What now for Labour? (Part 1)

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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.

Yvette Cooper is the person most likely, of the four suggested, to win Labour more votes......so I would suggest Yvette leads the party.

Andy Burnham isn't strong enough.

For quite a long time the Labour Party was properly regarded as "unelectable". Then in the early 1990s one Tony Blair abandoned such principles as Nationalisation of anything that moved, and succeed in defeating the admittedly crumbling Tory government of John Major. The rest is history until you get to the 2008 Credit Crunch, which was not Gordon Brown's fault, but it happened on his watch, so by 2010 the Labour Party had resumed its default position of "unelectable". Which is where it remains, and will continue to be at the time of the next General Election whenever that may be.

The next elected Leader of the Labour Party will have to slice through that Gordian Knot of Scottish votes before seeing even the remotest possibility of any return to Socialist Government at Westminster.

Very true OW, but will we ever be able to get those votes back?

A view from across the pond…..

The Real Lessons of the UK Election for 2016

Extracts from an article by John Cassidy:-

"It would be misleading to say Labour lost because the voters rejected its redistributive tax plans, which actually polled well, as did many of its other progressive proposals, including raising the minimum wage, reducing college fees, and guaranteeing 25 hours of free day care each week to families with young children. Miliband got his biggest bump in the polls after he promised to close a tax loophole that allowed some rich British residents to pay no tax on their overseas earnings. Labour’s problem was that, while it managed to increase its vote share slightly, it didn’t pick up enough of the non-Tory vote. In Scotland, it was decimated by the SNP; in England, it lost a significant number of votes to the anti-immigrant UKIP.

The performance of the UK economy has been disappointing. Compared to previous recoveries, GDP growth has been weak, and the average person’s living standard is still below the level it reached in 2008. During the past two years, however, things have improved: this upturn allowed the Tories to argue things were getting better, and that after the sacrifices the country had made, it wasn’t worth taking a risk on Labour.

Everything Ed Miliband said about rising inequality, stagnant living standards, and Tory attacks on the needy and jobless was accurate. So were his arguments that the tax system has been skewed in favour of the wealthy ever since Thatcher replaced residential property taxes with a poll tax. However, he couldn’t persuade voters that Labour wouldn’t go back to what many of them perceived (largely unfairly) to be its old, bad ways."

For the whole article:-
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-real-lessons-of-the-u-k-election-for-2016

Surely the job fall Ivan can be put down to zero pay jobs can it not? but how many of those still need foodbanks to be able to survive.

oftenwrong wrote:-
...... by 2010 the Labour Party had resumed its default position of "unelectable". Which is where it remains, and will continue to be at the time of the next General Election whenever that may be.

The next elected Leader of the Labour Party will have to slice through that Gordian Knot of Scottish votes before seeing even the remotest possibility of any return to Socialist Government at Westminster.

When the Tories won for the fourth successive time – and in a recession – in 1992, could you have seen a way back for Labour? Yet five months later, with ‘Black Wednesday’, John Major was effectively a dead man walking, “in office but not in power”, as Norman Lamont commented pithily after he had been sacked. After promising us “tax cuts year on year”, the Tories inflicted on us more tax increases than any previous government in peacetime. They even started the misnamed “pension raid” by reducing the dividend tax credit, but I doubt if you’ll hear one of their supporters mention that. Throw in bucketloads of sleaze and in-fighting over the EU and I reckon Arthur Scargill could have led Labour to victory in 1997, albeit with a smaller majority.

The seeds of destruction for the Tories are there once again. Not mentioned much during the campaign, but the rate of growth of the UK economy has declined from 0.9% to 0.3% over the last five quarters. The growth, largely based on consumer debt and a house price bubble, could soon come to an abrupt end. Tory squabbles over Europe won’t go away if the referendum results in an ‘In’ vote, and all hell will be let loose if England votes for ‘Out’ but Scotland votes for ‘In’. And maybe a few more people will wake up and realise that the policies of the sociopath Iain Duncan Smith are causing countless unnecessary deaths. If, as Harold Wilson said, “a week is a long time in politics”, then what does that make five years? The Tories went from having just 198 MPs in 2005 to 307 in 2010. If the pendulum is swinging to the left by 2020, Labour could make similar sweeping gains, however improbable that may seem at this point in time. And all the while there will be “events, dear boy”, as Harold Macmillan once reminded us.

Now Mary Creagh has become the fifth MP to want to contest the Labour leadership. To stand, you need to be nominated by at least 15% of Labour MPs (35 out of 232), which means that not more than six candidates can run in the election.

Oh my lord, I really do hope that the 6th one is Tristam Hunt or it is going to be the best of a bad bunch i'm afraid,and that says a lot about the Labour party does it not? as we will never win an election with any of that crew.

I am sure the pendulum will swing - provided that Labour has somebody who is actively winding the clock - a necessary task that appears to have been largely neglected between 2010 and 2015...

It was the working class, not the middle class that sunk Labour

by Jon Trickett

"In 2005 I produced evidence that Labour had lost 4 million voters since the election in 1997. A substantial part of these missing millions were traditional working class voters. This pattern has continued over the last 10 years. In a minor tidal wave of what looks like pre-planned statements, a group of commentators have argued that what lost the election was a failure to tap into the hopes of 'aspirational' voters. However, there is not a shred of evidence for their argument. The explanations for our defeat are deeper than this simplistic assessment. The truth is that Labour recovered amongst middle class voters but has suffered a cataclysmic decline among working class voters.

Labour’s electoral base last Thursday was by far the most middle class we have secured in our history. A strategy based on a misunderstanding of what is happening in our country will not work. In the coming leadership election, candidates need to demonstrate that they can develop a three-fold strategy in England (Scotland is a very special case):-
- Hold on to and indeed increase our middle class vote
- Reach out to working class voters, and
- Mobilise Labour identifiers who did not vote Labour.

Those in the PLP with leadership aspirations cannot remain in denial or ignorance of these facts. They do so at their own peril, but more fundamentally fail to understand why the Labour Party exists."

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/it-was-working-class-not-middle-class-sunk-labour

Ivan with what information you know,and knowledge you have,why do you not move to a part of the country where you could stand as an mp if picked? and put your quotes and thoughts to the test?

Labour identifiers UNITE!

The number of MPs seeking nomination isn’t limited to six, but mathematically no more than six could get enough support to stand. Any MP declaring an interest then has to get at least 35 nominations from Labour MPs. I presume they take soundings before sticking their heads above the parapet. (Mind you, I remember when Ann Widdecombe announced that she wanted to run for Tory leader but then failed to find a single MP to support her!)

I sincerely hope that Tristram Hunt doesn’t become Labour leader, even if he does follow me on Twitter. He’s the shadow education secretary and yet he’s considering sending his three children to a private school. Diane Abbott still gets castigated for adhering to her son’s wishes and sending him to a fee-paying school in London in 2003.

In February 2014, Hunt crossed an authorised picket line at Queen Mary University of London. Ironically, he was on his way to teach his students about ‘Marx, Engels and the Making of Marxism’. His pathetic defence of his action was that he was not a member of the union.

Oh well he would be shot to peices by the press and the Tories too, better keep his head below the parapet? but hopefully one better than the ones we have please.

Tristam Hunt was utterly woeful on Question Time.

It has to be Yvette then sickchip

For names such as Tristram, Giles, Toby, Jonjo, Jolyon, Piers, Justin and the like, one can only blame the parents. Aspirational parents to use this week's buzzword, who are only hoping to help their offspring to stand out from the crowd. It certainly must be a challenge for the possessor on occasion but we're making a mistake if we regard it as prophesy.

stuart torr wrote:It has to be Yvette then sickchip

I think she can be relied upon to avoid the use of "My husband and I ...." certainly, Stu.

And then there were only four.....  

Chuka Umunna withdraws from Labour leadership contest

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/chuka-umunna-withdraws-labour-leadership-5701422

Ah, five again! Tristram Hunt has announced his intention to seek nomination, but suffered an immediate and fatal setback - Katie Hopkins has endorsed his bid.

I have an aspiration to see the tories wiped out for the stinking liars they are Yvette, ok!

She will have to be able to take the smears & name calling that will come from the Tories regarding her husband so she better have skin like a Rhino or she will fall before she starts. I have not seen anybody that lights my fire as the right peson for the job I did hear Keir Starmer name but he is just going into the HOC next week what do you think he would be allowed to stand Penderyn ??

Sir Keir Starmer could well be a very good choice. He comes from a working class background (his father worked in a tool factory and his mother was a nurse); his achievements have all been due to his hard work and natural ability rather than silver spoon or family connections. There’s no requirement that you have to be an MP for a certain period of time before contesting the party leadership, and he will have had five years in that snake pit they call Westminster by the time of the next election.

His previous career as a barrister and a DPP would be very useful against this tyrannical government with its plans to scrap the Human Rights Act. The Tories would be frightened of him, which is a good reason for choosing him. He was even named after the father of the Labour Party!

It would appear that Redflag is not the only person championing his cause:-
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/15/labour-activists-urge-keir-starmer-to-stand-for-party-leadership

Ivan, if Dan Jarvis won't stand, then I can't think of a better choice than Keir Starmer. At least he'll have the Tories on the backfoot in their own backyard - law & order.

The more those Tories fear an opponent, the more certain it is that the Press will be alerted to mount a relentless smear campaign. They might need to be a little more wary of the libel laws with Starmer in the frame, however.

But you have to feel anxious for any new Labour leader...

I agree PH but one thing you seem to forget that anything said in the HOC is allowed its if it is repeated outside then people can be taken to law.

Maybe Keir Starmer is the ideal person to lead the Labour party because he will have dealt with people like the Tories quite a lot and will be able to return the snide remarks and smear to a point where the Tories will not have the stomach to keep on going.

sickchip wrote:-
Labour need to prove that they were right, and the electorate were wrong

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!  

Of course we think the electorate got it wrong, and I’ve never understood (something which I accept as a weakness) how quite so many people who work for a living and rely on public services can possibly think the Tories are worth their vote. Most of what I heard from the Tories during the campaign (and for the last five years) consisted of downright lies, but when repeated often enough people begin to believe them. And the Tories were given plenty of assistance in spreading their falsehoods by their friends in the press.

What I hope the Labour hierarchy will do now is to get a full report from every losing candidate in the election. Ask them why they thought they lost and what punters told them on the doorstep about why they wouldn’t be voting Labour. It all comes down to people’s perceptions, as Andrew Marr has written:-

What people wanted to say, in my part of London, could be broken down into two big themes. First, they hated the idea of a minority Labour government backed by the SNP. Almost immediately that this became a leading Tory theme, I was picking it up on the street. After the first two weeks of a Tory campaign focused on the economy generally and the uselessness of Ed Miliband, and which seemed to me to have been from their point of view wasted time, plainly the Conservatives had found something that was cutting through.

The second theme was that Labour apparently “hated” the self-employed, people running or working in small businesses, and anyone who’d had any kind of success. A painter and decorator, for instance, who employs half a dozen others, walked across the street to say: “I can’t vote Labour. I work bloody hard. I’m the kind of person they despise . . .” As with the anti-SNP reaction, you ignore a single comment but when you hear the same kind of thing dozens of times, you know that something is going on.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/andrew-marr-why-pundits-got-it-wrong-and-what-parties-should-do-next

The electorate was wrong Ivan after 5 years of Tory LIES, believing the Tory crap about Labour/SNP coalition it is now trending on twitter that if Scotland gets its Independence quite a few northern towns want to join onto Scotland make of that what you want.

The people that voted Tory last week will not find out what they have voted for until about June when Osbourne comes out with a budget, what happens next is anybodies guess but I do hope they do not moan to me because they will get the very sharp end of my tongue.

The English were told to vote against an impossible SNP government of the UK and to detest Mr Miliband's teeth, and they voted on that basis.    They will deserve what they get.   Meanwhile, the tories can try to prevent strikes and unions till the cows come home - when the mugs wake up, they'll fight.   But let's not let them pretend the election was about socialism, or that it was rejected.   WE were there, dammit!

It seems to me that politicians are inevitably in terror of the tory Noise Machine, with its constant lying and rubbishing of anyone who might hurt the very rich, and that until we have some means of addressing people (as we used to have through unions, mass membership and the relatively impartial BBC, even some newspapers) they will continue to talk right-wing nonsense every so often as they lose their nerve. The fact that so many of them have made politics their career makes it all worse. We should have fought for a Free Press back when we had a good chance, but we didn't. I toy with the notion of boycotting elections: it might raise the issues, and I can't see how we can win under current conditions.

Today, the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Jim Murphy, survived a vote of no confidence, but resigned anyway.

It is to be hoped that the Labour movement in general is not about to embark upon throwing the baby out with the bathwater, because despite losing this election there are useful and capable people in the organisation whose experience is essential in preparing for internal changes required before another election.

It is in the nature of the Tory beast to over-reach itself, and with no coalition partner to blame, the Cameron-Osborne Axis will undoubtdedly trip over its own self-regard quite soon.

A shame about Jim Murphy, who is a decent man and a good, calm communicator.

Penderyn wrote:-
I toy with the notion of boycotting elections

Please don’t do that, it’s exactly what the Tories want! They’ve already taken a leaf out of the US Republican Party handbook and made it more difficult to vote, in their case by bringing in individual registration.

The apathetic, those who feel outside the system, and those for whom none of the candidates is worthy of their vote, already make up about a third of the electorate, but it doesn’t matter to the Tories if the turnout is low, as long as they win. In the elections for Police and Crime Commissioners in November 2012, the overall turnout was 15.1%, the lowest recorded level of participation at a peacetime non-local government election in the UK. In Cambridgeshire, Sir Graham Bright became the PCC after winning 26.78% of the first preference votes on a turnout of 14.77%. That means he was the first choice of just 3.96% of the electorate.

When Cameron was challenged about the legitimacy of PCCs elected on miniscule turnouts, he insisted there was no problem. Of course he has a different set of principles when it comes to the turnout for strike ballots, but that’s another story.

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/154353/PCC-Elections-Report.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_and_Wales_police_and_crime_commissioner_elections%2C_2012

An open letter from 10 new MPs

"Having arrived in Westminster as newly-elected Labour MPs after speaking to tens of thousands of voters during our election campaigns, we know how important it is for the future of our party to move forward with an agenda that best serves the everyday needs of people, families and communities and that is prepared to challenge the notion of austerity and invest in public services.

Labour must now reach out to the five million voters lost since 1997, and those who moved away from Labour in Scotland and elsewhere on 7 May, renewing their hope that politics does matter and Labour is on their side.

As we seek a new leader of the Labour Party, we are needing one who looks forward and will challenge an agenda of cuts, take on the powerful vested interests of big business and will set out an alternative to austerity – not one who will draw back to the ‘New Labour’ creed of the past.

Now is the time Labour needs a leader who’s in tune with the collective aspiration of ordinary people and communities across Britain, meeting the need for secure employment paying decent wages, homes that people can call their own, strong public services back in public hands again and the guarantee of a real apprenticeship or university course with a job at the end of it. From restoring Sure Start to providing dignity and a good standard of living in retirement, these are the aspirations key to real Labour values today and will re-engage people across our country in the years to come.

We look forward to engaging in the debate surrounding the Labour leadership in the weeks ahead to secure our party as being best able to meet the challenges faced by ordinary people at this time."

SIGNED:

Richard Burgon (Leeds East)

Louise Haigh (Sheffield Heeley)

Harry Harpham (Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough)

Imran Hussain (Bradford East)

Clive Lewis (Norwich South)

Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles)

Rachael Maskell (York Central)

Kate Osamor (Edmonton)

Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central)

Ivan wrote:

Penderyn wrote:-
I toy with the notion of boycotting elections

Please don’t do that, it’s exactly what the Tories want! They’ve already taken a leaf out of the US Republican Party handbook and made it more difficult to vote, in their case by bringing in individual registration.

The apathetic, those who feel outside the system, and those for whom none of the candidates is worthy of their vote, already make up about a third of the electorate, but it doesn’t matter to the Tories if the turnout is low, as long as they win.

I'm not saying 'Don't vote' but 'Call upon all parties denied the means to make a public case by total tory control of the media to refuse any longer to take part in such undemocratic farces'.   If we are denied democratic elections, why should we give the bosses this camouflage?

Our general elections are just as unjust as the Eurovision song contest.

Everyone seems agreed that FTPT is not fit for purpose, bobby, but no government finding itself elected by that process is going to feel in much of a hurry to change it.

Your reference to the Eurovision circus may have some relevance to our Labour Party's situation right now.

"The most established voting blocs, formulated by Derek Gatherer, a lecturer at Lancaster University, include “The Viking Empire” of Scandinavian countries; “The Balkan Bloc,” which includes Romania, Serbia, and Albania; and “The Pyrenean Axis,” which includes Andorra and Spain.

Eurovision's political voting initially appears to follows geography. Greece and Cyprus have historically voted for each other and not for Turkey, although points are increasingly shared between all three countries, says the aptly-named expert Dr. Eurovision (real name Paul Jordan). Members of the Balkan voting bloc, usually one of the largest and most influential, also favor each other, but it’s more for cultural reasons than political affinity. “Bosnia and Serbia don’t really get on, and Albania and Serbia don’t really get on, but they tend to vote for each other in Eurovision,”

http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2014/05/your-guide-to-the-politics-of-the-eurovision-song-contest/361707/

The recent disappointing Election result has sent Labour into a tailspin. Wiped out in Scotland, and damaged by UKIP in England, surviving Labour elements have now started falling out with the Trade Unions, ignoring the fact that each exists for the other.

Labour now needs to make a fundamental reappraisal of what it stands for, and wishes to achieve, so as to make a convincing appeal to voters at the next general election. Any such reappraisal must think the unthinkable, so learning from Eurovision it must embrace those other political parties with some level of common purpose.

The Lib-Dems are in an almost identical situation. Greens think alike on several matters, and some regions of the nation bitterly resent now being represented by a Tory. It's a marvellous opportunity to form a coalition Opposition that works.

" It's a marvellous opportunity to form a coalition Opposition that works."


Hear, hear! For the sake of so many people who stand to be cruelly trodden underfoot by another Tory government, there needs to be a coherent and effective anti-Tory front established and organised to harass Cameron at every turn - day in and day out.

But first, each element of that opposition bloc has to establish itself afresh for the battle, and thereafter there will be a need for careful dialogue to avoid fragmentation as the political wheel turns, with all is potential for division amongst those who detest Cameron, his evil cohorts and all they stand for...

Penderyn wrote:It seems to me that politicians are inevitably in terror of the tory Noise Machine, with its constant lying and rubbishing of anyone who might hurt the very rich, and that until we have some means of addressing people (as we used to have through unions, mass membership and the relatively impartial BBC, even some newspapers) they will continue to talk right-wing nonsense every so often as they lose their nerve.    The fact that so many of them have made politics their career makes it all worse.   We should have fought for a Free Press back when we had a good chance, but we didn't.   I toy with the notion of boycotting elections:  it might raise the issues, and I can't see how we can win under current conditions.

Please Renderyn do not shut down your voiced, if you are not happy "GET INVOLVED" do not leave it to others make your voice heard within the Labour party.

Phil Hornby wrote:" It's a marvellous opportunity to form a coalition Opposition that works."


Hear, hear!  For the sake of so many people who stand to be cruelly trodden underfoot by another Tory government, there needs to be a coherent and effective anti-Tory front established and organised to harass Cameron at every turn - day in and day out.

But first, each element of that opposition bloc has to establish itself afresh for the battle, and thereafter there will be a need for careful dialogue to avoid fragmentation as the political wheel turns, with all is potential for division amongst those who detest Cameron, his evil cohorts and all they stand for...

PH nobody on this forum hates the Tories more than the people on this forum and hates what the Tories are doing to the vulnerable of the UK. With the Torygraph Daily Fail & the Express BBC and Sky TV repeating the nasty VILE PROPAGANDA that Tory HQ tells them repeat, that is how the Tories won the 2015 election putting the fear of God into the people that Labour/SNP gov't would be the worst ERIDEMIC n the UK.

When the Labour party only has the Daily Mirror that will stand up for the Labour party, and none of the other media outlets will back the left thinking how are we supposed to fight the Tory Bile & Propaganda if you have any ideas I would be pleased to hear them.

Redflag wrote:Please Renderyn do not shut down your voiced, if you are not happy "GET INVOLVED" do not leave it to others make your voice heard within the Labour party.

I have been involved a good many years.    I would not play rugby on my own against a giant fifteen backed by a crowd throwing stones at me.

My opinion has always been to get Andy Burnham in the Labour hot seat and not to sway away from being traditionally LW as some say...

Maybe Labour do need to see things more from a business point of view though, but moving too far from the keft will create a division..and not a joyful one like me!

Na, but Labour remain the second largest party in the UK, a party who do not label folk who have hit a sricky wicket as ' benefit scroungers ' and the like as the Conservatives do...

They have created a stream of people who just blurt things out without thinking and this culture of benefot haters makes us look like a nasty little island...we really need that image out to bed ..the Tories created it and we must do our bit to stamp out this hateful nonsense ...

The Labour Party have and always will be best at representing the lower paid workers and who care about our elderly , sick and diabled...another group the Tories have helped to stigmatise.