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The 2019 General Election

I do think Corbyn's unpopularity rating can't be ignored. Somehow I was hoping it wouldn't be a big factor in this election, just as I was hoping brexit would be trumped by the Labour manifesto. But clearly it was a big factor. It and brexit were the two biggest factors, perhaps, both of them trumping the other big factors, which are that Boris Johnson is a total cunt and a decade of tory misrule.

But I'm not totally sure that article properly articulates why Corbyn ended up so unpopular. I'm not sure it was to do with his poor decisions or remarks in the past. He has made anti-semitic comments in the past, confusing anti-zionism with anti-semitism in a way that someone in his position should never do. But how many people actually know that - I only know it because someone posted a link to it on here. Mostly the story was about how he had failed to deal with anti-semitism in the party, but I don't see the pattern of who failed to vote labour this time as supporting a claim that this was a big issue - 'liberal' metropolitan areas ok with it, smaller towns not ok with it. Hmmm, really?

I'm really not sure his fitness as a prospective war leader, or somesuch, was much of a factor either, although maybe it was, and maybe that resonated much more strongly with older people. Just from bits I've heard from people, it seems a lot of it is the perception of Corbyn as 'hard' left, even if they may not be able to specify when challenged what it is about him that makes him that.

The other thing to remember is the age divide in all this. Corbyn wasn't unpopular among the under-40s, but he was remarkably unpopular with the over-65s. 'small c' conservatives almost universally loathed him.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
I do think Corbyn's unpopularity rating can't be ignored. Somehow I was hoping it wouldn't be a big factor in this election, just as I was hoping brexit would be trumped by the Labour manifesto. But clearly it was a big factor. It and brexit were the two biggest factors, perhaps, both of them trumping the other big factors, which are that Boris Johnson is a total cunt and a decade of tory misrule.

But I'm not totally sure that article properly articulates why Corbyn ended up so unpopular. I'm not sure it was to do with his poor decisions or remarks in the past. He has made anti-semitic comments in the past, confusing anti-zionism with anti-semitism in a way that someone in his position should never do. But how many people actually know that - I only know it because someone posted a link to it on here. Mostly the story was about how he had failed to deal with anti-semitism in the party, but I don't see the pattern of who failed to vote labour this time as supporting a claim that this was a big issue - 'liberal' metropolitan areas ok with it, smaller towns not ok with it. Hmmm, really?

I'm really not sure his fitness as a prospective war leader, or somesuch, was much of a factor either, although maybe it was, and maybe that resonated much more strongly with older people. Just from bits I've heard from people, it seems a lot of it is the perception of Corbyn as 'hard' left, even if they may not be able to specify when challenged what it is about him that makes him that.

The other thing to remember is the age divide in all this. Corbyn wasn't unpopular among the under-40s, but he was remarkably unpopular with the over-65s. 'small c' conservatives almost universally loathed him.
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I'm not sure anti-semitism (some real, some imagined) was what did for him. It was him consorting with enemies of Britain and/or the West*. The anti-semitism thing then got loaded onto all that and amplified it.

*You might not interpret it in that way. Lots of people do.
 
On the leftism, I think people would have accepted most of his program but it was played very badly. It's true there was dishonesty from the press about how hard left his manifesto was. But also he and parts of the party fed into that. Whatever leftists might think of it, I don't hear people clamouring against private schools. I think a lot of people who might dream of success or even winning the lottery would book their kids into private school first thing the next day. Threatening to end them all is seen as pretty hard left among many. Labour was giving signals on things like this but to who? Who was demanding free broadband? Nobody. Who were they talking to? So there was a perception of him - stirred up by the right for sure - as further left than any PM anybody had known before and for reasons best known to himself and his followers, he played it up rather than downplaying. Strange strategic decisions were made, and without Brexit and calling Hamas 'brothers' he might have got away with it. But put together with those it was all over.
 
treelover said:
Another time, a crew were chanting 'Palestine, for the river to the sea', put my hand over megaphone and got chased down the block, no leftist/liberal leftist came to my aid.
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perhaps if you'd used to precious gift of language to talk to them then you'd have persuaded them of your good intentions
 
It was a magic mix, all of which fed into each other.

TripAdvisor call it the waterfall effect: if you have a problem during your stay, even if it gets fixed straight away, you are more likely to notice and mark down other things: if there's confusion at check in you're more likely to think that the room is dirty, if you have to hunt for the remote and get new batteries you're more likely to think the breakfast was pitiful.

If you're offended by Corbyns' bizarre choice of friends you're more likely to decide that he's anti-Semitic rather than just willfully blind to it in others, if you thought his day-after-being-elected-leader lunch at the Argentine embassy was crass and ill-thought-out, you're more likely to view his forays into Irish politics as being more sinister than niave useful idiocy.

Labours problem was that there was something for everyone to be offended about in Corbyns' journey, and then more stuff to be viewed negatively in the light of that first peak in his cupboard of delights.

A bigger problem for Labour is that this stuff has been glaringly obvious in every single opinion poll since he became leader - he's been astonishingly unpopular with the electorate for his entire tenure, to the point where for a good many of those polls, he was viewed less positively than the incumbent Tory PM by Labour voters.

Read that again: Corbyn was viewed as a worse choice for PM by Labour voters than whichever Tory was PM.

Labours real problem has been that for four years, they haven't cared - or noticed - that their candidate for PM was viewed negatively by the vast majority of the electorate. Well, they know now....
 
treelover from today onward my excuse for any untoward or objectionable behaviour will be...
They/we/I’m/you are from Attercliffe, just off Staniforth road!!
It’s where our union branch meetings are.
 
The problem with summing the whole thing up as 'people didn't trust Corbyn' is, well, look at the man who beat him.

It might be fair to say that Corbyn struggled to gain ground with that portion of the electorate that cares about people being trustworthy. But it seems pretty clear to me that a lot, a lot of people are outside that category. Johnson has done little with his life besides stack up material evidence of his own incompetence, amorality and lack of even passing familiarity with the concept of truthfulness. And yet there the fucker sits.
 
Another point is that whenever the anti-Corbynists tried to unseat him as leader, they were unable to come up with anyone who looked like a plausible alternative. I loathed Blair, but the fucker at least looked plausible as a world leader. Could you say the same about Owen Smith or any of the rest of them?

In fact, it says something about Blairism that it was unable to produce a successor generation to whom Tony's Torch could be passed.
 
kebabking said:
It was a magic mix, all of which fed into each other.

TripAdvisor call it the waterfall effect: if you have a problem during your stay, even if it gets fixed straight away, you are more likely to notice and mark down other things: if there's confusion at check in you're more likely to think that the room is dirty, if you have to hunt for the remote and get new batteries you're more likely to think the breakfast was pitiful.

If you're offended by Corbyns' bizarre choice of friends you're more likely to decide that he's anti-Semitic rather than just willfully blind to it in others, if you thought his day-after-being-elected-leader lunch at the Argentine embassy was crass and ill-thought-out, you're more likely to view his forays into Irish politics as being more sinister than niave useful idiocy.

Labours problem was that there was something for everyone to be offended about in Corbyns' journey, and then more stuff to be viewed negatively in the light of that first peak in his cupboard of delights.

A bigger problem for Labour is that this stuff has been glaringly obvious in every single opinion poll since he became leader - he's been astonishingly unpopular with the electorate for his entire tenure, to the point where for a good many of those polls, he was viewed less positively than the incumbent Tory PM by Labour voters.

Read that again: Corbyn was viewed as a worse choice for PM by Labour voters than whichever Tory was PM.

Labours real problem has been that for four years, they haven't cared - or noticed - that their candidate for PM was viewed negatively by the vast majority of the electorate. Well, they know now....
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All this is true, and yet... 2017 showed none of this was set in stone, it showed that voters would put their personal animosity for him aside - even change their opinion on him (IIRC his approval ratings even went above zero briefly) - with the right policies and the right campaign. That didn't happen this time for various reasons - a toxic mix of brexit and a more hardened view on the Labour leadership IMO, and a much more effective campaign from the tories - which everyone now definitely knew were terminal problems. But the same people also knew for sure there were terminal problems in 2017, and they were wrong last time round.

It's not that we didn't care about or notice Corbyn's polling: it's that we thought it could be shifted. That's why there was thousands of people out on the doorstep for the whole of the campaign. And while there was a lot of negative responses from voters, to me they didn't seem that different to the doorstep in 2017 - I left campaigning on election night in 2017 despondent and convinced we were going to be wiped out, only to be proved wrong by a wave of voters that just hadn't been picked up by the canvassers. It's not unreasonable to have had some expectation (or hope at least?) that this might happen again.
 
Idris2002 said:
Another point is that whenever the anti-Corbynists tried to unseat him as leader, they were unable to come up with anyone who looked like a plausible alternative. I loathed Blair, but the fucker at least looked plausible as a world leader. Could you say the same about Owen Smith or any of the rest of them?

In fact, it says something about Blairism that it was unable to produce a successor generation to whom Tony's Torch could be passed.
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Big reason for that can be summed up in two words: Iraq War. Voting in favour of ending the principle of free education was bad enough. But voting for Tony's War was unforgiveable, and every Blair loyalist did so. That's a huge part of what Corbyn becoming leader represented - renewal post-Iraq War. And it was a necessary renewal.
 
Idris2002 said:
Another point is that whenever the anti-Corbynists tried to unseat him as leader, they were unable to come up with anyone who looked like a plausible alternative. I loathed Blair, but the fucker at least looked plausible as a world leader. Could you say the same about Owen Smith or any of the rest of them?

In fact, it says something about Blairism that it was unable to produce a successor generation to whom Tony's Torch could be passed.
Click to expand...

To be fair there was an element of any 'plausible' centrist not wanting to wade into something that Corbyn was essentially guaranteed to win. Not that there were many options anyway, but iirc Benn was riding high among the centrists. And that leading light of great decisions, Chuka Umunna.
 
For me the thing with this stuff is that, sitting here with the benefit of hindsight, does anyone want to argue how a more electable leader would have actually done better? Because I can't see it. You can take it as read that they'd have been more remain so they wouldn't have done any better in the northern leave seats that have swung Tory. They already lost Scotland. And they oversaw ever declining votes prior to his election. Where would more of the same be winning the 100 plus seats they'd need to be the winners they think they are?

I don't really expect much of an answer as I've seen literally nothing along those lines from all the Corbyn critics since he was elected. Not from the PLP, not from the press, not even on here. It seems to be assumed that there's an obvious 'more media friendly leader -> mighty victory' line which doesn't actually need anything else.
 
Cid said:
To be fair there was an element of any 'plausible' centrist not wanting to wade into something that Corbyn was essentially guaranteed to win. Not that there were many options anyway, but iirc Benn was riding high among the centrists. And that leading light of great decisions, Chuka Umunna.
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I've not seen Hilary's name floated among those of possible successors to JC. And he would still be young enough to serve, surely? That must say something.
 
The fact that they chose Ed over the other Miliband is another sign that the Blair era couldn't be carried on.
 
Monkeygrinder's Organ said:
For me the thing with this stuff is that, sitting here with the benefit of hindsight, does anyone want to argue how a more electable leader would have actually done better? Because I can't see it. You can take it as read that they'd have been more remain so they wouldn't have done any better in the northern leave seats that have swung Tory. They already lost Scotland. And they oversaw ever declining votes prior to his election. Where would more of the same be winning the 100 plus seats they'd need to be the winners they think they are?
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I'm not sure you can take it as read a more centrist leader would be remain tbh - plenty of centrist MPs were well aware of the leave juggernaut heading their way: the FBPE queen over the water herself Yvette Cooper quietly supported honouring the referendum (this may have changed, I haven't checked) - I guess it's possible someone with a better grasp of the PLP and more friends in the media might have made a better fist of selling some sort of customs union compromise and not had to pivot. Fuck knows though.
 
Monkeygrinder's Organ said:
For me the thing with this stuff is that, sitting here with the benefit of hindsight, does anyone want to argue how a more electable leader would have actually done better? Because I can't see it. You can take it as read that they'd have been more remain so they wouldn't have done any better in the northern leave seats that have swung Tory. They already lost Scotland. And they oversaw ever declining votes prior to his election. Where would more of the same be winning the 100 plus seats they'd need to be the winners they think they are?

I don't really expect much of an answer as I've seen literally nothing along those lines from all the Corbyn critics since he was elected. Not from the PLP, not from the press, not even on here. It seems to be assumed that there's an obvious 'more media friendly leader -> mighty victory' line which doesn't actually need anything else.
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Full media friendly, centrist dad, strong remain line... I think they might have swung a few seats - a handful of labour losses were in areas close to 50:50. But I do literally mean one handful, and my putative 1997 Blair transported to 2019 with no baggage is obviously not a real thing. And a lot of the newer activist base would have downed tools - certainly those that I know were far more interested in policy than brexit. And, looking at results from 2001 to now there is also every chance they'd have done worse.
 
A more electable leader wouldn't have come with the baggage that corbyn did and would have sold his strategy better, like being neutral - who was impressed by that?. His statements that he won the arguments shows how out of touch he is.
 
sleaterkinney said:
A more electable leader wouldn't have come with the baggage that corbyn did and would have sold his strategy better, like being neutral - who was impressed by that?. His statements that he won the arguments shows how out of touch he is.
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With what brexit position?
 
I think the result we got was what we expected in 2017, the reality just somehow got deferred for a couple of years due to Maybot being useless at campaigning. There was also less complacency from the Tories and their media backers this time around. I think in 2017 they didn’t feel like they had to try very hard, nearly got caught out, so really ramped up the vitriol this time around. Savage attacks in the press, plus coordinated hit pieces from ex-Labour people and Jewish groups. Danger to children etc. Kept Labour on the defensive.

Meanwhile, the golden child, who also hangs his clothes in an ossuary, managed to dodge any robust questioning and was tightly managed so as not to allow situations where there might be gaffs and fuck ups to occur.
 
There's a danger of chucking baby out with bathwater here. A critical lookback at corbyn and the political movement around him ('corbynism') is absolutely right obv and there is plenty to highlight, goes without saying.

But in '17 from a position of not insensible people predicting a 100 seat majority labour ran a campaign which turned everything on its head, people can say now oh they didn't win or whatever but it defied everybody's expectations and it offered hope, it did. Policy that in current climate is quite transformative was being talked about, not as pipe dreams or something to laugh at but as something that could and might happen.

The tories were rattled to fuck, even from the outside looking in - inasmuch as not being able to embrace the labourism and the parts that to me (and many others on 'left') are unpleasant - it was for a moment glorious. That momentum carried over, post election polling showed labour would have won a majority (yeah yeah I know post election polling is not exactly reliable) and that carried over for a good long stretch, labour were ahead until, what, mid 19?

The cards fell for labour in '17 tbf, the (presumably hostile) leaking of the manifesto early was a masterstroke, May was fucking awful in the campaign, the dementia tax and 'nothing has changed', but nonetheless labour's relative success was beyond expectation.

It's interesting that this time labour policy wasn't talked about in same way, didn't get same wow factor, despite the '19 manifesto going further - I say interesting, it just got drowned by a range of factors (tories learning lessons from '17 and running a nasty and effective campaign, labour rushing more and more policy out to try and get that '17 positivity, and the big one brexit) but in haste to learn lessons of this one I think people are forgetting the lessons of the previous one.

Danger of being too limited in terms of achievable policy, short termist, can't go that far etc. I mean some truth to that too but it's all about proportions isn't it.
 
Cid said:
With what brexit position?
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It goes right back to the original referendum, he was always lukewarm about remaining and this meant that he or members of his party could never oppose brexit properly. This vote is just the logical conclusion of that.
 
Why?. His strategy over brexit has been a mess, if he did believe some lexit rubbish, he never put if forward. The only narrative people in leave areas had was Johnson's and Farage's.
 
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