait for it...52% to 48% in favour of Remain/2nd Ref partied. These numbers tie in with polls over the past 12 months or so that have consistently shown Remain in front if there was a 2nd ref. The Remain vote was split and both Labour and Lib Dems need to hold their hands up over that.


Lots of headlines of a Tory landslide win but their vote only went up 1% from the last election, it was actually a Labour backslide, down 4%, which suggests that a lot of their voters didn't vote rather then switch to the Tories. Worth mentioning that the Greens got more votes than the Brexit Party, would be nice in the future if the BBC reflected this on their political panels. If there's one silver lining to be had from this election it's that Farage is never seen or heard of again...

uncleglen

uncleglen

Posted
Posted

Hemingway Wrote:

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> From Twitter

>

> On every level, Corbynism has been a foul debacle.

> It has stunk out British politics. The dustbin of

> history awaits. @#$%& off back to your paper sales

> and meetings above pubs. Give politics back to

> decent people.

>

> Well said


Yes- everything that came out of Corbyn's mouth reminded me of the old WRP back in the 1970s, selling the paper outside the Tube at Mile End and Whitechapel; told to target the ethnic minorities, listening to Vanessa Redgrave and other airhead luvvies spouting quotes from Marx and Engels whilst knowing NOTHING about their REAL lives.....

cella

cella

Posted
Posted

uncleglen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The path to Brexit was started by Blair and when

> Gordon Brown referred to Gillian Duffy as a

> 'bigoted woman' just because she asked about

> immigration the contempt that Labour had for poor

> white working class communities was made

> plain...they sowed the wind and Corbyn reaped the

> whirlwind



Clearly not true - more nonsense from you.

cella

cella

Posted
Posted

uncleglen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hemingway Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > From Twitter

> >

> > On every level, Corbynism has been a foul

> debacle.

> > It has stunk out British politics. The dustbin

> of

> > history awaits. @#$%& off back to your paper

> sales

> > and meetings above pubs. Give politics back to

> > decent people.

> >

> > Well said

>

> Yes- everything that came out of Corbyn's mouth

> reminded me of the old WRP back in the 1970s,

> selling the paper outside the Tube at Mile End and

> Whitechapel; told to target the ethnic minorities,

> listening to Vanessa Redgrave and other airhead

> luvvies spouting quotes from Marx and Engels

> whilst knowing NOTHING about their REAL lives.....



You are stuck in a massive time warp and can't let it go. You presumably have the leader and government you want now - why not take a long rest from here and enjoy the fruits of your toil as you'll be so much better off. Apparently.

dbboy

dbboy

Posted
Posted

So what Corbyn preached wasn't even his own thoughts but from a 17th Century journalist, say's it all really!!!!!!


diable rouge Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Oh FFS, pleaae make it stop, it's now The People's

> Government

> Another 3-word ditty, that's where Labour went

> wrong, For the Many Not the Few was Dostoevsky

> when they needed Jackie Collins...

Seabag

Seabag

Posted
Posted

cella Wrote:

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> Admin - think this thread with its title has

> served its purpose now? Now serving as a vehicle

> for the usual suspects to endlessly rant and spout

> rubbish retrospectively now the election is over.


Agreed


Can we close this now. It been interesting, but it?s done.

fishbiscuits

fishbiscuits

Posted
Posted

TheCat Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Does the 'working class' still exist? A decent

> tradesman will make more tha most office workers.

> So where does the 'middle class' begin and end....


Plumbers and electricians earn decent money, yes.


How about cleaners? Shop and restaurant staff? Workers in Amazon/Sports Direct/etc warehouses?


The dividing lines are less clear, but surely the issues are the same..

Blah Blah

Blah Blah

Posted
Posted

uncleglen Wrote:

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> I'd like to know who these 'people' are at risk,(or even extreme danger') from 5 years of Boris- I could go so far as to liken the thought of 5 years of Labour to the 'Great Leap Forward' and we all

> know how that turned out!


Here you go. Here are some of those who have died directly because of the polices of the last nine years, policies that will not change under Boris.


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/13/suicides-of-benefit-claimants-reveal-dwp-flaws-says-inquiry


https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/a-man-has-killed-himself-because-he-was-found-fit-to-work-exposing-the-monstrous-cruelty-of-the-dwp-10511436.html


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/12/stephanie-bottrill-worried-bedroom-tax-committed-suicide-coroner


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/david-clapson-benefit-sanctions-death-government-policies


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/27/thousands-died-after-fit-for-work-assessment-dwp-figures


I could list hundreds of these stories.


And then don't forget this either!


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/01/homeless-deaths-in-2018-rise-at-highest-level-ons


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-48692703


Stop embarrassing yourself with your willful ignorance.

Blah Blah

Blah Blah

Posted
Posted

I think Louisa got closest to why the working classes have fragmented and didn't get behind Labour this time. Corbyn is a republican, but the working classes traditionally are not republicans, and nor are they interested in ideological arguments around radical politics. Corbyn and his stalwarts had become a parody of a student revolutionary movement. The manifesto was naive and failed completely to understand the underlying aspirational culture of the electorate.


People don't want socialism. They want opportunity. Access to decent jobs, owning their own home, good education and healthcare, and so on. All things that a fairer form of capitalism can deliver through a mixed economy. When Labour makes that case, it wins elections. The next leader needs to be someone free of controversial baggage, who can make those arguments and win back working class support, while persuading the middle classes that a fairer society is a more harmonious one.


What has gone wrong since the financial crash of 2008 (and let's remember that was a global crash that emanated from the USA), is that austerity policy, felt hardest by those on the ground, the poorest, has been exploited by the likes of Farage (and a xenophobic underbelly led by the far and alt right) who created bogeymen to deflect from the real culprits that have delivered this unfair system of capitalism, namely our own successive governments, that have stripped away upward social mobility. A good example of this is housing supply. The statistics around changing demographics, affordability, non replacement of sold off social homes, and failure to build enough new homes, have become thrown out for some nonsense about immigration. It's almost as though our own governments have had nothing to do with it through their own regressive policies! That is the cognitive dissonance at play here.


Labour were right about quite a few things. We do live in a world that is being asset and profit stripped by a ridiculously small number of corporations and individuals and at a time where a growing global population is increasingly aspiration. These two things are going to clash at some point. And what government do to tax and regulation matters in addressing this. This will become an increasing area of discussion in the future. There is nothing that Boris offers in way of addressing any of this. And there is real concern that his Brexit means taking the UK into tax haven territory. Well tax havens increasingly use indirect taxation to fill the deficits lost through direct tax cuts. And the people most affected by that tax structure, are the poorest.


But it is also true to say that Boris is not as home and dry as he thinks he is. He now has to deliver on all those promises. He also has around 80 MPs who represent former Labour heartlands, where working class people feel disenfranchised precisely because of the broken structures I cite above. It is not in the Tory mindset to do the kinds of things that need to be done to fix some of those things. So for me, the thing to watch over the next five years, is how hard those 80 MPs work to try and move the direction of the Tory party to genuinely serve those constituents. Or will they not bother? Worth remembering that Boris is the PM who threw out MPs for defying the whip. This is dark territory. Also the noises being made about redressing the power balance between the courts, civil service, Parliament and the Executive are dark territory. There will be plenty for Labour to chew on in opposition, if they finally find the right leader, and a real chance for the Tory party to step into the center ground, if they choose to.

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