Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021

I know none of us like to acknowledge it, but people from Surrey are human too!

Here’s a council bucking the trend - vote share and votes up and everything:

RESULT:
Labour 30 (+/- 0)
Cons 11 (+2)
LD 7 (-2)#PrestonModel council marches on! pic.twitter.com/iChyNKASkx

— Preston Labour (@prestonlabour) May 7, 2021

not true

i briefly attended the university of surrey dont ask and its pod ppl all the way down

"For Scots of my generation — millennial and younger — the belief that Scotland would be better off running its own affairs, free from the strictures of Westminster, is almost axiomatic." I wrote about the break-up of Britain for the New York Times. https://t.co/cZ9DbCTea2

— Jamie Maxwell (@jamiedmaxwell) May 7, 2021

he's overstating that a bit.

Curtice saying he thinks the SNP will a seat or two short

― stet, Friday, May 7, 2021 1:10 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

think he will likely be right.

im mainly looking forward to the d'hondt to see what happens with the greens and alba - hopefully only salmond gets elected - but i understand that won't be until tomorrow (even in my 8 hours behind timezone).

Unbelievable

*Taps sign I put up in early April*. *Taps sign again*. pic.twitter.com/wQxJfTeUlT

— Glen O'Hara (@gsoh31) April 30, 2021

Can we please not post that poisonous goblin here even as a joke thanks in advance

Last time Khan won Ealing & Hillingdon with about 82,000 votes but Bailey has beaten him there by about 5K (80K vs 75K rounding up). Turnout not too affected in the outer boroughs then it seems?

i briefly attended the university of surrey dont ask and its pod ppl all the way down

were any reassurance in London needed this is a useful thread

London overall:

2016 R1: Khan 44%/35% Goldsmith
2016 R2: Khan 57%/43% Goldsmith

So Bailey needs a 7% swing to win, roughly. He's hitting that in a single constituency of the half-dozen which are counting so far. He's just not on course or anywhere near.

— Pip Moss (@PipsFunFacts) May 7, 2021

Can we please not post that poisonous goblin here even as a joke thanks in advance

― Scamp Granada (gyac), Friday, 7 May 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Only posting classics now sorry if this offends

Strikes me that McDonnell either got it slightly wrong yesterday or was biting his tongue (probably the latter) when he was talking about sending candidates out without policy. Obviously policy matters hugely but all this is first and foremost a problem of representation. For all that Corbynism alienated key groups of voters it also massively enthused others - including groups like working class black people who as people on this thread have already pointed out might as well not exist as far as the professional punditry class goes. Now Labour's losing support from both sides because, other than a few Zone 2 professional types and middle-aged commuter-belt liberals, no one feels especially represented by Starmer's Labour because there's pretty much nothing to feel represented by.

On policy, there are a lot of hacks who thought Starmer was doing brilliantly because he was doing exactly the things that they were saying should have been done all along, plus this bizarre train of thought that told them that because Biden had won, that meant that Starmer was going to, provided he did all the things that they said should have been done all along. The lack of policy or vision under Starmer wasn't a result of a lack of ideas (although it may have been that as well), it was a deliberate strategic decision by the people advising him. It's there in the interviews with these guys, they were actually pouring scorn on the idea that he should commit to a vision, one of them literally called the idea "vapid". Well, who looks vapid now?

Strikes me that the problem isn't with individual politicians so much as with the entire group of professional advisors that surrounds them - I don't pay attention to the ins and outs of Labour politics very much any more because who can be arsed, the whole thing is just so soul-crushing - but a lot of these people should never be allowed near a major political party ever again. It's all based around a fantasy version of a centre ground that hasn't existed since 2008 at least and probably never did, which is why they keep managing to pitch Labour up in a position that pleases precisely nobody.

Going back to the issue of representation here, Andy Burnham's campaign for the leadership was a disaster, no historical revisionism here, and it's probably the result of this exact same advisory mindset. But if he wins comfortably in Manchester then it's probably because he has made people feel represented over the course of the pandemic. I've no doubt that would all be sucked out of him if he were to somehow win the leadership. On the flipside, thinking about people like Thangam Debbonaire in Bristol who said nothing when her constituents were being beaten by the police at protests. A by-election in a formerly safe metropolitan seat would be very interesting right now.

I know you all know this stuff but I needed to say it somewhere because I've been inwardly screaming at the wider discourse. (Also, never, ever, ever type 'Sadiq Khan' into Twitter unless you're feeling the urge to emigrate).

wb king

at least Burnham has shown some desire to learn from his mistakes and not dig in on a losing formula - even though he's still too slick and untrustworthy by half for my liking and made dickhead pandering to bigot comments last year re: Asian communities and Rona - but still after a year of Starmer Labour, jesus fucking wept - almost anyone would be an improvement.

I mean he would be better than Yvette Cooper, but I doubt I'll vote again in my lifetime tbh

I'm reasonably sure that whoever comes next is likely to be worse and even if they are better it won't matter as long as they're being advised by the same sort of people. Which isn't to say they should go out and rehire Seumas Milne because Lord knows he was a disaster but there's been very little fresh thinking over the last year (or maybe there's been too much thinking and too little decision making).

Very strong Unai Emery at Arsenal vibes to Starmer's Labour. Only Mikel Arteta can save them now.

Ahh, nothing like the growing realisation that you're reading a DC post 👍🏻

Great to see your thoughts on this Matt.

calz yes but I also think Matt's right - that whatever pugnacious belief Burnham's found as mayor would be efficaciously repackaged - and perhaps spoken of reverently, as a foundational myth, like Khan's childhood - but stowed safely away in a glass case should he decamp to Westminster as Labour leader.

I think McD was definitely biting his tongue. I'm sure he'd have something much more discerning to say about yesterday when amongst friends and family, but he'd probably get the whip removed if he said it publicly.

Sadiq Khan loves telling people they shouldn't vote Labour doesn't he pic.twitter.com/F3DVeea5M3

— Dan Hancox (@danhancox) May 8, 2021

i think there was a moment during burnham's 2015 leader campaign where you almost saw the lightbulb go off and realise where things were going and instead of doubling down and looking increasingly desperate/irrelevant as cooper did, started to seem relaxed and philosophical. if it does become the case that the narrative shifts as a result of the divergent results in preston manchester etc and he ends up becoming starmer's successor, there will be those who say that he should simply have been elected then. i seem to recall his campaign having a remarkably similar whiff of starmer's recent john lewis wallpaper stunt desperation (wasn't his line that he was the candidate of which? magazine readers? absolutely bizarre market-research led politics).

Both him and Cooper got absolutely owned by Jez in the leadership hustings debate, whilst Liz Kendall shrivelled into micron sized insignificance. Oh happy days!

no Chris Leslie was the Which mag guy.

lol the CUK co-founder who is now a spokesperson/lobbyist for leg-breakers said the Labour party needed to appeal Which magazine's superior class of consumers to get into power

AB pivoting to the left when in charge of a left-leaning city isn’t a guide to how he would have acted if elected to lead a national party.

idk, I get the impression that Starmer’s core advisors, however much they talk about Blair and the Olympic opening ceremony, have also more or less given up on the idea of ‘centrism’. If they hadn’t, I suspect Starmer in office would look a lot more like his leadership campaign.

Ian Dunt had a typically incoherent comment piece yesterday but argued that all the ideas within the party are coming from the right or the left and it’s should be the job of a centrist, moderate leader to select between the two on a policy by policy basis based on which will appeal most to the electorate. It seems absolutely clear that’s not what’s happening at the moment.

burnham's leadership campaign had a nice hexagonal logo

^ truth

he had nice hair as well

Kieth's hair has maintained niceness but skin complexion gone very bad!

Also TL:DR but if you're going to make the strategic call not to oppose the government too much then you can't complain when voters conclude that maybe they shouldn't either.

A lot of this is based on a fantasy version of the Blair years, when Blair in opposition was actually remorselessly combative and very clear when it came to articulating his vision and ideas. Starmer is neither.

Yeah when you look back to old Blair footage he absolutely eviscerated Major and was banging his fist talking about how the Labour party is ready to take power and has a radical program to improve people's lives - Kieth meanwhile...

It was a different era I suppose and Blair had the confidence that Murdoch had his back, but still if you aren't brave enough for the job then your in the wrong job

There was a lot of uncertainty about the detail of what Blair would do in office which probably benefited him, a nudge and a wink to both the right and the left, but there were a small number of clear pledges that gave voters enough of an idea of what he stood for, he got the headlines right. Funnily enough a similar thing happened with Labour in 2017 and not in 2019 (and certainly not now). The Ed Stone was like a really shit version of it, I suppose.

Dan Trilling, who is generally excellent and should be listened to, made the point on Twitter that it's increasingly difficult to imagine any party being able to make a credible claim to represent the whole of this island and that's more problematic for Labour than anyone else.

Also the writing was literally on the wall with Under New Management, when anyone who was paying attention could have told them that management was the last thing they wanted to be associating themselves with.

cf David Graeber's point about the resentment and 'anti-elitist'lol ire channelled towards the metropolitan Professional Managerial Class. If he was onto anything (I think so), then Starmer was a disastrous choice as he really is King PMC.

At the same time, Blair was coming in on the back of what was generally seen as a relatively popular and competent Smith opposition. Starmer would have looked ludicrous simultaneously accepting that Labour was a horrendous, racist threat to the British way of life five minutes ago but, with a change of leader, was now all set to govern, however many of the journalistic well-poisoners imagined that to be possible.

Very strong Unai Emery at Arsenal vibes to Starmer's Labour. Only Mikel Arteta can save them now.

― Matt DC, Saturday, 8 May 2021 09:31 (one hour ago) link

Thus is a low blow isn't it?

So Starmer can expect to be more successful when he leaves Labour and joins the Greens?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0zSSRxWUAQDFAT?format=jpg&name=small

I think Babs was on the sauce last night, and posted this, promptly deleted it and then dismissed it as fake. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to be aware the Posts MP's Delete account captures everything!

or it might be fake

Yes Blairites never really talk about the fact Labour were already 10-20pts ahead when Blair became leader. But John Smith is almost never brought up as a leader whose approach should be studied or learnt from, whereas you can't move for Labourites citing Blair or Kinnock.

Obviously Black Wednesday and the housing crash helped, and a British government has only been ejected twice in my lifetime and both times it was following a property slump. Almost any Labour opposition would benefit from the same thing happening again.

Which brings us back round to competence. I was prepared to give Starmer the benefit of the doubt (we're long past that now) and I still think that the approach of attacking them on competence was the right one. But you can't *only* do that because if you make competence the be all and end all you're left high and dry when the government can suddenly claim credit for a massive unambiguous success. There was nothing else there other than relying on people hating the Tories, hence seats also leaking to the Greens and the LibDems. Labour unethusiasm also left them very vulnerable to low turnout.

what's Conmings on about re Starmer being a gamma?

Cos he’s gamma he’ll listen to the babble! What will he NOT do? Focus on public priorities > media priorities. We have a No10 & Opposition who see their job as Media Entertainment Service & neither knows how to be this better than TB/Mandy. Neither will try to be… a government

— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) May 7, 2021

xp

iirc even the right-wing press were saying Smith was PM in waiting in the obituaries at the time.

Matt DC, truly great to see you and some great points there!

Starmer surrounded himself with a mix of these Labour right ghouls, who have been obsessed with beating and humiliating the left since their student politics days. He’s also got Claire Ainslie doing policy, and the moment I heard her focus was on “family values” that set off quite a few alarm bells for me and I don’t think I was wrong to think that way.

My impression is that they are embarrassed by the people who vote for them - Corbyn won black*
and Muslim voters by huge margins last time out - but they still want the right to treat the people who do vote for them with contempt and emotional manipulation. You know the stuff. “If you don’t vote for us, the Tories will get in,” like fuck that all day every day. They are bad people with bad ideas and the Labour party is not worth that.

Quite frankly if they’re going to do things like tell me they support Johnny Mercer then they can forget having my vote, and the tolerance of people like Duffield and Mahmood is going to do them a lot of damage in the long run. The impression you do get is that suits some of them, like Ian Murray is the only MP in Scotland and unshiftable due to the very specific circumstances of that constituency - you could see the tide going out and a lot of these people left high and dry as Labour representation is swept away from around them. But what do they care as long as they get to rule over the ashes?

Sorry unfinished asterisk re black voters: my understanding is that the Tories did better with black African voters because ofc the community isn’t monolithic and that’s interesting too - you can see how they treat their black MPs compared to Labour where again you get the sense the party is embarrassed by them.

So that's who "Babs" is.

Also the writing was literally on the wall with Under New Management, when anyone who was paying attention could have told them that management was the last thing they wanted to be associating themselves with.

Is Cummings now attacking both the government and the Opposition?

Cummings doesn’t give a fuck about anything besides being right. He was right to say that KS was a moron to be guided by the media though.