The Mock Turtle

I wish David Milliband would come back.

BBC says the Tories would probably have won in 2019 but the Brexit party got 25% of the vote, so it isn’t too much of a surprise. Lots of leave voters up here.

Ella77 wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 8:43 am David Milliband ?

I’m convinced had David Milliband won the Labour Leadership contest over his brother we would live in a very different and better UK now.

I believe that too Roma. And it’s partly my fault because I voted for Ed

I do like Ed much more now though, he had a hard time and it wasn’t his fault.

David Milliband was not and still is not a magic bullet against an overarching western swing toward populism.

Yeah, I think he'd be regarded as metropolitan elite too (with a not so subtle dash of bigotry thrown at him, as happened to his brother).

Yes I like Ed a lot more these days too.

I love Ed. He's so funny, I wish they'd let him be funny as leader.

I don't what the fuck Labour is going to do, I really don't.

sally maclennane wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 8:59 am Yeah, I think he'd be regarded as metropolitan elite too (with a not so subtle dash of bigotry thrown at him, as happened to his brother).

True.

That's the thing. I don't believe Labour (or whatever might rise from their ashes) will never be elected again, because these things are cyclical and even though the parliamentary maths doesn't show it, a pretty big wedge of people are pretty fucked up with the status quo, but we're all on crack if we think it'll happen any time in the next 10yrs, at least.

No one can predict anything because there is no longer any normal. It's because Thatcher broke the post-war consensus.


*I blame Thatcher.

No, surely not another 10 years? I think with Brexit, we need to wait at least 2 years for the full and hideous consequences to be seen, it's too soon right now to prove what a dreadful idea it was.

But I'm relentlessly stupid about elections, I thought there'd be a hung Parliament in December 2019 and look how that went. *hollow laughter* *maniacal laughter* *silence*

lazzbo wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 10:02 am No, surely not another 10 years? I think with Brexit, we need to wait at least 2 years for the full and hideous consequences to be seen, it's too soon right now to prove what a dreadful idea it was.

But I'm relentlessly stupid about elections, I thought there'd be a hung Parliament in December 2019 and look how that went. *hollow laughter* *maniacal laughter* *silence*

Well, I dunno, I'm not exactly a sage political commentator but I can't see it. We keep waiting for Brexit to be such an obviously bad idea that people turn against the Tories...and er... . Nada (even though it patently is a terrible reality). Maybe if Covid hadn't obscured it all... but it has.

I've not even started to grasp the scale of what's playing out. There's too many factors. Fake news, lack of reliable news, black and white thinking and entrenched sides concreted into being by social media/cancel stuff, the massive impacts of austerity and the blame game for that and Brexit, the hopeless schisming of Labour into far left at an atrocious time, the demise of the LibDems because of coalition. Stuck on an electoral landscape with first past the post, a still solid SNP (no labour votes left in Scotland now) and an enduring and continuing Tory commitment to gerrymadering. Demographics where parties chase a younger vote (trans issues being a key one here, also Black Lives matters etc) and turn off some of the older vote, with the issue being the old vote and the young don't (sweeping but overarching accurate).

Plus, everyone being mad, obviously.

This is a good thread on some of it. Hard agree.

It's all gone a bit Yeats. The centre cannot hold.

I don't think Brexiteers will ever admit it was a bad idea, they're too entrenched now. The pandemic has obscured some of the impact and people will cling onto the idea that it meant a better vaccine roll out (even though it didn't, similar to passport colours, EU countries could do their own thing with it).

sally maclennane wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 10:29 am I don't think Brexiteers will ever admit it was a bad idea, they're too entrenched now. The pandemic has obscured some of the impact and people will cling onto the idea that it meant a better vaccine roll out (even though it didn't, similar to passport colours, EU countries could do their own thing with it).

This is what I keep saying. It’s frustrating, but if I had been told over and over that I was stupid and uneducated and racist and didn’t understand what I was voting for, I would probably be digging my heels in now.

Covid has obviously helped Johnson, what with vaccination rollout, predicted economic bounceback etc, and unfortunately the vast majority of people aren’t that interested in politics so just see the headlines. The media are also culpable of course, and savage cuts to ‘soft’ courses in universities will mean that future generations will be trained instead of educated to see through the bullshit.

I don’t know what happens now. Maybe we just have to wait for the pendulum to swing, but I’m not hopeful about that happening in my lifetime.

PS I would vote for Andy Burnham and he has time to become an MP.

Marina Hyde's take is worth reading for the ooof factor.

Ouch.

Ian Dunt gives us slightly more hope: https://www.politics.co.uk/week-in-revi ... -disaster/

That's very sensible. I do hope Keir reads it.

This bit articulates some of what I was trying to say above but wasn't really nailing.

This comes down to the central dilemma Labour faces – the trap it is caught in as a new cultural politics mangles its electoral alliance. It can’t go full culture war nationalist, or it loses its young metropolitan voters. But it can’t go full culture war liberal either, or it speeds up the loss of older socially-conservative voters. Labour leaders often find themselves in a position where they are unwilling to offend anyone. It was this problem which turned Miliband from an interesting and thoughtful politician into a kind of faceless android. And there are signs the same thing is happening to Starmer.

If we are going to bemoan the 'we nearly could' of anyone who had a go at standing for labour Leader over the last decade or so, please take a moment of quiet to be sad we never got Yvette Cooper. She has ALWAYS known what she was saying.