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Voters flock to Johnson's party as Labour loses bastion

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By William James and Elizabeth Piper

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This is the Hartlepool by-election, what is seen by many to be a reliable thermometer of upcoming UK politics.

This is pretty big. Up until now only one Conservative has ever represented the town; since the formation of the Labour Party.

It is in the north east of England. Jill Mortimer, the winner, is a farmer who, when once asked if she had ever even visited Hartlepool before, she replied that she had once visited its battery museum.

Of the 18 seats that Labour still holds in the north east, a further seven are vulnerable in future elections. Next one to watch: race for mayor of London.

Talk of the near future being the death of the Labour Party is likely exaggerated and missplaced; but many political scientists also think that, for the forseeable, without a good working and practical power sharing agreement merger with the Liberal Democrats (yeah, right! and there's another pig flying over Manchester Square!) Labour will be too weak to win much and too strong to die completely.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Must be circumspect, cautious when by-elections bear untold pots of voter gold.

Keep in mind, the aphorism all that momentary glisters, politically, has a habit of misrepresentation at any future ballot box.

The Johnson Government has hoovered up the UKIP vote en-masse.

The Labour Party has become infested with a toxic form of metropolitan, London focused, identity politics.

An ideology embracing a cancel culture, wokery, typified by the relentless need to indoctrinate opinion through the pursuit of accusations of unconscious bias.

The self-righteous ostracism to tear down statues, and rewrite history.

Aided and abetted, by a celebrity Hollywood posturing showbiz cultural elite.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

The Labour Party has become infested with a toxic form of metropolitan, London focused, identity politics.

An ideology embracing a cancel culture, wokery, typified by the relentless need to indoctrinate opinion through the pursuit of accusations of unconscious bias.

The self-righteous ostracism to tear down statues, and rewrite history.

Actually, the opposite. Sur Haircut's advisors have him visiting pubs and all sorts of patriotic, flag waving populist ideas are coming to the fore. He's hopeless.

As for cancellations, well, at a stretch, I suppose you could accuse him of trying to disenfranchise the hundreds of thousands of members who joined up during the Corbyn years. Certainly, in that respect, Labour can be accused of being toxic.

Oh, and the co-owner of The Raven pub in Bath, cancelled Keith from coming in. He's an anti-masker & anti-lockdown type.

Awful stuff.

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Keir Starmer, is a relic of the Gordon Brown tenure, Director of Public Prosecutions.

Keir Starmer is a mere side show to the political dysfunctional malaise within the Labour party.  

The political corrosive deterioration is systemic as the Momentum fundamentalist group remains a pretense to having any connection to socialist principles, or justice within the party group.

To suggest that this whole sorry debacle is a reflection on Keir Starmer leadership is delusional.

Sadiq Khan London Mayor and his ilk, his failure to tackle violent crime, blaming the government for it, Is the underlining reason why labour is foundering at the ballot box.

Sadiq Khan is the very definition as to why the Labour party remain and will continue to be unelectable.

Sadiq Khan is the very definition of conflict and chaos personified.

Gesture politics without any foundation.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Sadiq Khan London Mayor and his ilk, his failure to tackle violent crime, blaming the government for it, Is the underlining reason why labour is foundering at the ballot box.

Sadiq Khan is the very definition as to why the Labour party remain and will continue to be unelectable.

Sadiq Khan is the very definition of conflict and chaos personified.

To be fair to Khan, it's down to the Tory govt to allocate the majority of funds for London. He can ask, but won't necessarily receive said funding.

If he really is chaos etc, as opposed to just a bit dull, how come he's on course to be re-elected mayor?

as the Momentum fundamentalist group remains a pretense to having any connection to socialist principles, or justice within the party group.

Fundamentalist? How so? Because of JCs socialist standing, many activists were re-invigorated and Labour supporters who had strayed from the party came back. Of course, that's in decline now with the Tory-lite Keir at the helm.

To suggest that this whole sorry debacle is a reflection on Keir Starmer leadership is delusional.

LOL

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Momentum is a group of ideological zealots, Sadiq Khan London Mayor is a reflection on the a failure to tackle the devastating effect knife crime has on the capitol, spiraling out of control

A transport network in near to insolvency, every promise, pledge meaningless.

Sadiq Khan has spent and squanders hundreds of millions on ideological extremism, gesture politics and the poisonous derisive agenda of pursuing victimhood.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

I have more time for Jeremy Corbyn, Keir Starmer , than that political fork tongue weasel Sadiq Khan.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

What a horror show.

Hard to believe this is the same country that created the NHS, the BBC and the British Council.

This is why you can never go home again....

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Peter Mandelson was talking about General election victories since 1979 - Tory, Tory, Tory, Tory, Blair, Blair, Blair, Tory, Tory, Tory....

Chilling words

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@Jim

Horrible.

I’m in my mid-fifties and seriously doubt I’ll live to see another Labour Prime Minister in Downing Street. : (

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@luca

With Scotland basically out of the picture, the maths look very tough for Labour.

I think a lot of those northern seats will come back to Labour, but it’s nowhere near enough. A deal with the Libdems? They are up for anything.

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@Jim

A Lib/Lab pact... That takes me back.

Anything would be better than the current bunch of grasping buffoons....

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Back to the salt mines. From The Sun:

Finally breaking his silence nine hours after the bombshell Hartlepool defeat, Sir Keir admitted he had failed to “connect” with voters. He added the “bitterly disappointing” defeats show Labour is hopelessly out of touch with working class Brits . . . Sir Keir said the party must stop “quarrelling” and tell Britons what it stands for. He said: “The Labour Party has to rise to the challenge of reconnecting with working people.

https://www.the-sun.com/news/2846018/boris-johnson-spanks-sir-keir-starmer-seizing-hartlepool/

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Typically, mid-term elections give the government a spanking.

Johnson's regime has been beset with corruption and cronyism allegations. He was elected to push through Brexit, which has now been done, so his role as a 'single use PM' is over. The Tory party is split, many distrusting Johnson, with even the Tory press turning on him. The Labour opposition have dumped the unelectable Corbyn and have a new leader.

And yet, Johnson has actually increased the Tory vote in these local elections. And it isn't surprising.

Why? Because the NHS saved his skin by rolling out the vaccines quickly. The pace has slowed from 1m per day as vaccine supplies are running short, but the fast roll out handed the election to Johnson on a platter.

It didn't help that Labour (and the SNP) have been beset with internal disputes. Labour have had trouble trying to win back their party from the grip of Momentum and have been damaged by their failure to act as an opposition during the pandemic.

And Johnson knows that a pro-lockdown stance loses votes. Leaking his antagonism to lockdown just before the elections may have won him a lot of votes.

Boris Johnson must be the luckiest guy on the planet. Covid has covered up much of the damage caused by Brexit, the BBC has morphed into a state broadcaster and the EU failed with their own vaccine roll out.

It may not last. Although Johnson is adept at maintaining his own popularity at the expense of others, doing more U-turns in a week than Thatcher did in her entire time in office, and making promises and policies that are quietly forgotten about, he will have to deliver a degree of normality before the next election and avoid the fallout from inquiries into sleaze that will soon pass beyond allegations.

The Tories have their own Donald Trump - they don't like him and don't trust him, but he wins elections, so they might not feel able to ditch him.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

openDemocracyUK -  Opinion:

The biggest danger for the party might not be the loss of councillors and vote share – damaging though that is to its presence in communities and its ability to campaign and recover in future. It’s that – as one party insider told me yesterday – “the movement has moved on” . . .

Many of those who coalesced around former leader Jeremy Corbyn have simply run out of patience with Labour’s timidity on policy and vision. And Labour seems to have little idea how to bring these voters back, and is unsure if it even wants to. Other, newer, climate and anti-racism activists speak of their resentment at clumsy attempts to co-opt them into the party machine from party figures intimating they need the protection and support of the ‘big boys’ who ‘know how to do politics properly’. Newer activists might not always encounter the hostility that some sections of Labour demonstrated towards the Momentum movement from the start – but the patronising stance doesn’t tend to go down too well with anyone – those knocking on the doors and those answering them alike.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/beginning-end-labour/

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Reconsidering a Lib/Lab coalition, and my pig flying analogy. Some sort of temporary truce just for a short time to block another Tory victory.

I thought that I remembered some hurt feelings dating back in the Blair days, but mergers talks and gentleman's agreements never seemed to develop into much. And sporadic talks between the parties going back a decade or two before that, without much in the way of results.

Could all be philosophical. But it could be historic, too, since I remember lots of hard feelings that Libs played the part of wrecker towards many of Labour’s ambitions for many years.

Still, its hard to ask rank and file True Believers to hold their noses just long enough to vote for a hybrid as the least loathsome of the choices. Alternative, though, could result in Labour eventually going the way of the Dodo. Maybe a peace treaty? No distaste of former merger, and putting aside talk about pacts with so-called pseudo-lefts or a red/green or green/red (according to your individual taste) arrangements; just a temporary alliance of convenience and necessity?

Ambitious, if not practical.

Sorry, returning to the flying pigs analogy.

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