What now for Labour? (Part 1)

First topic message reminder :

A post mortem

We lost. I feared the worst a few days ago when walking my dog. I met a left-wing man I’ve known for years who said that he was voting for the Peace Party. Someone of his persuasion was going to throw his vote down the drain instead of opting for the only party which could replace the Tories. That made me apprehensive about whether millions of anti-Tory voters would use their votes effectively. (The Peace Party came seventh in my constituency.) Worse was to follow when I logged in here. To read that a serious Tory hater couldn’t “become enthused by any party on offer” and chose not to vote for the only viable alternative to Cameron’s evil regime, was further evidence, albeit anecdotal, that the Labour campaign, despite having so many troops on the ground, was failing to motivate enough people to secure a victory.

About eleven million people in the UK (about 37% of those who voted) chose the Tories, and it resulted in them winning 331 of the 650 seats in Parliament, 12 more than all the other parties combined. In our so-called democracy, we have to respect their choice, even if it’s difficult to understand it. I’ve never come to terms with how anyone of modest means, or anyone with a social conscience, could ever vote Tory. I have a brief encounter with OCD whenever I go into a polling booth, checking what I’ve done on the ballot paper several times before I put it in the box.

What makes it even more difficult to understand now is that many people believed Cameron in 2010, he lied to them and has since broken a string of promises (which have been recorded elsewhere on this forum any number of times). He’s presided over the cruellest government in living memory, and yet so many people don’t seem to care. He’s stuffed the House of Lords with cronies, often after the Tories have received generous donations from them, and he's sold off state assets at knockdown prices, in the case of the Royal Mail enabling Osborne’s best man to make a fortune. He and his government have even been reprimanded several times for falsifying statistics.

The Tories often complain that the BBC is ‘left-wing’, which it isn’t, as a thread on this forum fully demonstrates; if anything it leans to the right these days, and it has always fawned over so-called ‘royalty’. But the Tories never complain about the rabid right-wing nature of most of the press, with even ‘The Independent’ giving them a tepid endorsement this week. That press, and programmes such as ‘HIGN4Y’ and ‘News Quiz’, have participated in the character assassination of Ed Miliband over a long period of time, gradually corroding his credibility, and dismissing him as “not being prime ministerial”. Whether he is we will never find out now, but does Cameron fit the bill? So often he’s shown himself to be an arrogant, bad-tempered, out-of-touch bully with a sense of entitlement. His behaviour on the day after the Scottish independence referendum incited the Scots and drove many of them from Labour into the arms of the SNP. In this campaign, he created fear of the SNP to scare many English voters towards the Tories. Had he been alive today, Machiavelli could have learned lessons from Cameron.

Ed Miliband sometimes looks awkward on television and isn’t very good at eating a bacon sandwich (who is?). But what does it say when the issue of choosing a potential prime minister is reduced to the level of a vote for ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ or ‘The X Factor’? Would Clement Attlee - in my opinion the greatest PM we’ve ever had - have won many votes for his celebrity status? Shouldn’t it be more important to choose between the bedroom tax and a mansion tax, and between democratically managed public services or private ones controlled by unaccountable corporations? Did those who voted Tory really want the ultimate destruction of the welfare state? Are they really so blasé about the possibility of becoming sick, unemployed or disabled one day? Instead of thinking about such issues, so many were distracted by the Tory charge that Miliband was ‘weak’, even though Cameron was too scared to debate head-to-head with him.

So it was rather like 1992 after all. No triumphalist Sheffield rally this time, just a silly stone monument, but the polls telling us that it was neck-and-neck and then the Tories winning easily. Three party leaders have resigned, but so should the pollsters. Electoral Calculus was claiming only yesterday that the chance of a Tory majority was just 4%. I don’t think I’ll ever bother to look at an opinion poll again; studying tea leaves is probably a more reliable guide to election outcomes.

Maybe the similarities with 1992 (which turned out to be a good election to lose) won’t end there. Five months after John Major lied his way back into office with scaremongering and promises of “tax cuts year on year”, Tory economic incompetence was there for all to see on ‘Black Wednesday’. His hapless government, riddled with sleaze and tearing itself apart over Europe, limped through five unhappy years, and we all know what happened next. So maybe 2020 will be like 1997, but five years is a long while to wait to find out, and sadly a lot of vulnerable people are going to suffer in the meantime.

Stuart - if the 'apologies' were in respect of my posts and your response, there is absolutely no need.

But I appreciate it, anyway. thank you...

Thank-you

Bobby - you are awful - but I like you...

Allowing time for a decent period of navel-examination, may we then address the topic question? Can what remains of the Labour Party be relied upon to recover, regroup, and strike a credible pose of trustworthiness in time for the next election? Or was Tony Blair uniquely able to mobilise British Socialism, never to be repeated?

There is plenty of time to select a new Leader before Annual Conference, provided nobody insists upon a prolonged and pointless post-mortem.

What are the alternatives? Maybe some of the other Opposition parties have answers. Perhaps all opposition parties should form a loose association by which a united front is presented to our beloved government.

oftenwrong wrote:-
Perhaps all opposition parties should form a loose association by which a united front is presented to our beloved government.

The time for that was in May 2010, when the Tories won 307 seats and the combined opposition parties won 343. But Nick Clegg was more comfortable with fellow former public schoolboy Cameron, David Laws (when he wasn't fiddling expenses for which he should have gone to jail) drew attention to Liam Byrne's foolish joke, and Danny Alexander did his utmost to perpetuate the lie that the global credit crunch was somehow "all Labour's fault". What's left of the Lib Dem Party can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.

Phil Hornby. I don’t see how someone offering advice on how you might be able to make a positive contribution can be interpreted as “having a hissy fit”. Furthermore, I can’t see how anyone can extrapolate the “Labour Party’s inability to attract waverers” from the innocuous comments of one kind and gentle person on this forum who spends a lot of her time trying to help the victims of the Tories. But then I also can’t understand how someone who has spent the last five years lampooning the Tories wouldn’t lift a finger to try to get rid of them.

It is indeed unfortunate that we on this forum, all the pollsters, the bookies, the political commentators – and most of the politicians themselves – didn’t share your insight into the inevitability of Labour’s defeat. The Tories could have saved themselves the £1 million cost of employing Lynton Crosby, and heaven knows how much on Facebook adverts. Labour activists could have stayed in bed on cold Saturday mornings in winter instead of taking part in the ‘Labour Doorstep’ campaign. However, even though very few things are “obvious” or inevitable in politics, nobody is trying to deny you the right to make predictions. I must say that you didn't seem quite so certain on 27 April, when you wrote: "If things don't pick up for Cameron soon....":-

https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t915p40-should-the-daily-mail-be-banned-under-the-obscene-publications-act

Still, we are all likely to be right occasionally; even a broken clock tells the correct time twice a day.  

I certainly don’t agree that Cameron “walked all over Miliband at PMQs”. Cameron rarely answered any of the questions he was asked, and he regularly went red in the face and resorted to abuse and bullying, supported by the braying mob behind him. Anyway, if you think that ridiculous spectacle every Wednesday lunchtime – which most people don’t see because they’re at work – had much to do with Labour’s defeat, you’re very wide of the mark. If Cameron thought that he could have “walked all over Miliband”, he wouldn’t have run away from a head-to-head debate.

The election results show that overall there was a miniscule swing of 0.35% from the Tories to Labour, and that Labour made a net gain of 2 seats from the Tories and 12 from the Lib Dems but lost 40 to the SNP. The Tories won a majority because they successfully targeted 26 Lib Dem seats. We know that two-thirds of the previous Lib Dem vote went elsewhere – to the Greens (if they were left-inclined), to UKIP (if they were serial protest voters), to the Tories (if they liked the government of the past five years) and to Labour (if they were returning to their former allegiance). There is also some evidence that Tories who had deserted to UKIP thought better of it as polling day neared and went back to the nasty party, but that Labour defectors to UKIP stayed with Farage. I’ve seen one estimate that Labour lost one-eighth of its votes to UKIP. Why don’t you try offering some positive suggestions on how they could be won back? I doubt if Blairism would do the trick!

Ivan wrote:-
I don’t think it’s very helpful to blame the electorate for getting it wrong. That reminds me of Hitler saying in April 1945 that the German people had let him down!  

Sod that, Ivan. The majority of people in this country have been deliberately depoliticised since the 80's, don't know their history, and are conditioned to believe in whatever propaganda the right wing press tell them. Despite 'unions', 'the left', and 'socialism' fighting on behalf of the majority of people to get them better working rights and pay, a better education, the NHS, and generally better levels of equality of opportunity those three terms ('unions', 'the left', and 'socialism') are now dirty words with negative connotations as far as younger generations are concerned - because they have been brainwashed and conditioned to think that way by the right wing media.  

And the German people also elected Hitler in the 30's - would it be unfair to say the German electorate got that wrong?

If the electorate didn't get it wrong, does that mean Labour will have to veer to the right, privatise the NHS, encourage more free schools (essentially privatisation), impose welfare cuts, punish those on benefits, the disabled, the most disadvantaged in society - like the tories.....just to appease and satisfy that electorate?

Just to pick up on a couple of things in my 'telling-off' ( above) , Ivan :



Re: Should ‘The Daily Mail’ be banned under the Obscene Publications Act?
Post by Phil Hornby on Tue Apr 28, 2015 5:58 am
.
"If things don't pick up for Cameron quite soon, what are the odds that the Daily Mail and The Sun will be blaming Miliband for the Nepal earthquake...?"

The much-believed Polls were not showing any distance between the Tories and Labour. Given that inconvenient fact , I mused that the Mail would have to give Cameron some advantage . There are many times where' prior to that' I had posted my view that Cameron would win  (as if my opinion really matters a jot, however!).

"I can’t see how anyone can extrapolate the “Labour Party’s inability to attract waverers” from the innocuous comments of one kind and gentle person on this forum who spends a lot of her time trying to help the victims of the Tories!).

What I actually wrote was :


".....and the inability to see the all-too-obvious probably explains why the Labour Party more widely is unable to attract waverers"

It is not like you  ( in a manner which might have embarrassed the Daily Mail) to try to manipulate quotes which were, in reality, a reflection of why , nationally, voters just weren't convinced. But as I remarked elsewhere, people's reactions to defeat can lead them to lash out and feel that it was all 'somebody else's fault'.

But this is a left-leaning forum and I suppose I should have learned by now that it is just not acceptable to detest the Tories while not being convinced by what Labour did 2010 -2015.

sickchip. I still can’t come to terms with the fact that over 11 million people went to the polls and voted Tory, apparently not caring if the NHS is destroyed, or if we leave the EU, or if their human rights are taken away, or if it’s made easier for bosses to sack you and harder to go on strike. I find it hard to believe that so many people don’t care if the welfare state is destroyed, if more children end up in poverty, if more sick people have their benefits stopped and more disabled people get evicted for not having the means to pay the bedroom tax. They don’t even seem to want their gas and electricity bills frozen for now and regulated in the future, and they don’t care if wild animals can be legally ripped to pieces again, a top priority for Cameron.

Yes, it’s frighteningly easy to brainwash people. You don’t have to subject them to sleep deprivation in a room with a dripping tap and with a bright light on for 24 hours a day. You just need ‘The Daily Mail’ and ‘The Sun’ to serve up a constant diet of smears, lies and half-truths, day after day, year after year. Getting your money from union subscriptions – the cleanest and most transparent donations in politics – is vilified. Getting bungs from hedge funds, Russian oligarchs and corporate cronies is fine. Even the BBC uses the terms “Labour paymasters” and “Tory donors”. UKIP has shown how the moronic tendency will happily keep repeating “we want our country back”, “EUSSR”, “Liebore” and “Lib/Lab/Con” ad nauseam.

In a so-called democracy (where one MP claimed that the Tories now have “a massive mandate” – from 36.9% of those who voted and just 24.4% of those who could have done so), people are free to cast their votes as they choose. I know for a fact that when Labour canvassers warned people that the Tories are destroying the NHS, many didn’t believe them. It’s a hard fight for people on the left to get our message across in this country, with the big money and most of the media conning voters into supporting their right-wing agenda. However, try telling people that they’ve been brainwashed and see if they accept your analysis. Try telling them that they were wrong and they'll think you’re arrogant and deluded. It comes down to the fact that many of them just weren't ready to listen to us yet, and maybe that's not so surprising. Only one UK government in over 80 years has failed to survive at least one subsequent general election, and that was the Tory one from 1970-74.

Thanks for your considered reply, Ivan. And a lot of excellent points there too!

It is, indeed, a hard fight for us on the left to get our message across - especially, when as you say, we are fed a constant drip-drip of distorted propaganda from a largely right wing media.......say something long enough and loud enough and people start to believe it.

I guess we must carry on trying to persuade the electorate that our way is a better, fairer way. That is difficult - and I imagine Labour will not persuade many, and it will be more a case of waiting for things to start going wrong under the Tory government.......the electorate will then be upset with the Tories and look to Labour - not so much because of policies, but more because voters can be quite fickle. So it will be more a case of 'you tories are messing up and upsetting us, we're going to give the Labour lot a go'. So I think Labour just need to stick with the leftish agenda Ed was promoting and play the waiting game.

Phil: I think the problem for Labour is that our elections are no longer a two horse race. I say this because other parties (the greens, SNP, UKIP, etc) appear to dilute the Labour vote more than they do the Conservative vote. If we had a two horse race, as in the US - DEMOCRATS V REPUBLICANS, we would undoubtedly see Labour in power the majority of the time. The Labour party could really have incorporated the belefs and views of the greens and snp and amalgamated those parties and people into the Labour party.

sickchip - I believe, too, that there is an urgent need to establish an anti-Tory alignment in politics. I thought Miliband should have signalled that he would welcome support from all left-of-centre groupings to keep Cameron out and dealt with the SNP's 'independence' arguments in the normal cut and thrust of negotiations etc. thereafter. But even then...

I hate the Tories, but don't have confidence in the current entity which is the Labour Party , which was so ineffective in Opposition. In a working life where I have supported unfairly-treated employees against bullying employers and managers, and yet also represented employers against errant workers and loud-mouthed and unreasonable union officials, I try to avoid having a totally polarised view of events. That said, I detest what Tories stand for and most of all, the way they behave to get it.

I will never vote Tory, but would vote for the Labour Party if they will - firstly, oppose properly and effectively, and also have a credible platform of policy ( preferably not on a stone tablet). As it is, I am told on good authority that I should be getting out there and doing it better myself - a piece of advice akin to my wanting the England rugby team to win and being exhorted to play at full-back to make it happen...

sickchip wrote:I guess we must carry on trying to persuade the electorate that our way is a better, fairer way. That is difficult - and I imagine Labour will not persuade many, and it will be more a case of waiting for things to start going wrong under the Tory government.......the electorate will then be upset with the Tories and look to Labour - not so much because of policies, but more because voters can be quite fickle. So it will be more a case of 'you tories are messing up and upsetting us, we're going to give the Labour lot a go'. So I think Labour just need to stick with the leftish agenda Ed was promoting and play the waiting game.  

Sickchop you are so near the truth its scary, Ed Miliband tried the waiting game to see if people would erupt against the Tories once there cuts came in and we know the answer to that one, but until the 8th July (Osbournes budget) then those that voted Tory on the 7th May 2015 will find out EXACTLY what they voted for and can bet there will be more than £12 billion taken from WELFARE a lot lot more.

Ed Milibands policies ere good ones suited to all left thinking people, which the people of the UK will find out when the big six energy companies put a huge hike on energy prices, while Ed was going to freeze them until January 2016 plus the people of the UK would now not be paying the bedroom tax which IMHO will also be hiked up in the budget on 8th July.

You will not be very far out on your predictions Redflag,and that is the worst part of all,but also they will cut the invalidity benefits,and benefits all round even for those that deserve them, so the sick will only get sicker,as I think of my appointments.

Phil Hornby wrote:sickchip - I believe, too, that there is an urgent need to establish an anti-Tory alignment in politics. I thought Miliband should have signalled that he would welcome support from all left-of-centre groupings to keep Cameron out and dealt with the SNP's 'independence' arguments in the normal cut and thrust of negotiations etc. thereafter. But even then...

I hate the Tories, but don't have confidence in the current entity which is the Labour Party , which was so ineffective in Opposition. In a working life where I have supported unfairly-treated employees against bullying employers and managers, and yet also represented employers against errant workers and loud-mouthed and unreasonable union officials, I try to avoid having a totally polarised view of events. That said, I detest what Tories stand for and most of all, the way they behave to get it.

I will never vote Tory, but would vote for the Labour Party if they will  - firstly, oppose properly and effectively, and also have a credible platform of policy ( preferably not on a stone tablet). As it is, I am told on good authority that I should be getting out there and doing it better myself - a piece of advice akin to my wanting the England rugby team to win and being exhorted to play at full-back to make it happen...

Phil - the current problem is whether we modify the huge reactionary swing in capitalist society by grovelling to the tory media as Blair did and doing limited good by stealth or fight them outright and, for the boss-controlled moment. lose badly. In the long run, the first choice will have us living on grass, but it will look attractive to those who get elected on bullshit. The second is a long-term policy which will get something accomplished, and I prefer it. We have, I think, to use our heads.

I am afraid that many many people today are utterly selfish. Since the doctrine of the Witch "make money anyway you can" "there is no such thing as society" has stuck, or at least come home to roost.
Therefore it is the underdog or the worst looking,and the kindest leader who is spurned. People have come to respect ruthlessness, arrogance and cruelty as being strength. We see it so clearly in our recent every day life. The poor are regarded as "scum" because people are fed scaremongering. propaganda by the media/press who take the few bad eggs and record them as the majority. Likewise, because of the few who have abused their DLA benefits, all are looked down upon. The Scaremomgering of the Tories with their talk of those "still in bed with curtains drawn, while those working are up and at it" hit home to those who pay taxes. Equally, the immigration situation has been exploited by the Tories and UKIP. Hense, is it any wonder Labour lost, all that coupled with the SNP votes plus UKIP, PLUS LIBS going over to Tories? Labour never simply and properly explained the unexpected Global Crisis that would never had had such an effect if Lehmans had not been allowed to go bust. Now, I am unable to see any leader of any political party looking statesman enough, strong enough and brave enough to become leaders. I fear we could end up with Gideon and god help us.

Do they not think Mel that those still in bed with blinds closed in the morning have been up all night throwing up blood due to Cancer? maybe people should think twice before judging should they not.

Phil Hornby. If I’ve misunderstood what you were trying to communicate, then I apologise. When you said “If things don't pick up for Cameron quite soon….”, the rest of the sentence (and I did indicate there was more of it) didn’t seem relevant. It appeared to me that you were acknowledging that it wasn’t so obvious that Labour would lose. As to the other remark, I took “more widely” to be an implied transference of the attitude of one member here to the Labour Party in general. I don’t believe in manipulating quotes (which was the speciality of a Tory gentleman called brownboots1 in our MSN days); I didn’t think I’d distorted what you were saying, and I’m sorry if I did.  

Nothing is obvious in politics. In March 2004, the Spanish government seemed to be cruising to an easy election victory, but three days before the poll a terrorist attack in Madrid killed 191 people. Presumably the government was blamed for lax security, because it lost the election. Astonishingly, it’s thought that England’s surprise exit from the World Cup four days before the 1970 election had something to do with Harold Wilson’s even more surprising eviction from Downing Street:-

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2010/apr/21/world-cup-1970-harold-wilson

When it comes to your detestation of the Tories, it doesn’t achieve much if, when presented with just one opportunity every five years to register your disapproval of them, you don’t take it. I’m sure there are plenty of people who weren’t “convinced by what Labour did 2010-2015” – and plenty who took Andrew Neil’s advice a few years back to “hold your nose and vote Tory” – because in their eyes they were choosing the least worst option.

I agree that there should be an anti-Tory alliance, but for Labour to advocate it would be tantamount to admitting that it could never win on its own. Labour and SNP policies have a lot in common, apart from the big one – the future of the United Kingdom. Personally, I don’t see that as a great problem. It wasn’t Armageddon when the Republic of Ireland came into being in 1922, and I don’t see why it should be if Scotland becomes independent, which it probably will one day: if at first you don’t secede, try, try and try again…..  

(P.S. It might be a good idea if you went into your profile and adjusted the time, which I guess is about ten hours fast!)

No need for apologies, Ivan! All the analysis of my personal views hasn't been worth all the words used to criticise or to try to explain them.

Move on.

Mel wrote:I am afraid that many many people today are utterly selfish. Since the doctrine of the Witch "make money anyway you can" "there is no such thing as society" has stuck, or at least come home to roost.
Therefore it is the underdog or the worst looking,and the kindest leader who is spurned. People have come to respect ruthlessness, arrogance and cruelty as being strength. We see it so clearly in our recent every day life. The poor are regarded as "scum" because people are fed scaremongering. propaganda by the media/press who take the few bad eggs and record them as the majority. Likewise, because of the few who have abused their DLA benefits, all are looked down upon. The Scaremomgering of the Tories with their talk of those "still in bed with curtains drawn, while those working are up and at it" hit home to those who pay taxes. Equally, the immigration situation has been exploited by the Tories and UKIP. Hense, is it any wonder Labour lost, all that coupled with the SNP votes plus UKIP, PLUS LIBS going over to Tories? Labour never simply and properly explained the unexpected Global Crisis that would never had had such an effect if Lehmans had not been allowed to go bust. Now, I am unable to see any leader of any political party looking statesman enough, strong enough and brave enough to become leaders. I fear we could end up with Gideon and god help us.

Minnows who believe they are sharks get to learn fairly fast when they meet the real thing, I believe. They've been sheltered by what our Movement has done for them: given real competition they'll soon be eating their own shit, as capitalism intended.

" they'll soon be eating their own shit, as capitalism intended."
Will they learn even then Pen? I doubt it.

Sir Keir Starmer could well be a very good choice.

I think you are right Ivan. I haven't seen a lot of him, but what I have has been vastly more appealing than those who are contesting the leadership - the usual suspects/same old faces who the electorate will identify as 'same old Labour'.

I think Labour need someone fresh and new like Keir to help them move on and move forward. His experience as a barrister would clearly make him a formidable foe for Cameron at Prime Minister's question time, and he appears cool, calm, rational, and appealing.

Unfortunately he ruled himself out of the leadership race; and so we're stuck with the usual suspects.

Ivan wrote:

I agree that there should be an anti-Tory alliance, but for Labour to advocate it would be tantamount to admitting that it could never win on its own.

Refer also to a little local difficulty in Scottish elections recently, and indeed there is always something to be learned from the past.  

On Bank Holiday Monday at 9 pm on BBC2 there is a television programme scheduled about Churchill's shock defeat by Labour following WW2.  The Tory party however regained power at the next General Election, which proves that sometimes a complete change of plan is necessary when you've just received an unexpected setback.

Redflag wrote:-
…..from what I have heard they will be deeper than the cuts of the last 5 years, to be honest I cannot see people just taking it like they have for the last 5 years

Of course they will. The cuts don’t hurt – I mean really hurt – enough people. The bedroom tax affects 660,000 people (about two-thirds of whom are disabled), but there are 65 million people in the UK, so nearly 99% of us aren’t affected. Although many people with jobs have to rely on benefits to survive, most people don’t receive them. The majority of people of working age have jobs and aren't affected by the vicious and humiliating treatment which the unemployed often receive. The Tories are masters at divide and rule; they will throw a few crumbs around on inheritance tax and income tax to keep enough of the population docile.

There are plenty of good folk who try to alleviate the suffering of those who have been vilified and abused by this government, but the appalling fact is that Iain Duncan Smith is the most popular minister with Tory voters. That's because the tabloid trash papers (plus television propaganda like ‘Benefits Street’) have brainwashed far too many people into believing that the poor and unemployed are all lazy, feckless scroungers who need a good kicking.

The election result showed that a large number of voters really don’t care about anyone other than themselves. It also showed that they don't realise how anyone with a family to raise and a large mortgage may be only three or four months away from financial disaster should they lose their jobs through no fault of their own.


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CFpaVZqWEAAJ-3I.jpg

Dead right Ivan

Mel wrote:" they'll soon be eating their own shit, as capitalism intended."
Will they learn even then Pen? I doubt it.

Enough always did in the past, though it took a lot of time, fair play.

oftenwrong wrote:On Bank Holiday Monday at 9 pm on BBC2 there is a television programme scheduled about Churchill's shock defeat by Labour following WW2.  The Tory party however regained power at the next General Election, which proves that sometimes a complete change of plan is necessary when you've just received an unexpected setback.

 No - next but one, actually, when Labour got the biggest vote ever recorded for a British political party, and much better than the tories.  Too many of the MPs were washed out, and the media were lying, as always, but that one was won by the boundary commissioners.

Penderyn Davy boy intends to change the boundaries which will give them a head start of 20 seats the HOC, so what chance does that give Labour in the 2020 general election?

This morning on the Andrew Marr Show, Harriet Harman spoke of the scale of the Labour defeat in a way which was refreshing, in that she did not seek to play down the size,nor the effect, of the loss.

Such an approach can only assist Labour in coming to terms with the need for a radical analysis of how to regain its position as a genuine challenger for power. In facing up to the reality and exposing itself to the pain of harsh and honest introspection, salvation will emerge.

'Events' have a habit of derailing even the apparently most powerful of governments and , in victory, the gruesome Tories will be certain to become even more arrogant and complacent. Even now there are signs that some are breaking ranks over an issue or two, and we know how they can argue amongst themselves when the rabid right-wingers are emboldened. Labour needs to stick together , make sound alliances on the left, and prod and probe selectively to weaken the Cameron Castle whenever and wherever they can.

Results will come eventually to de-stabilise and unseat the evil - they always do...

They have already started arguing amongst themselves have they not Phil?

What seems to be required is a Party slogan which is different from "New Labour" (too Blairish) or "Old Labour"  (too work-stained), but which doesn't appear critical of folks who just want something better for their kids.

Something which improves on Happiness ever after, Cameron's current theme, please.

I suppose ' GoodTimz'R'Us' is out of the question?

Thought so...

So is it Bad times are us? Phil.

Recent events suggest that I should say little without first consulting my solicitor...

Ph the reason you got a hard time from the forum is because you said you where not going to vote on the 7th May, I have two friends that live in an Tory safe seat Sutton Coalfield Birmingham but they still go and hope that one day there vote WILL COUNT.

Exactly Redflag,if the Tories had won Phils area by less than 50 seats, him and 100 more thinking the same way would have a lot to be thanked for,sweet ,f,a,yes

I’ve made it clear that I share the frustrations of those who can’t comprehend how someone who is strongly anti-Tory didn’t lift a finger to try to get rid of the evil when we had the once-in-five-years opportunity. I think enough of us have had our say on that. However, we mustn’t continue to focus our disappointment at the result of the election on one person; it’s neither a nice thing to do nor very constructive, so please let’s drop it. It would be much more useful to hear from losing candidates such as Lee Sherriff as to why, in her opinion, we couldn’t enthuse enough people to evict sitting Tory MPs in marginal seats.

It’s easy to see now how UKIP did more damage to Labour than the Tories, many of whose doubters returned to the fold rather than risk a Miliband government. As I’ve said previously, I think we fell between several stools – not left-wing enough to stop some people from voting Green, not right-wing enough to attract Tory waverers, not anti-austerity enough to appeal to the left, not pro-business enough to satisfy the Blairites. And that’s the problem for Labour in deciding its future direction, you just can’t please all of the people all of the time!

The contrary result of the recent general election could be down to a well-known phenomenon usually referred to as "Better the Devil you know!"

Labour, as its component members are well aware, needs to regain public trust, specifically that of business and the many people who earn their living employed by businessmen.

OW, I strongly agree.