bojo is king, brexit is on, stuff is fvcked, tomorrow starts here -- new govt new thread new battle

they might as well have just invited Chris Leslie back to the party, he's probably slightly to the left of Starmer!

if tables could talk

Free to a good home: The Spectator boardroom table. Guests who have sat around it include François Mitterrand, Kofi Annan, Kevin Spacey, Joan Collins, Taki and many more... by collection only! email theedi✧✧✧@specta✧✧✧.c✧.u✧ (4m long x 2m wide). Plus perspex protector. pic.twitter.com/WOMHuCKK6n

— Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) January 27, 2020

My guess is he's talking about a kind of aspirational working-to-middle class voter group in the Midlands in particular who voted against Labour in their droves. This might be a natural Tory group at this stage but otherwise its a classic swing voter group.

The 2015 leadership campaigns focused heavily on this group to the exclusion of pretty much everything else and look what happened. Pretty sure that the metropolitan middle class isn't what's being talked about here.

"aspirational working-to-middle class voter group"

rather than saying we need to appeal to this swing group, the conservation should be more about asking if such a group will even exist within a decade of toryism or more of the same packaged differently.

Isn't it proven that even aspirational working class people still think of themselves as working class and have no desire to be thought of as middle class and called middle class?

idk how those people can be won back other than through losing confidence in the Tories to maintain the economy on a relatively even keel. 'Swing voter' seems instinctively correct but i struggle to think of much in the way of policy that is likely to get them into Labour's corner.

I might be thinking of polls or surveys done years ago but I thought the majority of people in the country still call themsleves working class?

lots of quite well off culturally working class, fiscally middle class people probably don't even have a bookshelf in the house!

I see lots of these every Sunday at the local football club. They talk like braindead neanderthal thugs, but turn up in £12 grand cars.

could have a nationalised tattooist chain offering free tribal tats for all!

One thing I've noticed going past some of the £180 000 houses of these posh thugs is that they often have some huge (and hugely narcissistic) vanity pic of them with their bairn over the fireplace.

Yeah I don't know how you win this group round either but Starmer's statement isn't really about fact, it's about batsignalling to the people who felt ignored last time, whether they were or not.

One of the many reasons that Labour lost the last election was that they bet too much on groups of voters (including mythical silent-majority groups) that didn't turn out to be as large as expected, or were concentrated in the wrong parts of the country. The challenge is how you add other groups to yr coalition of voters without either going full Blair and alienating your existing voters, or just waiting for the Tories to lead us into economic disaster.

Brexit 50p banter from all sides has passed through irrelevant and tedious to actively fucking annoying now, passive-aggressive wanking while rome burns.

Starmer has been bat-signalling across the whole political spectrum because that is what he I guess, an absolute classic melt. Didn't you see the video where he revealed his radical left past as a member of the angry brigade in the 70's and his part in an operation to blow up a Tory MP's caravan!

hang on is blowing up Tory caravans bad or good

One of the many reasons that Labour lost the last election was that they bet too much on groups of voters (including mythical silent-majority groups) that didn't turn out to be as large as expected, or were concentrated in the wrong parts of the country. The challenge is how you add other groups to yr coalition of voters without either going full Blair and alienating your existing voters, or just waiting for the Tories to lead us into economic disaster.

One of the things that give me pause when Sanders, etc, talk about 'activating non-voters' in the US.

When was the last time we had a change of government that wasn't precipitated by an economic crisis? The 60s?

xp

good but better when they are inside it or some of smouldering blast debris sets their house ablaze as well!

my favourite self-own of Starmer's was when he said his father was a humble tool-maker.

It doesn't matter what signals Starmer is putting out now imo. What is beyond doubt is that he will be completely pliable to the right of the party, even if some of his intentions are honourable right now he's shown he has a history of completely lacking any conviction and always following the path of least resistance.

actually lacking conviction is unfair he was a committed Remainer and had a steadfast commitment to locking up more poor people!

the problem with many of these "swing voters" I think is that they've totally internalised the every-person-for-themselves idea that the economy owes them nothing that they don't deserve anything that anyway they've worked hard for what they have and earned it that they don't need or want help and probably that they doubly don't want other people who do need help to have "hand outs"

the only way out is to have them persuaded that none of this is desirable nor natural that the economy should and can afford everyone a better standard of living that we all stand to benefit from no one having to endure the desperation and precarity that feature in many people's daily lives and actually that doing otherwise is a huge waste of money and energy for everyone involved

to some people poverty is an inherent weakness rather than external factors like economic crashes and austerity stripping away the tax credits that kept them out of it. I don't know how you get through to such people other than them experiencing the horrors of UC themselves when their livelihoods are knackered by a ndb or whatever will follow next year.

You can't get through to those people and it's pointless trying. Anything that might appeal like say cast iron pledges on fuel duty are incompatible with the green agenda and can be outflanked by the Tories anyway.

But there's another group - who don't like to think about themselves as NOT caring about the poor but when push comes to shove don't prioritise policies that benefit them. Those voters can be split off but they won't be if they don't see the leader first and foremost as a safe pair of hands. Unfortunately this is also an area where the media can really go to town on the candidate, as they will do even with Starmer if he wins.

When was the last time we had a change of government that wasn't precipitated by an economic crisis? The 60s?

― ShariVari, Tuesday, 28 January 2020 bookmarkflaglink

There will also be a climate crisis that will depress productivity and growth.

And that's when I think the narratives Conrad talks about will matter the most and what Matt talks in regards to the media and 'safe pair of hands' (which is another narrative) may also matter less.

I would be vary of extracting too much about the electorate from the last election, which was a Brexit election.

missed the "except the 1%" off the end of my last post

Arguably these narratives aren't mutually exclusive, in order to be persuaded it needs to be someone they're prepared to listen to and will trust.

In any case, we can't sit around and wait for the climate crisis to become acute and hope that's going to benefit the left, because the concurrent economic crisis is just as likely to motivate people to try and protect what they've got.

(Obviously this isn't all top down by any means, quite the opposite actually)

I think the next election (putting the imminent apocalypse aside) will be much tougher for the governing party. Even if brexit doesn't prove as disastrous for the economy as seems to be the most likely outcome. Nobody has disputed that the economy will definitely contract after it, and however much it does some levels of unemployment rising and average earnings falling seem like certain outcomes. It's difficult to put a good spin on that.

"we can't sit around and wait for the climate crisis to become acute and hope that's going to benefit the left, because the concurrent economic crisis is just as likely to motivate people to try and protect what they've got."

Certainly not advocating for sitting about, just reacting to posts above that were saying that it's tough to talk people round and that it's very difficult to get a new government in without an economic crisis.

Certainly electing RLB, pushing policies that will become important, getting our councils up to scratch (important whether RLB is elected or not) is a start xp

But yes a governing party has only been ejected twice in the past 40 years which feels insanely low for any democracy. No idea if it is or not.

Both Starmer and RLB (and also some increasingly brainwormed relatives of mine) have raised this idea Labour need more for the "aspirational" and a lack of it cost them the election

Still just sounds like 'oh no we've upset 80K Man' pandering rn tho

I think RLB was saying socialism is an aspiration for all of us .. and something about how too much of the manifesto was unveiled as "handouts" to a self-interest group rather than everybody. That's the way I interpreted it at the time at least.

They are all bad tbh though. Sometimes I can't wait for this to finish so I can burn my card and never vote for them again for the rest of my life!

RLB's reaching for loads of off-the-peg campaign stuff like that, people just don't care because she's RLB. Either that or castigating her for not saying the sort of thing the other candidates are saying, even though she is, constantly. The whole contest is so bland so far.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4555-the-case-against-keir-starmer

he altered legal guidelines so that those improperly claiming benefits could be charged under the Fraud Act, which carries a maximum sentence of ten years (Emily Thornberry argued it should be increased to fourteen)

lol the new left and right wings of the PLP :(

believe it or not my conclusion from reading that piece is that he is a cop and a tory. But there is always something new on this guy that you've missed it seems: the stuff about giving more power to crack down on protesters is new layer of slime to me.

Meanwhile in the UK: Please sign my petition to have an Oxford Comma added on the Brexit 50p coin https://t.co/mX2NJ2Fc9a

— Marijam Didžgalvytė (@marijamdid) January 28, 2020

can't wait to see the extensive coverage of these protests on the evening news tonight

I'm going to Paris next week, I'll let you know what's happening.

Are there right wing thinktanks in France that would dare say aloud that pension age should raised to 75? I doubt it somehow.

Only for black people and Muslims.

Team Keir’s latest email – really pushing that backstory, complete with photo of young KS 👇 pic.twitter.com/83FptphQA2

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) January 28, 2020

at least now we've finally got our own young dynamic Macron type figure.

gonna tell my children this was Kraftwerk

lool!

https://i.ibb.co/T1VpxLw/photograph-singer-Andy-Mc-Cluskey-interview-Nick-Mc-Grath-580791.jpg

that's pretty uncanny

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fYtjbAt_Jl8/VOSacGGjUzI/AAAAAAAAdFY/I_2jel86U-s/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/OMD%2B0%2BSmash%2BHits%2B-%2B17th%2BFebruary%2B-%2B2nd%2Bmarch%2B1983.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/E0cImLnhBPo/hqdefault.jpg

Dawn says any MP who goes on tv to slag the leader gets expelled

— Becky Boi (@GAYLEXITNOW) January 28, 2020

😘😘😘

She's talking to you as well, Lammy!