Mailwatch(ed) Forum

I don't think he was.
In our constituency the Corbynites are largely 50+ failures, many much older, or 30-40 year old TUSCers.

Why do you regard them as failures, exactly?

Labour voters are largely younger, by demographic. The point I'm making is that Labour can appeal to young people, the disenfranchised, the ones who are utterly uninvested in the status quo.

Right now it appeals to nobody, has no message, has no vision. Starmer is unpopular, even amongst Labour voters. Say what you will about Corbyn, everyone on the street could name half a dozen policies, they could describe the general mood of his leadership and vision ("for the many not the few", etc). Starmer has tried to stay as painfully neutral as it is possible to be. No vision, no ideas, no big picture or fine detail. Nada. Zilch.

It was being able to name Corbyn's policies and the mood of his leadership that was the problem.

kettle wrote: ↑Sat May 22, 2021 11:53 pm Why do you regard them as failures, exactly?

Years of experience watching them fail.

kettle wrote: ↑Sat May 22, 2021 11:53 pm Say what you will about Corbyn, everyone on the street could name half a dozen policies,

Utter bollocks.

But this level of self-important delusion is common amongst the Jezsters.

There's nothing self important about it. The policies were popular. That was (and remains) a fact.

Of course.

That's why Labour won by a landslide.

Do you people ever pull your heads out of your arses?

Thread of Hartlepool voters' opinions on a few key policies. Note rather high support for nurse raises, nationalisation and state-funded broadband.

Rather than being toxic to everyone you talk to on this forum, why don't you read a little and come back later with a more informed view?

Why don't you accept that however many times you come back you aren't going to convert us all to disciples of the Allotment Messiah?

Thread of Hartlepool voters' opinions on a few key policies. Note rather high support for nurse raises, nationalisation and state-funded broadband.

Rather than being toxic to everyone you talk to on this forum, why don't you read a little and come back later with a more informed view?

There were discussions on this forum even before Brexit about how UKIP could clear up in Labour heartlands if they abandoned free markets economics. And it wasn’t an original or profound observation then.

Its only because of Corbyn’s uselessness that the Tories could gamble on becoming a Peronist party without losing their suburban heartlands.

kettle wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 3:17 am
Thread of Hartlepool voters' opinions on a few key policies. Note rather high support for nurse raises, nationalisation and state-funded broadband.

Rather than being toxic to everyone you talk to on this forum, why don't you read a little and come back later with a more informed view?

Populism in sounds popular shock.

You can do state funded broadband tmrw with a voucher. That would have been the logical response to the very good points Labour made about broadband being a necessity not a luxury.

What Labour offered was free broadband via state monopoly in 5 years time. The arithmetic in the policy was massively out and Corbyn has more faith than me in state monopoly delivering it on time and budget. The way to do it was, like South Korea who Labour invoked, to have the state directing and the market providing.

The nurses' rise was a missed political opportunity- as I say, I'd go for what Wales did, a £750 bonus for NHS and social care. I think what Starmer was doing was trying to avoid committing money to avoid "Labour's tax bombshell", but Spaffer is a different sort of opponent.

But the big problem overall, and something a much derided "focus group", would have spotted is that the big commitments added up to a feeling of "You lot can't afford this!" Who was sitting around thinking "I might vote Labour, ah I will now that 5th major nationalization has come in?" I'd guess nobody.

Also, popular as some of his policies were, as soon as you prefixed them with "Jeremy Corbyn thinks that..." their popularity plummeted.

Also, holding the cities and the young urban professionals votes is all well and good, but 600,000 votes in Liverpool still translates into a handful of seats. Where's the appeal for the uncool kids stuck back in the sticks?

Andy McDandy wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 12:50 pm Also, popular as some of his policies were, as soon as you prefixed them with "Jeremy Corbyn thinks that..." their popularity plummeted.

I vaguely recall that being put to the test in a vox-pop by Gyles Brandreth (I think) on The One Show, in some genteel part of the South East. People liked the ideas... until you said it was a Corbyn idea whereupon the results were as described. Sad but true.

Guildford, if I recall.

Nothing new there though. When Ed Miliband suggested compulsory purchase of empty houses in London, it was a Robert Mugabe style land grab. When Johnson suggested the same thing, it was a sensible way to tackle the housing problem.

Corbyn has more faith than me in state monopoly delivering it on time and budget.

The private sector doesn’t have good record either due to having to write fairy tales to clinch contracts and then shaking the government down for more time and money half way through the project.

On complicated big projects, yeah. This is sticking in phone lines, and it ought to be possible to contract this properly and to spot underbidding clowns.

There's also an issue of taking policy questions as standalone items -
"Do you want free broadband?" - yes please.
"Do you want free broadband for other people whilst you pay for yours?" - fuck off!
"Do you want a tax increase to pay for broadband?" - "You kidding?"

And to think we'd have had the infrastructure for fibre broadband to the premises back in the 90s if it hadn't been for that damned woman and her dogma.

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/world ... 90-1224784

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 4:21 pm There's also an issue of taking policy questions as standalone items -
"Do you want free broadband?" - yes please.
"Do you want free broadband for other people whilst you pay for yours?" - fuck off!
"Do you want a tax increase to pay for broadband?" - "You kidding?"

Absolutely.

See also "more housing, great... we didn't mean there".

There was suggestion this by election will be in late July. So plenty of time to speculate.