General Election 2019

don't get all snotty just cos god didn't choose you....

My mother tells me I'm just a naughty boy...

Oh wow. Former Prime Minister and Lobbyist Tony Blair.

Post-election polling shows that between 2017 and 2019, we lost only a small number of voters who were Leave and all the way through we had more than double the number of Remain voters. The biggest percentage fall in Labour voters between 2017 and 2019 was amongst young people, probably dismayed by the ambiguity over a Brexit they detested.

The idea is to win so holding up 2017 as a goal is limited but ok. The 2017 Labour position was to honour the referendum result. Wesminster mess in the interim hardened Leave voters against Labour. As @villa-ru pointed out it gave time for Remainers to find ways to stall and overturn the result, hardening Remainers too, fuelled on false hope. It's likely many of them will have voted Lib Dem this time. Blair is cherry picking.

Blair seems to be basically saying Labour should have reached their final Brexit position earlier, and it would have been popular? Really not sure I buy that.

He can STFU on foreign policy too.

Can anyone point me to a shred of evidence that 'the manifesto was popular'?

From memory, but I'm pretty sure that the majority of the population favour nationalisation, 60-70% iirc.

Also I'm pretty sure that the last thing I read showed the majority favoured increased spending on the armed forces, and didn't Labour commit to something like 2% of GDP?

Sorry don't have time to check for sources.

Be interesting to see figures on what proportion of the general public had any actual interaction with the manifestos.

The universal benefits such as Broadband got (relatively) good press coverage and lead the media cycle.

position... referendum

The problem now is that everything is hindsight - on a subject that was totally unknown and misunderstood. Eg who knew about A50? Irish Boarder? Etc.? Etc?

Blair seems to be basically saying Labour should have reached their final Brexit position earlier, and it would have been popular?

My reading was that; 1. The uncertainty made them look weak, and 2. reaching their final position earlier whilst making it 100% about the Tories.

Point 1. is unarguable. Point 2.... I still think the length of the msg would always have been a challenge.

As ever with Blair opitics is all. And if we're having a bitching sesh then I draw a firm line to our current discourse of lies and fake news that started with him and Campbell.

Enough time has passed for some people to understand the 2003 invasion of Iraq beyond the Daily Mail narrative that Tony Blair is a war criminal. However, it doesn't matter...that is what he will always be to a lot of people.

The universal benefits such as Broadband got (relatively) good press coverage and lead the media cycle.

For me the free broadband pledge was the end of Corbyn's Labour as a serious political force. The WASPI women stuff, four day week, green revolution, et al, were just nails in the coffin.

When you took three or four of the policies from the manifesto, they were incredibly popular. That doesn't mean that putting 30 of them in the same manifesto wasn't profoundly damaging for Corbyn's economic credibility.

Pretty much on the money. The four day week especially. Dispite being sound, it reeks of the 70s.

The green revolution, I think was fine. It was pretty dense and comprehensive so I struggle to believe many people without an interest (and bias) read it.

Has anyone from the PLP acknowledged that their constant infighting and undermining the leader publicly at any opportunity might have had an effect on the labour vote?

Whereas the Conservative party had far more infighting than Labour, and they won a massive majority.

My reading was that the referendum would have been on the existing deal, not the whole 'we'll get a new one in 3 months then referend that'. That's a clearer message (at whatever point they might have stated it - May's or Johnson's deal) - 'This is what Brexit looks like - now you can decide if it's what you want.'

so thats a no then

I think I'm prepared to admit that 'my side' of Labour (i.e. Centrist Dads FC) have partial responsibility for the result last week; I'd say our push for a PV cost some votes (though I'd say it won more than it lost) and also Tom Watson etc undermining JC probably cost some votes too. But you have to put that in context.

We're talking minimal votes here. Every single poll, every single interview, every single bit of data out there says that the main problem for the electorate with voting for Labour was Corbyn himself. Brexit comes a distant third, and this was meant to be the brexit election, so I don't think we can ascribe too much causal responsibility to centrist labour.

Some more centrist dad fodder since we are on Tony Blair today.

https://twitter.com/RussInCheshire/status/1207071942601248772

In retrospect it was a really bad move agreeing to the election. Boris and Cumming were really sh*tting it the first time Labour refused . I think they should of forced another referendum

They had no say in the matter. LDs and SNP forced the election with the one-line bill (only a simple majority required). They "agreed" to it because the only thing worse than being forced to contest an election you don't want is being forced to contest an election you don't want and starting your campaign off with a load of negative PR about how you hate democracy and are expecting to fail

Labour, LDs and SNP utterly failed to cooperate with each other but the blame for this election mainly rests with the LDs for prioritising their number of seats over the country IMO

Yeah, but neoliberalism... blah, blah, blah, bullshit

Irish Boarder

While not representative of the UK as a whole, it was a pretty big point raised by anyone I talked to from NI, even prior to the vote. I still don't understand how it wasn't front and centre in the run-up to the referendum.

Yeah I don't think it was the main factor at all, just really annoying! Especially when he got picked by the members twice - you'd have thought it would stop then. It just seemed so easy for newspapers (even the bloody guardian) to have a different mp each day slinging some mud internally, while at the same time saying JC wasn't doing enough to unite people.

For me

There is data for the media coverage of Broadband, I was't just giving an opinion. I agree a simpler manifesto, with a few simple messages might have worked better.

WASPI was a good policy don't you think. And a demographic they should have been targeting.

I don't think it's a good policy in terms of fairness, but as pork barrel politics go it's probably a good policy

Apologies, I thought you were defending the policy, not making a statement about its press.

And yes, I liked the WASPI policy. I think it should've been one of the ten pledges along with NHS, Education, Security, Police, Fire Services, Rail Nationalisation, Green investment in infrastructure, and Proportional Representation. That four day week / free broadband / animal welfare revolution etc stuff was too much.

WASPI was a good policy don't you think

Nah it was shit. As a headline policy. Maybe as a third line thing, sure.

Charging young people 58Bn to pay ladies like Theresa May 22,000 each, whilst any woman who actually needed it would have it forbidden by the benefits cap? Sign me up!

That smug tone is sure to heal the divisions.

I wonder what would happen if Blair had brought in the electoral system recommended by the Jenkins Commission and we'd got more used to consensus politics and a more representative Parliament. UKIP could have been a real electoral force and killed off the Conservatives by being a more viable alternative for defectors.

Or imagine Blair without the Iraq War instead - the Lib Dems may have been a lot less popular in 2010.