General Election 2024

Labour are not radical enough. There needs to be constitutional reform (voting system, devolution). Among all the coverage this is going to get lost/ forgotten.

How did being radical work out for Corbyn?

Labour need to win and win convincingly. They can evolve their narrative throughout their leadership. I'll happily vote for the most centrist manifesto from Labour as long as they galvanise support across the spectrum of political views in this country and kick the tories to the curb.

How did being radical work out for Corbyn?

Not too badly (considering) in his first GE, disastrously in his second. Although, you could argue to what extent that was policy and what was his leadership failings, Brexit, Labour disunity and the massed ranks of the Tory media.

Redwood's off:

https://x.com/robpowellnews/status/1793893652407668773

Kier doing a good job of unelecting himself on Radio 4 right now

I think that's polishing the turd a little. He defeated the govt in the chamber as most of the votes were the most divisive in decades. No one could agree on what Brexit was and so voting agains it was the only recourse.

Electorally, he was an absolute disaster. We may well have had a labour majority or at worst a coalition vs May if there was a competent Labour leader with more publicly understood / acceptable policies. The right wing media were never going to get behind him like they did Blair or may do with Starmer now the writing is on the wall for Sunak.

Also, it's all very well having bold ideas but, to my knowledge, he's never once actually achieved anything in parliament. No private members bills, never been on a committee etc. He's just all chat.

I thought he was fine. Honest and clear.

Redwood or Starmer?

I think the latter is doing quite well

A slightly softer radicalism would be welcome, and may actually be able to galvanise support from younger people and those on the left more broadly, rather than low-turnout apathy.

There’s a bunch of soft economic left Conservative voters who value the environment highly too who would respond well to less centrist policies as long as they don’t hit certain socialist talking points (hence some of the shift to the Greens from Conservatives).

That centrist, softly-softly approach won’t work in the long term because it’s pushing a completely outdated policy prescription of magical market fantasy. I do hope the change in narrative and policy happens after the election, but without any real opposition, it’s not clear to me that they will change very much.

https://youtu.be/NysIiUqvxIU?si=Ep3XIqUOEWxAE6fv

That centrist, softly-softly approach won’t work in the long term because it’s pushing a completely outdated policy prescription of magical market fantasy. I do hope the change in narrative and policy happens after the election, but without any real opposition, it’s not clear to me that they will change very much.

Agreed but a couple of headlines from the Daily Mail or Express on how dangerous the left is and a lot of those thinking of punishing the tories will jump back again. It feels like there's a period of delivery needed from the left. Governing sensibly, no dramas, peoples lives starting to improve. With that underway, you earn the right to move into more radical policies.

As you say though, there's a chance they won't move further left. I'd still take it 100 times out of 100 over more of the current shower of cunts.

Agreed but a couple of headlines from the Daily Mail or Express on how dangerous the left is and a lot of those thinking of punishing the tories will jump back again.

Yeah it's all about messaging and a kind of quiet radicalism, which does mean they need to be careful not to be too easily categorised as the traditional 20th century left. That's probably what Labour think they're doing, but I don't think they meet the threshold.

It feels like there's a period of delivery needed from the left. Governing sensibly, no dramas, peoples lives starting to improve. With that underway, you earn the right to move into more radical policies.

Definitely, although the difficult prospect for this is that a period of calm governance doesn't look likely to be able to increase living standards to a meaningful degree. It might just temper the decline in some of the worst parts of our economic lives, which as you say is preferable to this clusterfuck, but not sufficient either.

Anyway, probably worth waiting for the manifesto at this point!

Urgh, voters

LBC YouTube short

Also urgh, the media.

Building their narrative innit?

Also, it's all very well having bold ideas but, to my knowledge, he's never once actually achieved anything in parliament. No private members bills, never been on a committee etc. He's just all chat.

Great local MP, awful politician

Almost like the job of providing a service to / representing your constituency and governing a country aren't suitable for being lumped together

they are sunak's constituents rather than a random sample so a bit less worrying

They're still spouting shit about the Tories that's patently untrue.

I checked out my local labour candidate yesterday, wow is he uninspiring.

Hoping the greens get the stopthetory nod here but it'll never happen.

This is true. It's a tough line to walk but I feel like many MPs (on both sides) seem able to represent their constituency whilst also being prevalent at a national level.

He seems like the guy in the pub complaining about his wife, family, job, health etc only to go home and do absolutely fuck all about it.

and do absolutely fuck all about it.

Obvious baiting and let's focus on 2024 not 17/19 hey, but increasing party membership to the become the biggest political party in Europe off the back of a radical left platform probably isn't fuck all compared to the majority of the 650 droids in Parliament.

Interestingly on media narratives around left policies - I saw some research presented at a conference that the highest level of anti social security/benefits articles in the media was around 2005/6. It's at it's lowest point currently.

So even though New Labour went into power with strong media support, the majority of the press are always going to pivot back to undermining centre-left policies/supporting Conservative ones.

Rishi Sunak stepping on rakes for 6 weeks like Sideshow Bob is going to be exhausting

Add to that the Peter griffinesqe knee holding and "aaaaahhhhhh" "ahhhhhhh" for the whole six weeks

Yeah this is the big risk I think, the pressure from the right doesn't go away after the election. Without continually making the case for progressive policies to change the conversation, we'll be locked in to this dynamic. Labour keeping their cards close to their chest before the election is a very short-term fix to electoral problems, not long-term societal ones.

He seems like the guy in the pub complaining about his wife, family, job, health etc only to go home and do absolutely fuck all about it.

Seemed like the guy that got egged on to apply for a job he was unsuited to then had no clue what to do when he somehow landed it. The Peter principle on a disappointingly national scale

Labour need to change the game. 5 years of changing the system to prevent the right from coming back is probably better in the long term than any work to undo the shit the Tories brought in over the last 14 years.