That Starmer fella...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42747342

Polling data is shit. No one knows.

Well maybe Tory consultancies do, but the rest of us don't

Age was even more of a dividing factor than in 2015 (and the biggest we’ve seen since our records began in 1979)

There's a separate question though on whether it had much impact on seats. Trying to tie turnout and proportions of voters to seats under FPTP is difficult.

This graph

and this graph

show where the problems lie.

"All the swing to Labour was among under 44s (and highest of all among 25-34s)"

The BES study (more or less) supports this ...

There's a separate question though on whether it had much impact on seats.

Yes, very much agreed.

"Starmer's performance in these local elections is the worst performance by any new opposition leader in at least 40 years.

Jeremy Corbyn lost 18 seats (1% of total seats) in his first local elections; Keir Starmer has lost 326 seats (7% of total seats), a jaw-dropping defeat."

Makes a couple of phone calls to Jeffrey Epstein probably

I'd like to re-ask this question: If like Australia we had compulsory voting what would an election result be?

Count Binface landslide.

Boaty McBoatface.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/11/keir-starmer-aide-carolyn-harris-resigns

a worthwhile listen/read
https://mobile.twitter.com/UKandEU/status/1392086924706426880

One thing that no-one seems to have mentioned (or at least I've missed): a charismatic and convincing leader makes a big difference. Remember all the 'I agree with Nick' stuff years ago? I don't think it was Lib Dem policies people were voting for (in the main), more a (perceived) different tone and a personality. Starmer is certainly well qualified and - on paper - very competent but he doesn't exactly charm the birds from the trees or evince any great passion. Boris is a loathsome creature but he is a larger-than-life personality and (perhaps worryingly) appears to have genuine conviction in what he says. The technocrat vibe from Starmer I don't think sells well.

I would say one major problem is that you generally end up fining the poorest and most vulnerable people for not voting, which is obviously not great.

Probably would increase Labour's turnout though.

Yes, Len McClusky is on the way out. But he's done damage to Labour's electoral chances already.

I'm not proposing an alternative to unions - I'm saying that unions are counterproductive to Labour's chances of getting into power and I want a model for collective action which doesn't damage our chances. If the unions decide not to damage our chances maybe they're the way forward. But at the moment, they're a liability.

If you don't think unions have done bad things I suspect I'm on a hiding to nothing listing out the problems, but just sticking to Len McCluskey for a moment:

• spunked potentially over a million quid of his members money in legal fees protecting Sqawakbox when they libelled Anna Turley
  
• funelling contracts to dodgy mates
  
• 'borrowing' £400k of members money to buy his flat
  
• telling jewish Labour ex MPs to 'count your gold'
  
• Unite were also instrumental in blocking Starmer's 'remain' brexit policy and instead forced a 'people's vote' policy instead - a pointless fig leaf that annoys me to this day
  
  

I could go on but probably best not to.

Unions chose Ed instead of David Miliband as well #nevr4get

who is going to fund the labour party if they bin off unions

The rich donors that'll run into Starmers open arms, I expect.

I'm seeing that Starmer is currently on -48 approval?

Boaty McBoatface

Votey McVoteface I think you mean

Votey McBinface

If you don't think unions have done bad things

I think they are imperfect, and complex like any other comparably sized organ of representative political power and that affords individuals opportunities to exploit the positions they find themselves in.

It's a particularly difficult issue to remedy within trade unionism (for whatever reason), and you really don't need to tell me why Crooked Len is a bad apple. But would be interested to hear if you have gripes with any other TU besides Unite, which to be honest all seems tied quite closely to crap LM has said, done or overseen as general secretary, rather than the org itself.

I find it a bit short sighted to rationalise that because there are some rotten offices therefore TUs should cease to exist, and frankly shows a complete detachment from the political reality of the Labour party, or the absolutely essential role they perform for their members and the labour market more broadly.

shows a complete detachment from the political reality of the Labour party, or the absolutely essential role they perform for their members and the labour market more broadly

Think this just about sums up a lot of contributions to this thread

Sounds the same en Espanol.

It doesn't matter who is in charge of labour. They will always fail. They will fail because they don't have control or access to talking to people through MSM or FB/etc.

There is an unfortunate truth to this. You can try and conjure the ghost of the softboi neolib glory years, and Mandelson can flatter himself all he likes (the daft cunt), but it's hard to ignore a significant factor in Blair winning in 1997 because Murdoch for what ever reason wasn't on board Major's pro-Europe Tory party bus.

I think they are looking for what they see as economic prudence and relatively small government, although they would consider public services and social welfare essential. To me it doesn't make sense

There's a really good Reith lecture by some judge who discusses the expansion of the law. Not saying I'm against this (or its 100% accurate) but as an eg there are laws that prevent you from docking your dog's tail unless it's a working dog. That is government getting involved in quite a minor aspect of your personal property. Not supporting that sort of thing is not at all at odds with wanting public services and a welfare safety net.