I am aghast at the direction of the Labour Party.

[andrewducker]

Starmer's response to the the Conservatives losing two seats to massive swings, and Labour very nearly winning a seat that hasn't returned a Labour candidate since 1945 has been to say "Oh God This Is Awful, We Must Cancel All Policies That Tory Voters Don't Like At Once."

The current predictions are for Labour to get between 338 and 544 seats - somewhere between a large majority and a ridiculous majority. There is absolutely no need to tack rightwards. There is absolutely no need to be saying things like "We are doing something very wrong when a Labour party policy was on each and every Tory leaflet" unless you believe that the Conservatives should love Labour policies.

The idea that failing to win every seat means Labour is somehow doing badly and needs to change only makes sense if you believe that your policies need to attract absolutely everyone to you.

There is always going to be tension between "The policies that you believe will win you an election" and "The policies that you believe are the best ones" - but the time to be taking on the policies of the opposition is when you're massively behind and trying to find ways to catch up. The only reason to do it when you have the support of the country is if you actually *want* the policies of the opposing side.

Comments

[f4f3]

I wish I was still a member so that I could resign again.

[aldabra]

This.

[calimac]

Could this be because of a misapplication of the lesson of why they won in 1997?

[coth]

I hope that's not a fair characterisation of what's happening here.

Starmer knows what the Tories are going to throw at the Labour party in a general election on constituency boundaries that are already biased against it. He knows that this country is inherently conservative (with a small 'c') and that Labour can't win a general election when it only has the support of the left. He knows more than we do about the politics, demographics, economics and psephology of the problem the party has got, and he knows that huge leads in the polls can melt away like tears in the rain. He knows that if he doesn't get elected he can't do anything. And he knows that the reasons why Labour lost in Uxbridge are reasons that can be weaponised against the party in other seats.

I share your worries. I understand the reasons why you (and I and others) are putting our heads in our hands. But I don't think we are anywhere near 'normal' in our attitudes to this, and I think the best we can hope for right now is that Labour gets to power and starts to undo some of the last ten years' damage. It is always a poor argument in politics that the other side is worse and you should at least vote against them. But omg is that true this time!

Meanwhile, we have all learned again that people won't vote for their own impoverishment, and that we all need to get a lot cleverer with green policies that anyone has been so far.

[toothycat]

> Meanwhile, we have all learned again that people won't vote for their own impoverishment

You claim that, but we got Brexit and then people just carried on voting for their own impoverishment at every available opportunity since.

[captainsblog]

Our version of that is a combination of two tropes: "Dems in Disarray" when any Democratic legislators or candidates utter even the slightest disagreement among themselves about anything (as opposed to Republicans, who simply hang any dissenters' heads from pikes along the castle wall), and the Times's specialty, "Let's go to a diner in the rural midwest and interview former Democratic voters to see why they are disaffected with All The Woke."

Don't overthink it, guys. Just play their campaign adverts verbatim. People aren't too stupid to learn. Yet.

[cmcmck]

There's no need to play culture wars either but it isn't stopping them!

[toothycat]

One problem with not tacking rightwards is that everyone saw what was done to Corbyn.