#2497

I’ve seen a few anti-Labour folk saying that Labour are worse because they expect everyone to stand down for them, but aren’t standing down themselves in areas in Tory/Lib Dem/Green marginals. Is there a reason why or just not Labour policy?

1 Like
#2498

Another element to this is that I think Swanson is a bit of a Blair-like maniac. See: Her heavily personality-led campaign, and the steps she’s taken to further centralise the party around the leadership. It’s possible Canterbury is simply a good case-in-point to stamp her authority upon the local peons. She probably sees it as good practice to parachute in someone she trusts, as Blair so often did.

Also think people should step back a little from the Leave/Remain dichotomy and see Labour and the LDs have completely different economic goals in mind and that makes any real alliance impossible.

2 Likes
#2499

I don’t know a lot about len mcluskey, but I often find myself thinking ‘ffs len mcluskey, not now, shut up’

1 Like
#2500

Lib Dems are the party that’ve been preaching “stop Brexit at all costs”. If that’s the message they want to sell, they need to practice what they preach.

As Parsefone says, Labour are offering something very different.

#2501

Yeah, I know, I just needed to hear it from my fellow comrades (lol)

1 Like
#2502

Well, Labour aren’t committed to Remain so why would they sign up to an alliance based entirely on that goal?

On top of that is the fact that Labour are challenging to become an actual majority government, something the Lib Dems cannot genuinely contemplate, so losing seats to anyone else would be hugely detrimental to that goal.

#2503

Only Jo Swinson can win here!

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#2504

Yes, but she’s lying. It’s not genuine at all.

2 Likes
#2505

icouldwinageneralelection

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#2506

I suppose at least he’s not just flying over the area?

2 Likes
#2507

can see what councils spend here

doesnt split out by council tax, but you could work out the proportion of their funding that is council tax and then apply that to each service

#2508

I dont think people do like tax rises on people that aren’t them, like whenever there is any talk of taxing the super wealthy, people who definitely dont fit that category take issue with the idea

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#2509

They take issue with it because they think they might become one of those people (or have been misled into thinking they already are, see inheritance tax). Propose a big old tax hike on Amazon or Google and nobody’s crying.

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#2510

Is this just accepted as fair game nowadays?image|346x500

(Sorry, no idea how to embed)

#2511

Ha! It’s a nice try, but they’re not going to trick me into voting Lib Dem that easily.

8 Likes
#2512

I think in those terms no one would care, but any proposals that would lead to that would get a negative response in the media that people buy into

#2513

Been thinking a lot about this article. As you’ve pointed out, it’s infuriating that Labour have gotten stick for austerity measures, when the Tories have been the one to implement them.

Whereas the Tories are very good at blaming Labour for things they haven’t done, Labour are very bad at blaming Tories for things they have done.

Why those messages fail to resonate… I’m not sure, but the apathy that become an issue in the later-Blair years (e.g. politicians don’t care about the north, all politicians are the same), has then turned to anger during austerity.

Places like Darlo do typically vote Labour, but in recent years that hasn’t been out of optimism. I’m making a bit of an anecdotal leap here - but its a begrudging vote, and more to keep the Tories out than belief Labour will actually change things for the better. I think there’s a case to be made that if there wasn’t that apathy/anger in a lot of typically-Labour constituencies, there would have been fewer votes for Leave. A lot of those voters used as a Leave vote to say they were unhappy with the parliament’s-status quo, not fully considering that it was a mis-aimed attack.

Hopefully those voters still vote Labour, but using Scotland as an example - they might not. Insane to think that just over 4 years ago Labour regularly had 40-50 seats there, but due to complacency they’ve been entirely wiped out and there’s no indication the party is ever going to try and get them back.

So Labour should put the effort into maintaining their heartlands? That makes sense, but first-past-the-post counters that by saying, if they’re your heartlands it’s inefficient to spend resources there and instead you should focus on swing seats. Unfortunately, that bottles up resentment in those neglected communities, creating generations of people brought up feeling ignored. After years of that, it’s pretty difficult to reverse. Especially as once you’ve become the opposition there’s little Labour can do to fix things, and the party in power, i.e. the Tories, definitely don’t care about those constituencies because they’re opposition heartlands and it would be a waste of resources for them to even try and get a foot in. Again, first-past-the-post is to blame.

Not sure where I’m going with this. I need a pint.

2 Likes
#2514

Well yes, but then we’re drifting off the point. The essence of my point was that increasing taxes to pay for services can be a vote winner, but the vote winning comes from the better services and there’s little point in focussing on the revenue raising (your opponents will do that for you).

1 Like
#2515

I want to live in this world

#2516

It was called the early 2000s.