Hartlepool & (latterly) North Shropshire

[Loutwo]

Droid Wrote:

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

> Loutwo Wrote:

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

> -----

>

> > How do you fix that? Boris comes across as your

> > best mate (even if he?s blindsiding you in

> every

> > sense). All he is doing, is successfully riding

> > off the back of a perception solely created by

> the

> > Labour Party. Go back to basics, have policy

> ideas

> > which reflect the concerns of these

> communities,

> > put those policies across from charismatic

> > personalities who look and sound like the

> people

> > they want to represent. Move away from

> > London-centric representation. It isn?t

> reflecting

> > everyone else?s opinions in the country.

> >

> > Louisa.

>

> You might have added that Boris throws mountains

> of money at any issue that he thinks will help him

> eg HS2 ?106Bn), Covid (????Bn), Regional

> infrastructure (?80Bn), etc etc, Garden Bridge and

> we may even get a Tunnel to Ireland!

And this is different to New Labour under Blair how? Populist politicians always do this. It wins votes.

Louisa.

[alex_b]

Loutwo Wrote:

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

> It?s simple. Labour is appeasing two camps. Metro

> socialists and traditional working classes. Metro

> socialists are over represented at parliamentary

> level, and a perception (rightly or wrongly) has

> festered in the mind?s of some of those

> traditional old industrial communities, that

> Labour doesn?t represent their opinions anymore.

This interestingly exposes the definitional flaw at the heart of the discussion here. "Traditional working classes" as used here seems to include a large groups of people who do not work (retired homeowners on defined benefit pensions in the towns of the North and Midlands) while excluding large groups who do work (younger people in larger cities - including London - often in unstable employment). It just so happens that the 'traditional working class' are white while those working in cities who don't count as working class tend to be more diverse.

So when the media talks about Labour losing touch with 'working people' what they mean is losing touch with older socially conservative white people who once worked. There is little evidence that I have seen that Labour is losing support amongst younger working voters (in fact I believe their share of vote amongst under 40s is increasing).

Of course electorally this is a huge problem for Labour and will get worse as red-wall type seats continue to age and depopulate. I don't know what Labour do about this, it seems tough to think they can out socially conservative the Tories as Louisa seems to suggest.

[diable rouge]

Worth adding to alex's points that home ownership has increased in redwall seats adding to that social conservatism, along with home ownership they see voting Tory as an aspirational thing to do. My own parents were very much of this mindset...

[diable rouge]

Another factor to throw in to the mix, albeit a very general one, is that the incumbent governing parties have all done well, the Tories in England, SNP in Scotland, and Labour in Wales.

Which kinda suggests they've all benefitted from being centre stage in their respective parts of the UK during the pandemic. It's been a very difficult position for opposition parties as they can't be seen to be undermining the collective effort to get through this crisis.

So perhaps I was too harsh on Starmer earlier, the past year hasn't been the right time to promote a party manifesto and vision, that time will come when we're on top of Covid.

I still reckon he needs a charisma transplant though...:)

[KidKruger]

? I still reckon he needs a charisma transplant though...?

But ?transplant? does tend to imply there is one already there to actually replace 😳

[Seabag]

Honestly, do we genuinely care about outside of London ?

Really?

Do they care about us?

No, basically.

Tho we all might be interested

[JohnL]

Seabag Wrote:

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

> Honestly, do we genuinely care about outside of

> London ?

>

> Really?

>

> Do they care about us?

>

> No, basically.

>

> Tho we all might be interested

I care about Wales as I come from there, I care about where I might retire to in 12 years too - it won't be London as I can't afford it.

[TheCat]

alex_b Wrote:

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

> Loutwo Wrote:

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

> -----

> > It?s simple. Labour is appeasing two camps.

> Metro

> > socialists and traditional working classes.

> Metro

> > socialists are over represented at

> parliamentary

> > level, and a perception (rightly or wrongly)

> has

> > festered in the mind?s of some of those

> > traditional old industrial communities, that

> > Labour doesn?t represent their opinions anymore.

>

>

> This interestingly exposes the definitional flaw

> at the heart of the discussion here. "Traditional

> working classes" as used here seems to include a

> large groups of people who do not work (retired

> homeowners on defined benefit pensions in the

> towns of the North and Midlands) while excluding

> large groups who do work (younger people in larger

> cities - including London - often in unstable

> employment). It just so happens that the

> 'traditional working class' are white while those

> working in cities who don't count as working class

> tend to be more diverse.

>

> So when the media talks about Labour losing touch

> with 'working people' what they mean is losing

> touch with older socially conservative white

> people who once worked. There is little evidence

> that I have seen that Labour is losing support

> amongst younger working voters (in fact I believe

> their share of vote amongst under 40s is

> increasing).

>

> Of course electorally this is a huge problem for

> Labour and will get worse as red-wall type seats

> continue to age and depopulate. I don't know what

> Labour do about this, it seems tough to think they

> can out socially conservative the Tories as Louisa

> seems to suggest.

Just catching up with the London mayoral election result detail....and seems like the above doesn't really jell with sadiq having his margin cut in london.

Yes, he won handsomely, but the swing away from him (and to a candidate who basically had his funding slashed from Tory HQ a month out from the elections) suggests there may be more to it for Labour than just a redistrbution of demographics as discussed above (of course this clearly is a key driver as well)....

[Sephiroth]

Or you could say a mayor in a second term got returned with a bigger margin than the last double term mayor in his second term.

I?ll say again - I don?t rate Khan. And Bailey did do better than expected given his party left him to it compresses with Goldsmith. But he remains an appalling candidate

[jazzer]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c27kz1m3j9mt/london-elections-2021

[malumbu]

It would be good to have your views Jazza, as you may have posted clickbait!

[jazzer]

na mate, click and take a read, essentially it says khans vote share decreased by -.16% and Bailey increased his share by +1.6%. While khan won by 10.4%, lets see what he does or doesn't do in his second term. How much deficit will TfL carry forward, what will he do about LTN's, pollution, Ulez and how will the people react to this charge in addition to the congestion charge, will the tunnel go ahead, how and what is he intending to do to reduce crime and most importantly knife crime? Every life lost is a tragic. Lots of questions to answer, his actions will speak louder than his words.

What London needs is cross party working, putting politics aside and the needs of the people first. Khan said on Saturday he wanted to represent those who did not vote for him, let's see if that is just a soundbite or if he actually means business in his second term???

[alex_b]

TheCat Wrote:

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

>

> Just catching up with the London mayoral election

> result detail....and seems like the above doesn't

> really jell with sadiq having his margin cut in

> london.

>

> Yes, he won handsomely, but the swing away from

> him (and to a candidate who basically had his

> funding slashed from Tory HQ a month out from the

> elections) suggests there may be more to it for

> Labour than just a redistrbution of demographics

> as discussed above (of course this clearly is a

> key driver as well)....

I don?t think the Mayoral election tells us much either way. Looking at the percentages in the first round it appears that Bailey benefited from a collapse in the UKIP vote and Labour lost some vote share to the Greens. The second round shift seems similar to the reduction in share for the incumbent under both Johnson and Livingstone.

Also, yes Bailey was a terrible candidate but so was Goldsmith.

That?s not to say I?m a big fan of Khan?s, I?m pretty ambivalent and he didn?t get my first preference.

[malumbu]

Jazzer what Britain needed was cross party working to sort out the Brexit deal, and cross party working last March to properly tackle Covid.

[TheCat]

malumbu Wrote:

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

> Jazzer what Britain needed was cross party working

> to sort out the Brexit deal, and cross party

> working last March to properly tackle Covid.

This. 100 percent.

[Loutwo]

alex_b Wrote:

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

> Loutwo Wrote:

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

> -----

> > It?s simple. Labour is appeasing two camps.

> Metro

> > socialists and traditional working classes.

> Metro

> > socialists are over represented at

> parliamentary

> > level, and a perception (rightly or wrongly)

> has

> > festered in the mind?s of some of those

> > traditional old industrial communities, that

> > Labour doesn?t represent their opinions anymore.

>

>

> This interestingly exposes the definitional flaw

> at the heart of the discussion here. "Traditional

> working classes" as used here seems to include a

> large groups of people who do not work (retired

> homeowners on defined benefit pensions in the

> towns of the North and Midlands) while excluding

> large groups who do work (younger people in larger

> cities - including London - often in unstable

> employment). It just so happens that the

> 'traditional working class' are white while those

> working in cities who don't count as working class

> tend to be more diverse.

>

> So when the media talks about Labour losing touch

> with 'working people' what they mean is losing

> touch with older socially conservative white

> people who once worked. There is little evidence

> that I have seen that Labour is losing support

> amongst younger working voters (in fact I believe

> their share of vote amongst under 40s is

> increasing).

>

> Of course electorally this is a huge problem for

> Labour and will get worse as red-wall type seats

> continue to age and depopulate. I don't know what

> Labour do about this, it seems tough to think they

> can out socially conservative the Tories as Louisa

> seems to suggest.

OK let?s take Hartlepool as a case study then.

Economically deprived, the town has a average age of 40 (across the board), and statistically has a larger percentage than the national average of people living in council/housing association properties. The older or retired population accounts for a below English average according to the statistics I?ve been reading online.

If Hartlepool is representative of those ?red wall? seats, then the retired socially conservative home owning working class people you refer to, account for a significantly smaller percentage of the local population than should be the case across a English parliamentary seat average. Does this therefore mean that some of the people who are not older, nor are homeowners, might be holding their nose and voting Tory? Maybe some are even voting Green?

London still has a healthy chunk of ?traditional working class? Labour voters, who are probably more diverse than in a place like Hartlepool. But London also has another demographic, which a town like Hartlepool likely has less of. Wealthy socialist homeowners, who mostly fall into some sort of ?metropolitan elite?. Let?s also not forget, the pied piper of uni students, Corbyn, was extremely popular with students from all backgrounds. Since Starmer took over, some of that vote has evaporated too.

Louisa.

[alex_b]

I was comparing your definitions of Traditional Working Class in places like Hartlepool vs the Metro Socialists you seem to think are behind Labour in the cities. Comparing national averages which include the affluent Tory shires doesn't seem meaningful if we're trying to look at potentially different definitions of working class.

I'm not sure which statistics you've been checking, but comparing Hartlepool to the constituency for East Dulwich using Parliamentary data I don't think the numbers back up your claim. The Commons Library have pulled the income data from the web due to the pandemic making the data unreliable, if you have a good source of comparative data for this please do share.

Looking at Housing Tenure (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency-data-housing-tenure/#single_constituency):

Hartlepool: Owner occupied 59.8% Social renters 23.5%

Dulwich and West Norwood: Owner occupied 41.1% Social renters 32.4%

National average: Owner occupied 63.5% Social renters 18.2%

Looking at age (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency-statistics-population-by-age/#single_constituency)

Hartlepool: 50-90 40.3% 65-90 19.4%

Dulwich and West Norwood: 50-90 26.2% 65-90 9.7%

National average: 50-90 37.7% 65-90 18.4%

Finally looking at Ethnicity (https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/constituency-statistics-ethnicity/#single_constituency):

Hartlepool: White 97.7%

Dulwich and West Norwood: White 59.4%

National average: White 87.2%

[Blah Blah]

Plus, lower than average turnout has to be considered. Turnout last Thursday - 42.55%. Turnout 2019 - 57.9% Turnout 2017 - 59.2%. So a good chunk of Labour voters stayed home.

[zerkalo]

That was definitely the case for me as I found out too late that I had to register again to vote in the local elections (although I thought I was already on the electoral roll). Strange. Wouldn't have necessarily given Khan my first preference though.

On a side note, I find the government plans to introduce mandatory voter ID and change the system for local elections to FPTP very insidious.

[TheCat]

So Angela Rayner has written an article about how her party is going to win back northern working class voters....and published it in...The Guardian....:)

More a pitch to the membership than the electorate one would think.....

[alex_b]

Which paper should she have written it in? The ones owned by Lord Rothermere, the ones owns by Rupert Murdoch or the one owned by the Barclay family? Anyway, as you know, those op eds are written for the broadcast media to report on not because anybody seriously believes they?ll directly change the mind of the readers of a newspaper.

[JohnL]

TheCat Wrote:

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

> So Angela Rayner has written an article about how

> her party is going to win back northern working

> class voters....and published it in...The

> Guardian....:)

>

> More a pitch to the membership than the electorate

> one would think.....

Sir Keir will write the Mail version :)

[TheCat]

alex_b Wrote:

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

> Which paper should she have written it in? The

> ones owned by Lord Rothermere, the ones owns by

> Rupert Murdoch or the one owned by the Barclay

> family? Anyway, as you know, those op eds are

> written for the broadcast media to report on not

> because anybody seriously believes they?ll

> directly change the mind of the readers of a

> newspaper.

Not everything has to be a fight you know....Im sorry if lighthearted spirit in which the post was intended wasnt obvious enough.

[Droid]

zerkalo Wrote:

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

>

> On a side note, I find the government plans to

> introduce mandatory voter ID and change the system

> for local elections to FPTP very insidious.

Please explain your basis for this considering it insidious. The current system is easily open to large scale abuse because it is based on a voluntary (and unverified) declaration of names living at an address. No cross check with any form of ID is required.

Several years ago, I moved in to a rental flat (2 bedroom) and found voter registration details for 41 different names.

A 5 year old could cheat the system.

[diable rouge]

*Waves at Hammy/Trinny/et al...*