Election 2019 - Hide in a fridge to win - The Bear and Badger

LarryDavid

He could be right about Corbyn and leadership, but then he also ran the ‘Labour for remain campaign’ (or whatever it was called) so he should probably wind his neck in a bit before he goes off on one about lack of leadership and failing people.

EDIT: I forgot, that was Corbyn’s fault too. Somehow.

Minnesänger

Yeah, can understand the idea that Corbyn was an issue.

Can’t understand the idea that Corbyn was the only or biggest issue from people who wanted Labour to come out strongly for Remain.

Minnesänger

The above is not supposed to be accusational, by the way. I've been trying to argue that unity is the way forward for a while (with remainers, especially, being willing to compromise on political messaging and policy) and I mean it. There's a lot to unpack, and I was worried that failure to get behind some sort of brexit would cost them but I've no interest in finger pointing.

monkey

If they’d gone full Leave they’d have lost votes at the other end. They went Remain halfway house which satisfied nobody and pissed off Leavers. What was Corbyn’s explanation for having a second ref? Does anyone remember? I don’t know what message was given to Northern / Midlands voters about it. Other than, “my MPs made me do it”. Neutrality was a huge problem.

ANECDOTE ALERT
Saw 5 old school friends. Normal state school educated salt of the earthers. 4 hated the Tories. The other 1 was Tory indoctrinated at an impressionable age by his Dad and is now beyond help. And even he voted Lib Dem. ALL despised Corbyn. ALL blamed him for being so inept to let the Tories get away with this. Pissing money away, unachievable promises, waffling old nobody, couldn’t lead a dog around, let alone the country. How can you be neutral? Why’s it a big secret? Fucking cunt. Want his head on a spike. Including me that’s 6 voters there and 5 of them still went Labour.

monkey

I accept Remainers need to do a bit of self-examination here about how they could have just got a sub-optimal outcome instead of completely catastrophic. But in the past three and a half years there hasn’t really been a point where you could have endorsed Brexit without Labour writing the Tories an enormous blank cheque. So there weren’t many opportunities to do much but block it.

Diluted Dante

The explanation for a second referendum was for the voters to have their say on if they wanted to leave on the terms Corbyn negotiated.

Your old school friends are reciting regurgitated tabloid bollocks.

monkey

Diluted Dante wrote:

The explanation for a second referendum was for the voters to have their say on if they wanted to leave on the terms Corbyn negotiated.

Your old school friends are reciting regurgitated tabloid bollocks.

The terms Corbyn wanted = ‘another negotiation with Europe’ and god knows what that would look like but no ones going to campaign for it and even the Leader won’t stick up for it.

Why aren’t they all voting Tory if they’re just sponges for tabloid headlines. I’m not and I agree with them. The tabloids picked on his weak spots and hammered them relentlessly. Exaggerated, made stuff up. The weak spots are still there though. They didn’t think a political leader should be neutral on the biggest issue of the day. Just cos the Sun said it too doesn’t mean these guys were wrong. It’s just what they thought. They heard the pro-neutral case and didn’t accept it.

hunk

Diluted Dante wrote:

The explanation for a second referendum was for the voters to have their say on if they wanted to leave on the terms Corbyn negotiated. Your old school friends are reciting regurgitated tabloid bollocks.

And that is the crux of the problem. The cons have most of the media channels on lockdown: tabloids (print), social (online), even the bbc(tv). Corbyn was doomed as the cons were in control of his image from the start.

Most of us here are I presume educated enough to see through the con propaganda bullshit. The 90% doesn't care though. To them image is everything; make or break. They uncritically consume the news as it is presented and regurgitrate it over and over on social media. Education can break this cycle and thus the class barrier and voting behaviour. But to educate the populace they need to vote Labour into power first.

Labour is basically stuck with a catch-22.
How to convince the 90% to vote labour when they've been brainwashed by the tories and refuse to believe you?

Tempy

I feel really naive and stupid because I thought Corbyn's piece was full of humility and contrition, but as much as I'ev gone back and forth on him over the years I've never quite understood the massive amount of hate for his manner over the years. mrsmr2's repsonse for example just seems beyond my ken. Like Gonzo said many times, you need someone willing to ask for too much in order to get the best for us. Anyway, feeling all a bit dazed by the past few days.

Armitage_Shankburn

JonB wrote:

I'm a bit confused by all these 'we need to reconnect with the working-class voters' op-eds coming out now, because I'm pretty sure that was what most of Corbyn's Labour's policies were aimed at. Surely more of that support was lost in the Blair years and has just continued leaking out since. The problem seems to be getting the message across that they're doing something different now. Although again, the second referendum/remain stance really didn't help.

Or it depends what's really meant by 'working class'. Jess Phillips' Guardian piece places a photo of Corbyn standing together with a load of black and brown people under a headline that the working class has lost trust in Labour. So is 'working class' actually code for 'white people'?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/14/working-class-voters-didnt-trust-labour-jess-phillips

A little bit,, yes. See this here, an amazing report/take:

https://mobile.twitter.com/LukePagarani/status/1205487970897342464

JonB

Maybe the final take away from all this is that the centre and left spent four years fucking each other over while a catastrophic right got away with doing whatever it wanted.

Corbyn and co wanted to go big or go home. The Blairites and their ilk refused to even talk it over. They campaigned against him before he'd begun. He moved further away. By the time there was any attempt to find common ground, it was too late.

I'll say it again, as someone on the left, Labour needs a plan along the lines of that manifesto. It needs a proper vision of the future and big policies. And the longer it's out of power, the bigger the policies will need to be. But yeah, we fucked it. It's been a complete mess of a few years and it's impossible to completely blame the centrists.

I worry that nothing will be learned. That the left and centre will keep blaming each other, not realising that that's what allows the right to win. And I'm not a centrist or a liberal - I could never get on board with another Blair or anything similarly reformist and lacking in overall vision. Or anyone who's going to appeal to the Murdoch press etc. It's too late for that now.

But some kind of bridge needs to be made between where I am and where they are, somehow. And it needs a lot of taking responsibility.

For me, I never thought Corbyn himself was great as a leader, although I admire him as a person and a politician. But I did think that this was potentially the one chance in a generation to actually change things in a meaningful way for the better. I am pissed off that people who are supposed to want social improvement couldn't look past the faults, especially as the alternative became so much more blatantly worse. And I'm pissed off that those people were so willing to oust him at any cost, when the cost was so high. In return, it's hard not to slip into defensive mode and just start defending him at any cost, because the criticism always seems worse than the mistake. It's going to take two sides who aren't just trying to beat each other, but are trying to find a path forward to get over that.

Anyway, ramble ramble, This wasn't even the point I set out to make and I'm just saying stuff as it comes to mind now. Not really thought through, but I guess there's got to be some truth in it.

Armitage_Shankburn

Key bits:

There was a visceral hatred of Corbyn (sometimes combined with Diane Abbott) from a section of voters outside inner London, primarily older white voters, both middle and working class. So far, so obvious. 3/

How did the demonization of Corbyn have such a strong effect in 2019 but not in 2017? Although on the face of it that demonization has been raw and relentless, actually it has only circled around the key charge, never making it explicit,... 4/

Our opponents wouldn’t put it so bluntly but that is what it has always been about. That prioritisation of British lives must always be assumed, never justified, taken for granted as the ground the state is built on, never officially avowed except through ritual. 6/

The cenotaph. Gerry Adams. Prosecutions of historic crimes in N.I. Laying wreaths in foreign cemeteries. Poppies. Diane Abbott. Pushing the button. Watching the Queen at Christmas

When these voters talk about having paid into the system all their lives, they’re not just talking about literal national insurance payments and the financial benefits they’re entitled to in recompense.

They’re talking about a life of loyalty and deference to the state they expected to be their exclusive patron; and now they see a Labour leader who seems to invite the whole world to his allotment, to offer his homemade jam to anyone who needs it,..

There is a quote about the British working class, I can't remember whose. Something about how it didn't matter how low you were within Britain, the lowest Briton was higher than the rest of the world...

I think there is something about Corbyn, and Abbott, the hatred towards her, that subconsciously about that.

How come Corbyn's instinct is always to defend the others?. He's always telling us we're cunts. He is always on other people's sides. Even the anti-Semitism thing may have got traction as part of a pro-muslim narrative.

Anyway, great take.

Tempy

JonB wrote:

For me, I never thought Corbyn himself was great as a leader, although I admire him as a person and a politician. But I did think that this was potentially the one chance in a generation to actually change things in a meaningful way for the better. I am pissed off that people who are supposed to want social improvement couldn't look past the faults, especially as the alternative became so much more blatantly worse. And I'm pissed off that those people were so willing to oust him at any cost, when the cost was so high. In return, it's hard not to slip into defensive mode and just start defending him at any cost, because the criticism always seems worse than the mistake. It's going to take two sides who aren't just trying to beat each other, but are trying to find a path forward to get over that.

I think this sums up how I feel as well. I also feel we put too much stock is put in leaders, singular. We like a face, and we also hate a face too. It swings both ways, as shit as Boris and Trump are, they’re probably no worse than the near-invisible people who sit in the party and use that face to continue pushing through the morbid agendas they’ve been channeling for years.

Signed, as ever, a political moron

monkey

There’s three groups that need knitting back together now. Liberal, soft, metropolitan cortado drinkers like me. Working class tea drinkers. And the Corbynite, herbal tea enthusiasts. We have to get together and agree on one drink. And make sure beforehand that the electorate wouldn’t mind ordering it as well.

hunk

The infighting left coming together as one?
I'll believe it when I see it.

Diluted Dante

I'm a working class Corbynite, so I've solved 2 thirds of the problem.

mistercrayon

There were little bits and bobs in the manifesto - the teaching kids the real history etc about slavery.

It must be a tricky to digest take if you can barely feed your family and then get told they should be thankful that all their wealth came from evil ancestors using slaves.

Armitage_Shankburn

JonB wrote:

Maybe the final take away from all this is that the centre and left spent four years fucking each other over while a catastrophic right got away with doing whatever it wanted.

Corbyn and co wanted to go big or go home. The Blairites and their ilk refused to even talk it over. They campaigned against him before he'd begun. He moved further away. By the time there was any attempt to find common ground, it was too late.

I'll say it again, as someone on the left, Labour needs a plan along the lines of that manifesto. It needs a proper vision of the future and big policies. And the longer it's out of power, the bigger the policies will need to be. But yeah, we fucked it. It's been a complete mess of a few years and it's impossible to completely blame the centrists.

I worry that nothing will be learned. That the left and centre will keep blaming each other, not realising that that's what allows the right to win. And I'm not a centrist or a liberal - I could never get on board with another Blair or anything similarly reformist and lacking in overall vision. Or anyone who's going to appeal to the Murdoch press etc. It's too late for that now.

But some kind of bridge needs to be made between where I am and where they are, somehow. And it needs a lot of taking responsibility.

For me, I never thought Corbyn himself was great as a leader, although I admire him as a person and a politician. But I did think that this was potentially the one chance in a generation to actually change things in a meaningful way for the better. I am pissed off that people who are supposed to want social improvement couldn't look past the faults, especially as the alternative became so much more blatantly worse. And I'm pissed off that those people were so willing to oust him at any cost, when the cost was so high. In return, it's hard not to slip into defensive mode and just start defending him at any cost, because the criticism always seems worse than the mistake. It's going to take two sides who aren't just trying to beat each other, but are trying to find a path forward to get over that.

Anyway, ramble ramble, This wasn't even the point I set out to make and I'm just saying stuff as it comes to mind now. Not really thought through, but I guess there's got to be some truth in it.

I thought it was a great post.

On the left, the main job is to argue for the retention of the policies,and put a more acceptable face on them. Like I said, we need realism and the whole "accept campus PC mentality at all costs" thing will hurt if we don't ditch it. What I fear most is that we lose the real popular and beneficial policies while retaining this cultural stuff which turns off the white working class, at least if there is a Berlusconi around telling them he understands them.

On twitter, in some op eds, the centrists are going for the left. John Mann is investigating the Canary. Others going for Novara etc. Johnson calling for Momentum to be disbanded.

It's gonna be hard but it would be best not to rise to the bait. Find a middle way. Resist, most of all, the temptation to blame them.

JonB

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

A little bit,, yes. See this here, an amazing report/take: https://mobile.twitter.com/LukePagarani/status/1205487970897342464

Yeah, I had seen that earlier. Interesting.

Diluted Dante

John Mann should be investigated to establish if he's a complete cunt or a total arse.

Tempy

I think there need to be discussions around class in the current day too, it's far more complex and is frequently flatened down in a way that helps no-one.

Annecdotally for me and my cousins - we're all the same age, all born to working class families.
Me - 32 , fucked it royally out of school, had no connections or anything to get anywhere, slummed it and eventually went to uni. Idealist and not very career motivated, fucked it by being too weak. Probably the kind of woke soft lefty that a stereotypical working class voter would hate. Voted Labour/

Em - 33 , fucked it royally out of school. Got herself together, went to uni in London, did incredibly well and worked her ass off despite cancer fears and almost no support network down in London. Far too smart to have wasted the same amount of time I did. Now works for recruitment in IBM, earns over 50k. Has a kid and a house. Was staunchly against Labour in 2017. This year went campaigning for Labour, voted Labour.

Lewis - 30. fucked it royally out of school. Continued fucking it for years. Worked as a bouncer. Now a builder. Probably earns around 40-50k a year. Voted Tory. Very much bought into the politics of fear/anti-immigrants etc

We're all white, and from the midlands, so a tiny sample size, but pretty diverse for "the working class". The roots are there, but they bloom differently these days.

JonB

I suppose what I'd have to say about the last few years with Corbyn is that it was kind of desperate, precisely because it felt like a one chance only kind of deal, where everything had to be squeezed in at once or not at all.

But I think it's laid foundations for a more gradual, longer term shift. It's going to require a 10+ year plan and patience. And the next Labour leaders should aim at getting support for the first steps. But housing, climate crisis, automation, public debt etc. aren't going away.

The centrists need to understand that the demand for major change wasn't some anomaly that came with the 'cult' of Corbyn that will die with him. It reflects the modern reality and increasingly urgent needs. The left needs to understand it's impossible to deal with it all at once and it needs a greater mass of support.

JonB

Tempy wrote:

I think there need to be discussions around class in the current day too, it's far more complex and is frequently flatened down in a way that helps no-one. Annecdotally for me and my cousins - we're all the same age, all born to working class families. Me - 32 , fucked it royally out of school, had no connections or anything to get anywhere, slummed it and eventually went to uni. Idealist and not very career motivated, fucked it by being too weak. Probably the kind of woke soft lefty that a stereotypical working class voter would hate. Voted Labour/ Em - 33 , fucked it royally out of school. Got herself together, went to uni in London, did incredibly well and worked her ass off despite cancer fears and almost no support network down in London. Far too smart to have wasted the same amount of time I did. Now works for recruitment in IBM, earns over 50k. Has a kid and a house. Was staunchly against Labour in 2017. This year went campaigning for Labour, voted Labour. Lewis - 30. fucked it royally out of school. Continued fucking it for years. Worked as a bouncer. Now a builder. Probably earns around 40-50k a year. Voted Tory. Very much bought into the politics of fear/anti-immigrants etc We're all white, and from the midlands, so a tiny sample size, but pretty diverse for "the working class". The roots are there, but they bloom differently these days.

As that Twitter thread Gonzo linked to points out, it's also about age. There's a big shift in attitudes in the over 45s or 50s, and it probably affects what class means if you're looking at that age group rather than the younger one.

Paul the sparky

JonB wrote:

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

A little bit,, yes. See this here, an amazing report/take: https://mobile.twitter.com/LukePagarani/status/1205487970897342464

Yeah, I had seen that earlier. Interesting.

Twitter is a terrible conduit for anything other than bullshit.

poprock

I saw somewhere (can’t find it just now to link, sorry) a set of electoral result maps filtered by voter age.

Filter to under 35s and the entire UK was Labour & SNP. All of it.

Filter to under 50s and Labour still won in a landslide.

But our population skews older than that.

mistercrayon

JonB wrote:

The centrists need to understand that the demand for major change wasn't some anomaly that came with the 'cult' of Corbyn that will die with him. It reflects the modern reality and increasingly urgent needs. The left needs to understand it's impossible to deal with it all at once and it needs a greater mass of support.

Another argument could be that knowing that today isn’t working can lead to scrabbling for any destruction of now towards some radically different utopia.

Brexit and headfirst socialism feel like they can come from the same source then. Some of us intuit that brexit isn’t the answer but that doesn’t mean that nostalgic Marxist ideas is also the answer. But both do sound good to the ears that will listen.

Tempy

JonB wrote:

Tempy wrote:

snip.

As that Twitter thread Gonzo linked to points out, it's also about age. There's a big shift in attitudes in the over 45s or 50s, and it probably affects what class means if you're looking at that age group rather than the younger one.

Yeah it’s a good thread that covers a lot of stuff I can’t claim to know about personally.

Diluted Dante

The centerists still can't understand how Corbyn got elected in 2015, let alone anything that has followed it.

But for people on the left like me, we could tell you that dissatisfaction with New Labour and neoliberal orthodoxy was exactly why he was elected, and we grabbed onto that because we also saw that he was let through by accident, and they would do whatever they could to stop anyone like him getting through again.

He managed to stay around long enough that we've been able to see changes to the structure of the party, and a lot of the old shit have left or lost seats now. Whether it was long enough I don't know though, and I don't really know much about any of the new intake to know where they lie.

Paul the sparky

poprock wrote:

I saw somewhere (can’t find it just now to link, sorry) a set of electoral result maps filtered by voter age.

Filter to under 35s and the entire UK was Labour & SNP. All of it.

Filter to under 50s and Labour still won in a landslide.

But our population skews older than that.

So we just need to wait for the gullible old fools to die out then. Cool.

JonB

mistercrayon wrote:

JonB wrote:

The centrists need to understand that the demand for major change wasn't some anomaly that came with the 'cult' of Corbyn that will die with him. It reflects the modern reality and increasingly urgent needs. The left needs to understand it's impossible to deal with it all at once and it needs a greater mass of support.

Another argument could be that knowing that today isn’t working can lead to scrabbling for any destruction of now towards some radically different utopia. Brexit and headfirst socialism feel like they can come from the same source then. Some of us intuit that brexit isn’t the answer but that doesn’t mean that nostalgic Marxist ideas is also the answer. But both do sound good to the ears that will listen.

Calling it nostalgic Marxism is problematic. I don't think much of Corbyn's message was steeped in that kind of rhetoric, and many of the people who supported him are too young to know or care much about it. More likely they feel the need for a more progressive, inclusive form of change and identified with that.

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