Why has the Labour Party struggled so much in recent UK elections?

[BigT]

But does it really matter? That’s a genuine question, do pupils really notice the difference? Why would a failing school under a local authority suddenly be better off as an academy and vice versa?
Would a Labour policy of abolishing them like they voted for with independent schools out of spite really be a vote winner and really touch a nerve with the voting public? I’m not so sure joe public would really understand or care.

 

[AstroDan]

But does it really matter? That’s a genuine question, do pupils really notice the difference? Why would a failing school under a local authority suddenly be better off as an academy and vice versa?
Would a Labour policy of abolishing them like they voted for with independent schools out of spite really be a vote winner and really touch a nerve with the voting public? I’m not so sure joe public would really understand or care.

The only reason that there should be significant upheaval of the school system is if there is clear and unequivocal evidence that children's outcomes will be better as a result of a school being an academy vs. a maintained school.

That evidence does not exist.

In any case, education is not of major concern with the voting public at the moment. Other issues have consumed the electorate.

 

[Benzin]

I am inclined to agree. But, ive heard the sheer dislike for Kier Starmer brought up quite alot recently.

I've also heard alot of people expressing sheer dislike for both the Tories and Labour right now. With people voting Tory out of not wanting to change the status quo, as the other side is just as, if not worse in their eyes. So people have just wanted to keep with what they know, as they do not see the other side any better. I've heard that one broight up a hell of alot.

I am English first then i'm a Labour man through and through, but Labour will not get my vote while the brillcream king is head of the pack. First and foremost I have to vote as an English man and what i think is best for the country.

I cannot vote for someone with zero integrity and who's past actions have proven he does not have this country or it's citizens best interests at the forefront of what he does.

My personal concern about the general voting population who have voted to keep the "status quo" are therefore arguably happy for a number of children in this country to be in poverty and a large number being forced to used food banks.

Add on to the other social inequalities that are particularly rife at the current time.


The planning to make mayoral elections FPTP just proves that the current Tory motive is to have complete power. They know they can't win in the current format as Left wing can vote Labour as number one or two which means their votes don't get lost. Think Khan wasn't that far ahead of Bailey in London for example when only considering first choice votes.

 

[Rick]

Labour has to balance a very complex coalition in both the PLP and also in the electorates in the seats that it wants to target, although the knives are out for Starmer, he does have a very big job that I think some of his critics are perhaps under estimating.

Most political parties are coalitions under a single brand when you dig below the surface which is massively driven by the electoral system. That's been true in this country for a long time, the difference between the UK and a number of EU countries is that our parties build internal coalitions as they go along, rather than build external coalitions after a vote.

I think where I might criticise Starmer is that he has perhaps been too focussed on trying to satisfy the membership, rather than build a compelling proposition for the masses. Members are not representative of the electorate, not least in the Labour party. That said, I understand why you might want to try and bring those people along for the ride, they are fairly large in number and could be/are a powerful enemy.

The Corbyn period does make the future harder for two reasons: 1) the Labour brand in the heartlands is toast, it took a lot to convince those communities to vote Tory and it will arguably be more difficult to win them them back than it might have been to keep them in the first place. 2) The membership explosion during the Corbyn era means that the internal coalition is even more difficult and the party conversations are more likely to be pushed towards subjects that are frankly bread and butter for one half of the party and not at all interesting to swathes of voters in their target seaters.

Head into a Labour club for a pint in the north of England and try and find someone who wants to have a conversation about Israel, cultural appropriation or pronouns.

 

[jon81uk]

In an interesting turn of events, the Conservatives are now trying to get the mayoral elections changed to the FPTP voting system as opposed to the current preference-based system: https://www.theguardian.com/politic...-voting-system-after-labour-mayoral-victories

and this the the tories trying to change the one area that Labour still does well i,

One of Labours biggest issues is graduate jobs. Many younger people leave home to go to Uni, then stay in or move again to a city as that is where the graduate jobs often are. That is one of the reasons why Labour does well in bigger cities, there are more younger people. So how can the Tories solve the issue, change the voting system!

 

[DistortAMG]

My personal concern about the general voting population who have voted to keep the "status quo" are therefore arguably happy for a number of children in this country to be in poverty and a large number being forced to used food banks.

Add on to the other social inequalities that are particularly rife at the current time.


The planning to make mayoral elections FPTP just proves that the current Tory motive is to have complete power. They know they can't win in the current format as Left wing can vote Labour as number one or two which means their votes don't get lost. Think Khan wasn't that far ahead of Bailey in London for example when only considering first choice votes.

Oh I agree totally, Tories have pillaged and plundered this country in the last 10 years. People moan about austerity yet still vote for the Tories, you could not make it up.

But it is unwise to just vote Labour because they are Labour. Other things need to be in place else they risk doing more damage, I think this has been partially behind some Labour voters who have voted Torie. It certainly has been with me, because over my dead body would I have voted to help someone like Diane Abbott anywhere near the reins of the country. She would have done far more damage in my opinion than the opposition at the time. This is where the saying of voting first and foremost for the good of the country comes into play. As I am Labour but she was no means fit for government. When casting a vote I have to consider the party who's values resonate with me most (Labour) are fit the run the country. The answer for a good few years now has been no. Neither of them are to be fair, but Labour much less so.

I think one thing Labour has lacked is a strong leadership, both Corbyn or Starmer have certainly not been it. Corbyn slightly more, but both overall weak. This lack of strong leadership, which everything else trickles down into, is partially reflected in the abysmal results over the past few years. Having people like Diane Abbott certainly did not help Labours cause, at this point she has an almost universal reputation for being as competent and capable at helping run the country as a loaf of bread. But again, this all trickles down from poor decisions and poor leadership.

I just cant see Labour doing really well again until a truely strong leader is in place and Kier is not that. Not even close.

 

[rob666]

People moan about austerity and yet still vote Tory because they are not affected by austerity measures anything like the poor.
Likewise people are happy to keep lower taxation despite knowing families are in poverty and using foodbanks, because they are not in poverty or using foodbanks... because two whole generations have been taught that in practice, greed is good.
Labour reinforced that fact after Thatcher and Major, by not increasing taxation to decrease the income gap.

 

[tayspru]

The vast majority of the voters in this country just aren’t educated enough to even know what they’re voting for, especially when it comes to the correlation between older voters and the Conservative party . They don’t often have the resources or inclination to make one search and see they’re being lied to .

The electorate is summed up by a man in Hartlepool:

“I voted Conservative because there weren’t any food banks with Labour but the Conservative council have given us 8”

 

[DistortAMG]

The vast majority of the voters in this country just aren’t educated enough to even know what they’re voting for, especially when it comes to the correlation between older voters and the Conservative party . They don’t often have the resources or inclination to make one search and see they’re being lied to .

The electorate is summed up by a man in Hartlepool:

“I voted Conservative because there weren’t any food banks with Labour but the Conservative council have given us 8”

I agree there are some idiots in this country. Many infact.

But to say "the vast majority" is a little over stated I would say.

We are world leaders in the S.T.E.A.M fields, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) which is only possible from entire industries of which they reside in. Industry's full of very intelligent and very educated people, who more than likely cast their vote.

I get there are for sure some idiots in this country. But this country is also full of some of the most intelligent minds in the world, propping up some world leading companys in the mentioned fields above, which in turn prop up huge industries in this country.

Basically, I would argue that a very good percentage of voters in this country make well informed and educated decisions.

 

[rob666]

Does this mean that thick people shouldn't be allowed to vote???
Geniocracy...only the clever people get to vote or act in government...perhaps it is the duty of the state to educate and inform the public generally so they can vote in an intelligent, reasoned manner.
Perhaps politics should be a compulsory topic in schools under general studies, together with cash management and parenting skills.

 

[DistortAMG]

Does this mean that thick people shouldn't be allowed to vote???
Geniocracy...only the clever people get to vote or act in government...perhaps it is the duty of the state to educate and inform the public generally so they can vote in an intelligent, reasoned manner.
Perhaps politics should be a compulsory topic in schools under general studies, together with cash management and parenting skills.

I would say no, but it does raise a very good question doesnt it. The moment you stop letting people vote is a foot out the door for democracy.

 

[tayspru]

Does this mean that thick people shouldn't be allowed to vote???
Geniocracy...only the clever people get to vote or act in government...perhaps it is the duty of the state to educate and inform the public generally so they can vote in an intelligent, reasoned manner.
Perhaps politics should be a compulsory topic in schools under general studies, together with cash management and parenting skills.

Conservatives kind of rely on people being less educated though, it makes the population more compliant . There’s a reason that education is consistently the target of massive cuts , especially those subjects in the arts that encourage individuality - they’re facing 50% funding cuts right now

 

[BigT]

Conservatives kind of rely on people being less educated though, it makes the population more compliant . There’s a reason that education is consistently the target of massive cuts , especially those subjects in the arts that encourage individuality - they’re facing 50% funding cuts right now

What utter drivel, educated people are vastly more likely to vote Tory than Labour.
Uneducated people are by and large the poorest people in society so will always vote Labour, these are the votes that the Labour party take for granted.

 

[tayspru]

Conservatives kind of rely on people being less educated though, it makes the population more compliant . There’s a reason that education is consistently the target of massive cuts , especially those subjects in the arts that encourage individuality - they’re facing 50% funding cuts right now

What utter drivel, educated people are vastly more likely to vote Tory than Labour.
Uneducated people are by and large the poorest people in society so will always vote Labour, these are the votes that the Labour party take for granted.

Except that the youngest generations of voters are the ones who can most easily access fact checking - the ones who overwhelmingly don’t vote conservative because they’ve objectively lied about their actions . The numbers in the last general election show that without the votes of over 70s the Conservative party would have lost by a large margin.

I suppose the other option here is that the older but educated are actively and knowingly voting for liars which isn’t exactly a glowing reflection of this country either

 

[Matt N]

From my experience, young people generally seem very anti-Conservative, on the whole.

 

[Rick]

What utter drivel, educated people are vastly more likely to vote Tory than Labour.
Uneducated people are by and large the poorest people in society so will always vote Labour, these are the votes that the Labour party take for granted.

The data from 2019 is very interesting on this ...

 

[tayspru]

The data from 2019 is very interesting on this ...

So it’s completely independent of class and everything to do with standard of education - who’d have thought ?

 

[shakey]

I did the count on Friday in Chesterfield and they had a police crime commissioner election for Derbyshire.

It was a 2 vote system where you had 2 columns for your 1st and 2nd choices.

The number of plonkers that put 2 votes in the 1st column and none in the second (therefore voiding their vote) was astounding.

It was also a pain to count.

Crazy system really. If one candidate doesn't get over 50% of the 1st choice then it goes to the 2nd choice, which is exactly what happened.

So you are then left in a situation which either confirms the win for the candidate that got the most votes in the 1st place. (a bit pointless). Or you overturn the 1st choice and the candidate that didn't get the most vote then wins. (which is ludicrous).

Not sure who won in the end to be honest, as I was losing the will to live by that point.



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[Thameslink Rail]

I did the count on Friday in Chesterfield and they had a police crime commissioner election for Derbyshire.

It was a 2 vote system where you had 2 columns for your 1st and 2nd choices.

The number of plonkers that put 2 votes in the 1st column and none in the second (therefore voiding their vote) was astounding.

It was also a pain to count.

Crazy system really. If one candidate doesn't get over 50% of the 1st choice then it goes to the 2nd choice, which is exactly what happened.

So you are then left in a situation which either confirms the win for the candidate that got the most votes in the 1st place. (a bit pointless). Or you overturn the 1st choice and the candidate that didn't get the most vote then wins. (which is ludicrous).

Not sure who won in the end to be honest, as I was losing the will to live by that point.



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Angelique Foster, Conservative

 

[shakey]

Angelique Foster, Conservative

She was winning after the 1st vote.


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