One of the many problems with Labour

[andrewducker]

Is that they've been utterly unwilling to actually to take a stand on things. They seem to have this assumption that the entire country is made of Daily Mail voters who voted for them by mistake, and that if they want to keep in power then they have to do all the things they want to secretly, without ever actually standing up and saying "Actually, we believe X."

This has meant that after thirteen years of power they're still pretending that they haven't raised taxes (rather than having the conversation about what they want to do with more tax, and why they need it), and it means that they haven't stood up and said "Here is why we believe immigration is a good thing" and are instead stuck publically appeasing people who talk about immigration negatively, and then calling them bigoted behind their backs.

I know that expecting honesty from politicians is like expecting high quality type O blood from stones, but I really do think that Labour would be having a lot less trouble now if they'd been willing to have a fight with the Daily Mail back in 1998...

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Labour + Lib Dems are not currently projected to have a majority *between them*. They may have to go with the Tories.

[andrewducker]

What do you think of the 538 analysis?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Hard to see you're going to find a better analysis of the polls than Nate Silver's, though I'd still defer to the betting markets for probabilities. They're currently predicting Labour + LD = 311 seats out of the 326 needed for majority.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

That doesn't seem to fit with the LSE analysis: the projected number of Lib Dem seats is greater on all five projections than the number by which Labour fall short of a majority. It's also worth bearing in mind that Sinn Fein will probably not take up their seats and that the SNP and Plaid Cymru have been making noises suggesting they would consider supporting a Lib/Lab deal.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Sadly there's no market on the combined seats of two parties, so there's no easy guide to which analysis to prefer, though Silver has an impressive track record. Would be interested to read more about the SNP/PC thing you mention. Thanks!