Hartlepool by-election

[magneze]

Looks like tons of, mainly Labour voters, didn't turn out. So, less about people switching Tory, more about, nothing to vote for. IMHO.

 

[BobDavis]

So the Tories are now ok because they are offering the working classes what they want then ?

 

[The39thStep]

Looks like tons of, mainly Labour voters, didn't turn out. So, less about people switching Tory, more about, nothing to vote for. IMHO.

Labour should have sent in the top table to get them out

 

[andysays]

brogdale You might dislike his politics (I do) but is there not a certain truth what he has said at the level of electoral politics?

Party politics has become entirely about values rather than interests - see the who EU spam on this site. In France the next presidential election will ultimately be a battle between neoliberal technocracy and nationalist populism, a similar fight is going to be the case in Italy, in Germany the Greens are taking votes from both the CDU and SDP.

I hate and despise the attempts to remove/cover up class (because of course under the bullshit of electoral politics the real politics is still absolutely about class), but I find it hard to disagree that values have replaced interests. This site is an excellent example, there are posters that post reams and reams of twitter shite. To these posters that is politics, the have the correct views (as shown by sharing the 'correct' tweets). The idea that interests are the basis of politics is dismissed

I know plenty of lovely liberal anti-tories with the 'correct' views about equality (many of them sitting on E&D committees) that scabbed. Some even told me that they supported the strike while crossing picket lines FFS. In their minds their was no contradiction because support=views and so long as they had the right view they were supporting the strike. The fact that their actions undermined their colleagues, workers and wider society is utterly foreign to their understanding.

The idea of a 'left' was always shot through with contradictions but now it is utterly incoherent.

Is this a response to an actual post of brogdale's, because I can't see what you're actually referring to here.

This post

Steve Reid MP. Ex leader of Lambeth Council. From the Blairite wing of party. Just been on radio saying the party hasn't become "aspirational" enough.

Aspirational code for the party to go back to Blairite days

talks about aspirational values, so maybe you're referring to this, but aspirational talks about interests in an individualistic way, not in terms of class based interests, and using the term is, as Gramsci suggests, code for a return to Blairism.

Or maybe you are referring to an actual post of brogdale's and I've just missed it, in which case it would be helpful if you used the reply function so we can all see what you're referring to.

 

[killer b]

Is this a response to an actual post of brogdale's, because I can't see what you're actually referring to here.

This post


talks about aspirational values, so maybe you're referring to this, but aspirational talks about interests in an individualistic way, not in terms of class based interests, and using the term is, as Gramsci suggests, code for a return to Blairism.

Or maybe you are referring to an actual post of brogdale's and I've just missed it, in which case it would be helpful if you used the reply function so we can all see what you're referring to.

I think he's talking about Matt Goodwin's tweet

 

[andysays]

Why would almost twice as many people in Hartlepool have voted in this local election compared to the 2018 one?

Because there's a by-election on the same day.

 

[magneze]

Labour should have sent in the top table to get them out

Who or what is the "top table"?

 

[killer b]

Anyway, on the question of Labour turnout - lots and lots of people in my orbit who very recently were loud supporters of the Labour Party didn't bother voting in the locals yesterday. The activist base is totally demoralised and disconnected, which is presumably reflected even more heavily in the wider support for the party from the less committed voter base...

 

[ska invita]

Can’t say I’ve ever been to Essex but I can’t imagine working class people there are much different to those in Birmingham or anywhere else. Worried about the future for them, their families and mates. Want a decent job and a home. Depressed about the state of their local community and sick of the lockdown

its more complex than that
theres a lot of ex east Londoners - working class origins, now petty booj if not middle class, who have made good money and moved out of London, with an attitude of "too many foreigners there now"
its not everyone in essex of course, and there are some seriously long term poor parts of essex
But essex has a particular history of relatively recent people moving there (80s onwards) and taking a powerful narrative of "londons been lost to the foreigners" with them

 

[brogdale]

I think he's talking about Matt Goodwin's tweet

Yes it was a response to the Goodwin tweet that I posted.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

I would think the demographic of Birmingham is very different from the more rural parts of Essex. You have Labour MPs. None around here. I think many people have expectations that are irrational. I heard Johnson make a remark in Hartlepool the other day that was not even picked up on & should have been. “What the voters of Hartlepool want is less council tax & better social services”. How will that work then ?

I’m not convinced there is that much material difference. Aren’t a lot of people in Essex ex Londoners pushed out of the city by gentrification?

My final point to you Bob is this. Across working class communities everywhere the long-term effects of deindustrialisation - and the concomitant collapse of a Labour and trade union movement that grew up alongside industrial society - has profound implications.

The working class you are quick to right off are living with the consequences of this collapse. They are the lived experience of what has happened. Let’s start by listening to what they have experienced and how it’s made them feel....

 

[magneze]

Some "analysis" from Laura Kuenssberg:
"The Hartlepool result is not a surprise for Labour. And it's important to remember that about 10,000 people voted for the Brexit Party in 2019 there, and at an early glance it seemed many of those voters switched across to the Tories."

Tory win in Hartlepool provides setback for Labour

The Conservatives romped home in Hartlepool - what will be the consequences for Keir Starmer and Labour?

www.bbc.co.uk

Actually, at a glance, some of those voters switched to the Tories, most did not vote.

 

[redsquirrel]

Is this a response to an actual post of brogdale's, because I can't see what you're actually referring to here.

What killer b said, it was in response to brogdale 's post above it about Goodwin's tweet

 

[The39thStep]

Mandelson saying it was down to the two C's- Covid and Corbyn and as one person on the doorstep allegedly told him 'Sort yourselves out, sort yourselves out. You picked the wrong brother and you ended up with Corbyn so that’s goodbye to you. When you’ve sorted yourselves out, we’ll look at you again’.

 

[brogdale]

brogdale You might dislike his politics (I do) but is there not a certain truth what he has said at the level of electoral politics?

Party politics has become entirely about values rather than interests - see the who EU spam on this site. In France the next presidential election will ultimately be a battle between neoliberal technocracy and nationalist populism, a similar fight is going to be the case in Italy, in Germany the Greens are taking votes from both the CDU and SDP.

I hate and despise the attempts to remove/cover up class (because of course under the bullshit of electoral politics the real politics is still absolutely about class), but I find it hard to disagree that values have replaced interests. This site is an excellent example, there are posters that post reams and reams of twitter shite. To these posters that is politics, the have the correct views (as shown by sharing the 'correct' tweets). The idea that interests are the basis of politics is dismissed

I know plenty of lovely liberal anti-tories with the 'correct' views about equality (many of them sitting on E&D committees) that scabbed. Some even told me that they supported the strike while crossing picket lines FFS. In their minds their was no contradiction because support=views and so long as they had the right view they were supporting the strike. The fact that their actions undermined their colleagues, workers and wider society is utterly foreign to their understanding.

The idea of a 'left' was always shot through with contradictions but now it is utterly incoherent.

Yes, it does suit the populist right party of capital to ensure that electoral politics remain fixed in identarian superstrructual issues.
My problem with Goodwin is that he's a cheerleader for that process rather than an analyst.

 

[redsquirrel]

My problem with Goodwin is that he's a cheerleader for that process rather than an analyst.

He is, but no more than many of those on the left

 

[StoneRoad]

Bliddy disappointed with the result.

from my own knowledge of the area, what I think should be a solid WC supporting area has a lot of right-wingers and brexiteers. And a fair bit of racism, tbh.

 

[brogdale]

He is, but no more than many of those on the left

Therein lies the problem.

 

[andysays]

What killer b said, it was in response to brogdale 's post above it about Goodwin's tweet

Thanks for clarification.

As a general point, it would be helpful if people could reply to the post they're responding to, because it's especially difficult to scroll back and find what's being referred to on a phone (or maybe that's just me...?)

 

[BobDavis]

I’m not convinced there is that much material difference. Aren’t a lot of people in Essex ex Londoners pushed out of the city by gentrification?

My final point to you Bob is this. Across working class communities everywhere the long-term effects of deindustrialisation - and the concomitant collapse of a Labour and trade union movement that grew up alongside industrial society - has profound implications.

The working class you are quick to right off are living with the consequences of this collapse. They are the lived experience of what has happened. Let’s start by listening to what they have experienced and how it’s made them feel....

The people ”pushed out of London” I know will give you a very different answer. Years ago it was ”to get away from the(people whose skin was not white)innit ?”. Nowadays it is more likely selling a more modest home in London & for the same money moving into one of the £half mill+ large detached piles being chucked up everywhere around where I live. Very little “affordable” housing for rent is happening though.

On your second point yes it is odd that the solution to the chaos wreaked on this country by the Tories in the 80s appears to be seen as the Tories now. To see why housing is now unaffordable to those not already on the housing ladder you just have to do the maths. In the 70s average house price was 4 times average annual wage now it is at least 10 times that. Around here anyway. It was the Tories who caused that but of course for many older people they love Thatch for making it possible for them to become home owners in the 80s. Do younger people vote or are they so fucked off they cannot see the point ?

 

[mojo pixy]

So the Tories are now ok because they are offering the working classes what they want then ?

Nobody's said that, nobody's saying it. What has been pointed out though is that this swing is more to do with people not voting because they can't see anything worth voting for. Tories tend to vote come hell or high water, so when everyone else is disengaged, tories win by default. If Labour were worth voting for, people would vote for them. They did vote for them. Labour got their biggest actual number of votes in 2019**, I think ever (I may be wrong). If they had made serious plans for some kind of Lexit and included that in the manifesto under the pretext of It's been voted for, that's democracy, we accept it, here's our plan for it, they would IMO have done much better. Would be doing much better.

Anyway, that ship has sailed, but what Hartlepool shows more than anything is not so much people love the tories (their 15000 is about average for them, if you go back to the '80s). It's that Labour have lost a lot of support they once had. Looking at turnout, those people are mostly just not voting.

EtA, because it got corrected: yes I was thinking of 2017. 2019 was all "Get Brexit Done" though that does underline what I'm saying, I think.

 

[Pickman's model]

Nobody's said that, nobody's saying it. What has been pointed out though is that this swing is more to do with people not voting because they can't see anything worth voting for. Tories tend to vote come hell or high water, so when everyone else is disengaged, tories win by default. If Labour were worth voting for, people would vote for them. They did vote for them. Labour got their biggest actual number of votes in 2019, I think ever (I may be wrong). If they had made serious plans for some kind of Lexit and included that in the manifesto under the pretext of It's been voted for, that's democracy, we accept it, here's our plan for it, they would IMO have done much better. Would be doing much better.

Anyway, that ship has sailed, but what Hartlepool shows more than anything is not so much people love the tories (their 15000 is about average for them, if you go back to the '80s). It's that Labour have lost a lot of support they once had. Looking at turnout, those people are mostly just not voting.

might be 1997. but 2019 still more than 2005, 2010, 2015

 

[brogdale]

might be 1997. but 2019 still more than 2005, 2010, 2015

in raw votes (obvs not % of popular vote)

 

[brogdale]

& in % of popular vote terms:

 

[Pickman's model]

in raw votes (obvs not % of popular vote)

View attachment 267141

soz i was talking about ges

 

[Wilf]

Bit weird to be deconstructing the result of a party that's literally only existed for a few weeks but go off I guess

True, with regard the length of time they've existed, but this was an ideal moment for them to make some sort of a splash. Lingering sense of the north east being far from the centre of power, Labour's vote crumbling, candidates being parachuted in for both Labour and Tory.

 

[William of Walworth]

I do not disagree at all

But!!

As I said before, voting Tory should be illegal for anyone with a minor ounce of slight intelligence

Tory voters -- scum
Along with 'their' party, leaders, candidates, Johnsons

You are Labours Elections coordinator,

No I'm not, never was, never will be, and never want to be.

The remainder of your post is therefore fully invalidated :

and the Tories get Hartlepool....
Do you ever read the stuff you write on these threads and think 'i wonder what this would look like to someone in one of these constituencies who's still a bit fucked off with Labour...'?
Do you think they would read your words and think:
a) thanks William, you've put me right there.
b) you make good points, clearly I'm not bright enough to vote, and I shall stay at home while my betters decide such things.
c) who the fuck do you think you are, sneering cunt.

Answers on a postcard to: Losing Elections Section, PO box...

I've only just seen the Hartlepool result, and my post that you're quoting was put up last night after midnight, while I was pretty drunk
Three pages ago, but FFS!

Still, everything you've posted above seems to be based on some sort of assumption (110% false ), that I was in any way suggesting a strategy for Labour to follow, or that I want to have anything at all to do with what strategy Labour should adopt.

I'd be utterly rubbish at both I fully admit.

In my years-ago Labour Party days (long gone) I always preferred leafletting to actual canvassing for reasons -- often impatience-related

So my earlier drunken ranting on Urban has fuck-all to do with what Labour needs to do next, that's up to them and I'd want nowt to do with it.

It was a pissed and pissed-off rant only, was never more than that, and that should have been obvious to someone as intelligent as you.

Seems that it wasn't though!

 

[Wilf]

Mandelson saying it was down to the two C's- Covid and Corbyn and as one person on the doorstep allegedly told him 'Sort yourselves out, sort yourselves out. You picked the wrong brother and you ended up with Corbyn so that’s goodbye to you. When you’ve sorted yourselves out, we’ll look at you again’.

That there was a clamour on the doorstep for David Miliband sounds... unlikely.

 

[Pickman's model]

No I'm not, never was, never will be, and never want to be.

The remainder of your post is therefore fully invalidated :



I've only just seen the Hartlepool result, and my post that you're quoting was put up last night after midnight, while I was pretty drunk
Three pages ago, but FFS!

Still, everything you've posted above seems to be based on some sort of assumption (110% false ), that I was in any way suggesting a strategy for Labour to follow, or that I want to have anything at all to do with what strategy Labour should adopt.

I'd be utterly rubbish at both I fully admit.

In my years-ago Labour Party days (long gone) I always preferred leafletting to actual canvassing for reasons -- often impatience-related

So my earlier drunken ranting on Urban has fuck-all to do with what Labour needs to do next, that's up to them and I'd want nowt to do with it.

It was a pissed and pissed-off rant only, was never more than that, and that should have been obvious to someone as intelligent as you.

Seems that it wasn't though!

you should have tried directing the canvass, which can readily be done from a public house

 

[SpookyFrank]

Mandelson saying it was down to the two C's- Covid and Corbyn and as one person on the doorstep allegedly told him 'Sort yourselves out, sort yourselves out. You picked the wrong brother and you ended up with Corbyn so that’s goodbye to you. When you’ve sorted yourselves out, we’ll look at you again’.

I wonder how many decades it will be before these twats keep blaming Corbyn for everything.