Britain - The Official Thread

[mustafur]

Blair's incredibly low, but winning, popular votes in 2001 and 2005 and vast parliamentary majority on both occasions - much larger than Boris's 'landslide' - are intensely inconvenient to that argument.

It confirms my argument, where was SNP then?
A tiny party not boosted from a Independence referendum.

Then you got the Lib Dems who where eating into the Tories big time, spliting the vote, which is looking like the opposite of what looked to happen this time.

Once Tories Committed to Brexit and Lib Dems committed to Remain, Labour was instantly in a losing position no matter what they did.

 

[Famine]

It confirms my argument

It really doesn't. If FPTP favours the Conservatives, there's no way Michael Howard should have won just 198 seats compared to Blair's 355 with 9% less of the popular vote. There's even less way that Theresa May couldn't command a majority in 2017 with 6% more of the public vote.

FPTP favours the party who can get the largest popular vote, whatever colour tie they wear. A swing of 1% can deliver marginal 20 seats one way or the other.

In 2019, the margin of victory of the winning party (Conservative) over the largest second place party (Labour) was 36%, and the seat advantage was 81%. In 2017 these numbers were 6% and 21%, again Conservative and Labour. In 2005 they were 9% and 79%, but the other way around. 2005 alone destroys the "FPTP favours the Conservatives" argument, and it was only five elections ago...

2019 - Votes +36%; Seats +81%
2017 - Votes +6%; Seats +21%
2015 - Votes +21%; Seats +42%
2010 - Votes +24%; Seats +18%
2005 - Votes +6%; Seats +79%
2001 - Votes +28%; Seats +149%
1997 - Votes +41%; Seats +153%
1992 - Votes +22%; Seats +24%
1987 - Votes +37%; Seats +64%
1983 - Votes +54%; Seats +90%
1979 - Votes +19%; Seats +26%
1974 - Votes +10%; Seats +15%
1974 - Votes -2%; Seats +1%
1970 - Votes +8%; Seats +15%
1966 - Votes +15%; Seats +44%

Across those 14 general elections (I got bored), the Conservatives delivered 50% more seats than Labour on three occasions, and it had to score 36%, 37% and 54% more votes than Labour to do so. Labour delivered almost 150% more seats in 2001 with less of a vote advantage, and more than 150% in 1997 with 41% more votes, while delivering 50% more with just six - SIX - percent more votes. Theresa May had the same winning margin in 2017 (and the third most votes of any winning leader) but only managed 21% more seats, which was quite notably not enough to secure a majority.

The two biggest disparities between vote advantage and seats won are 2005, when Labour won a dozen points in seats for every percentage more vote than the Conservatives, and February 1974 when Labour won more seats despite losing the vote.

Fun fact: in the 14 elections above, the Conservatives have never managed to secure more than a 3.5x advantage in seats over votes to Labour (and once had a smaller advantage in seats than votes [2010]), averaging 1.8x. Labour - excluding the February 1974 election, which it won despite losing - averages 5.3x times more advantage in seats over votes, only scoring under 3x twice.


In essence, the Conservatives need a 100% higher swing to gain a given seat than Labour does - if Labour needs 1 point, the Conservatives need 2. Johnson beat Corbyn by six times the margin in votes that Blair beat Howard, but only has the same advantage in seats.

FPTP doesn't favour the Conservatives.

where was SNP then?

Scotland, if I recall correctly.

And he was basically running as a Lib Dem from Labour.

No, there was nothing liberal about Blair. He was a centre-right - champagne socialist - authoritarian. Labour from 1997-2010 was about half as conservative as the Conservatives, and broadly the same on social issues.

 

[TenEightyOne]

2005 alone destroys the "FPTP favours the Conservatives" argument, and it was only five elections ago...

Following that point it's interesting that the Conservatives whipped for a vote to approve the 2010 boundary changes and a reduction of house seats from 650 to 600. They must have calculated that there was something in it for them.

No, there was nothing liberal about Blair. He was a centre-right - champagne socialist - authoritarian. Labour from 1997-2010 was about half as conservative as the Conservatives, and broadly the same on social issues.

This. In many ways he sat on the mid-left of the then Tory playground, the Lib Dems were yet to make it over the centre. And when they did it was vacillating and poorly supported in the party. I wonder whatever happened to Nick Clegg, probably drives a taxi in Sheffield.

 

[baldgye]

No, there was nothing liberal about Blair. He was a centre-right - champagne socialist - authoritarian. Labour from 1997-2010 was about half as conservative as the Conservatives, and broadly the same on social issues.

So much so after an election he'd pinch half the things on the Tory manifesto he'd roasted them about the week or two prior

 

[polysmut]

The Green Party received roughly two thirds as many votes as the SNP in the recent general election and the SNP won 48 times as many seats. I wonder if the Greens would have received many more votes if voters didn't see them as candidates that had no chance of winning.
Tactical voting was talked about a lot during the campaign which probably reduced the Green vote share as well. Many who might like the Greens could have voted Labour or Lib Dem to try to keep the Tories out.

 

[baldgye]

Corbyn is now seen as a failure and needs to be replaced in order to help rebrand the party, even if Corbynism isn't.

...yet he's STILL leader... Labour have learnt nothing and the Corbynists are as bad and delusional as the Brexiters

 

[polysmut]

...yet he's STILL leader... Labour have learnt nothing and the Corbynists are as bad and delusional as the Brexiters

Watching Labour MPs being interviewed over the last few days, all the talk has been about what direction to move in to win votes. They give the impression that campaigning for what you believe in is a foolish thing to do, and that it's wrong to advocate policies that won't win elections.

I'd prefer if the politicians each said how they would like to run things and why, and then us voters choose who to elect. Anything following that line is being portrayed as hapless mistake making and poor political strategy. It looks like career over country to me.

 

[MatskiMonk]

...yet he's STILL leader... Labour have learnt nothing and the Corbynists are as bad and delusional as the Brexiters

They currently have 5 years to worry about it, I think they can take a few weeks about finding a suitable replacement.

 

[baldgye]

Watching Labour MPs being interviewed over the last few days, all the talk has been about what direction to move in to win votes. They give the impression that campaigning for what you believe in is a foolish thing to do, and that it's wrong to advocate policies that won't win elections.

When what they should be taking away from the last two elections, is not to have a leader that is incapable of leading a party or winning a GE. Corbyn wasn't ever going to win a GE and the only hope Corbynists had was on the basis of how bad Boris is... and not only was that wrong... it was so wrong it lost them seats!

They currently have 5 years to worry about it, I think they can take a few weeks about finding a suitable replacement.

He should be gone, wash the ****** taste out of everyone's mouth and move. He's the worst Labour leader I think in my life time... even when they elected Wallace (from Wallace and Gromit) and he lost, he had the conviction and decency to stand down.

 

[MatskiMonk]

He should be gone, wash the ****** taste out of everyone's mouth and move. He's the worst Labour leader I think in my life time... even when they elected Wallace (from Wallace and Gromit) and he lost, he had the conviction and decency to stand down.

Maybe, but I don't think a knee-jerk reaction is a wise move, personally.

 

[baldgye]

Maybe, but I don't think a knee-jerk reaction is a wise move, personally.

I mean, it’s not a knee jerk, the blokes failed to win two elections... and has put the party in a worse position than I can ever remember... he needs to be gone so they can start the process without his ****** smell lingering

 

[Famine]

He should be gone, wash the ****** taste out of everyone's mouth and move. He's the worst Labour leader I think in my life time... even when they elected Wallace (from Wallace and Gromit) and he lost, he had the conviction and decency to stand down.

Maybe, but I don't think a knee-jerk reaction is a wise move, personally.

Corbyn delivered the fifth largest number of votes for a post-war Labour leader in a General Election,the second largest since 1966, and the largest for a Labour leader that won neither the popular vote nor a plurality of seats:

Attlee 1951 - 13.95m (L)*
Blair 1997 - 13.52m (W)
Attlee 1950 - 13.23m (W)
Wilson 1966 - 13.10m (W)
Corbyn 2017 - 12.88m (L)
Attlee 1955 - 12.41m (L)
Gaitskell 1959 - 12.22m (L)
Wilson 1970 - 12.21m (L)
Wilson 1964 - 12.21m (W)
Attlee 1945 - 11.97m (W)
Wilson 1974 - 11.65m (W)
Kinnock 1992 - 11.56m (L)
Callaghan 1979 - 11.53m (L)
Wilson 1974 - 11.46m (W)*
Blair 2001 - 10.72m (W)
Corbyn 2019 - 10.27m (L)
Kinnock 1987 - 10.03m (L)
Blair 2005 - 9.55m (W)
Miliband 2015 - 9.35m (L)
Brown 2010 - 8.61m (L)
Foot 1983 - 8.46m (L)

*Indicates that the party with the highest popular vote did not win the largest number of seats

Averaged out across their elections, the leaders rank as follows:
1. Attlee - 12.89m
2. Wilson - 12.55m
3. Gaitskell - 12.22m*
4. Callaghan - 11.53m*
5. Corbyn - 11.58m
6. Blair - 11.26m
7. Kinnock - 10.80m
8. Miliband - 9.35m*
9. Brown - 8.61m*
10. Foot - 8.46m*

*Indicates only a single election contested

Unless you were born in 1979 or earlier, Corbyn is actually the most popular Labour leader in your lifetime (I'm 1977, so aside from Callaghan's one-and-done, he is in mine).

I'd also argue he's the best, because he is actually Labour leader - he is left-of-centre and slightly liberal, which is contradictory but core Labour (it's no less contradictory than the majority of other parties; Labour mixes fiscal control with social freedom, Conservative mixes fiscal freedom with social control. Regional nationalist parties are usually control on both axes, and the Lib Dems wander around the centre like an asteroid captured in an eccentric orbit).

Miliband wasn't actually that far off, but Brown and Blair were very crony capitalists of the worst kind, in red ties. Kinnock's makes it across the centre too, and so did Foot - but fighting an election based on disarmament shortly after the UK had defended the Falklands was insane.

 

[Touring Mars]

I mean, it’s not a knee jerk, the blokes failed to win two elections... and has put the party in a worse position than I can ever remember... he needs to be gone so they can start the process without his ****** smell lingering

The fact that Corbyn is still in charge of Labour points to a far deeper problem within the party than his mere presence.

The trouble is that in order to win those all important ‘centre-ground’ votes, you really need to have a pretty mixed up/incoherent set of policies and principles and hope that voters don’t notice or, more likely, don’t care. It is clearly working for Johnson.

Ironically, Corbyn has rigidly stuck to a traditional left-wing basket of policies and has lost the centre ground in the process.

What Labour really needs to win a future GE is to move back towards a Blair-ite mixture of some moderately left-wing ideas and policies that are indistinguishable from the Conservatives.

Doubly ironically though, in the one area that Corbyn did attempt to hedge his bets - Brexit - was the one area that he really needed a clear cut policy and he failed to do that. (And, of course, Johnson (again) did the exact opposite and had a clear policy on Brexit...) But, in an even more ironic twist, Johnson and his predecessor May both proved that they could repeat something a hundred times only for the exact opposite to actually occur; Johnson probably knew that voters want to hear certainties while also knowing full well that he can’t deliver them, while Corbyn tried to do the exact opposite but needn’t have bothered.

But good luck finding a replacement for him, because that person will have one hell of a job.

 

[baldgye]

Unless you were born in 1979 or earlier, Corbyn is actually the most popular Labour leader in your lifetime (I'm 1977, so aside from Callaghan's one-and-done, he is in mine).

Must have read it wrong then, I got it completely backward! Probably reading too much into things like this?
Isn't it kinda hard to look at hard number of votes though? Wouldn't % of votes each candidate received from the electorate be more meaningful? Not to say they'd give a wildly different result

I'd also argue he's the best, because he is actually Labour leader - he is left-of-centre and slightly liberal, which is contradictory but core Labour (it's no less contradictory than the majority of other parties; Labour mixes fiscal control with social freedom, Conservative mixes fiscal freedom with social control. Regional nationalist parties are usually control on both axes, and the Lib Dems wander around the centre like an asteroid captured in an eccentric orbit).

Yet he split his own party, a die-hard party core loved him and his own MP's wanted shot of him, mulitpul times.
IMO he was utterly inept.
My one go-to example was when Cameron's dad was found to have been fiddling his books through shell companies and off-shore islands, not illegal, but not a good look for the PM... And what came out of that? That Labour was harbouring anti-Semites... a claim they've been unable to deal with in the years since...

But good luck finding a replacement for him, because that person will have one hell of a job.

I'm holding out hope for Wallace's brother

 

[MatskiMonk]

My one go-to example was when Cameron's dad was found to have been fiddling his books through shell companies and off-shore islands, not illegal, but not a good look for the PM... And what came out of that? That Labour was harbouring anti-Semites... a claim they've been unable to deal with in the years since...

Surely this comes down to the issue you've previously highlighted, that the media control what people are fed, and if they don't want to persecute the Tories, then it's not going to happen (as much).

I've heard the phrase "anti-semite" so many times in association with Labour and Corbyn, it forms cognitive ease... I now need to hear that the problems been dealt with enough times, to disassociate the two things*... and that needs the media.

*Disclosure: I've had no interest in voting for Labour since I voted for Blair in 2001**, I literally don't follow the news surrounding them at all, and actually have no clue what the anti-semitism issue actually is... I'm okay with that, because it hasn't influenced my voting decisions, but the point is, the connection is made, there's a bad thing going on, and they're not doing anything about it.

** Sorry 'bout the voting for Blair thing. I wanted change from Tory rule... if it's any consolation, my vote didn't count since I live in a Tory safe seat.

 

[baldgye]

Surely this comes down to the issue you've previously highlighted, that the media control what people are fed, and if they don't want to persecute the Tories, then it's not going to happen (as much).

It's also about forming a narrative. While there is plenty of open right wing extremist support from the owners of some Newspapers, it's not all that way and if we've gone down this **** show of now electing demagogues, you have to play that game or you'll simply loose. Labour failed to ever get on top of any narrative about their own party and manifesto.

I've heard the phrase "anti-semite" so many times in association with Labour and Corbyn, it forms cognitive ease... I now need to hear that the problems been dealt with enough times, to disassociate the two things*... and that needs the media.

Yet in April of this year the Jewish Labour Movement moved to make a vote of no-confidence in him. I'm no expert in anything to do with this issue and problem (I myself am affiliated with no party)... but how the **** do you not get on top of this issue the second its brought up?

** Sorry 'bout the voting for Blair thing. I wanted change from Tory rule... if it's any consolation, my vote didn't count since I live in a Tory safe seat.

You don't have to defend the way you've voted... unless you voted for Brexit

 

[Famine]

Must have read it wrong then, I got it completely backward! Probably reading too much into things like this?
Isn't it kinda hard to look at hard number of votes though? Wouldn't % of votes each candidate received from the electorate be more meaningful? Not to say they'd give a wildly different result

Corbyn comes up pretty well on the vote share stakes too:

1. Blair 1997 - 43.2% (W)
2. Blair 2001 - 40.7% (W)
3. Corbyn 2017 - 40.0% (L)
4. Wilson 1974 - 39.2% (W)
5. Wilson 1974 - 37.2% (W)
6. Callaghan 1979 - 36.9% (L)
7. Blair 2005 - 35.2% (W)
8. Kinnock 1992 - 34.4% (L)
9. Corbyn 2019 - 32.1% (L)
10. Kinnock 1989 - 30.8% (L)
11. Miliband 2015 - 30.4% (L)
12. Brown 2010 - 29.0% (L)
13. Foot 1983 - 27.6% (L)

All pre-74 elections lacked a viable third party (best result was 8% for Liberals in 1966), so I stopped there - Wilson's defeat in 1970 came with 43.1% of the vote...

Corbyn's 2017 result was the best that lost by a long way - he beat Blair in 2005 by five points. The 2019 defeat isn't great, but still better than Miliband or Brown...

Yet he split his own party, a die-hard party core loved him and his own MP's wanted shot of him, mulitpul times.
IMO he was utterly inept.

That's pretty much a party issue. The fact is that Corbyn, when he can actually decide on something, is pretty much what Labour should represent - left-of-centre, slightly liberal. His trade union support is an indicator of that.

Blair attracted a lot of ordinary members to the party by simple virtue of appearing to be not as Tory as the Tories and not as boring as Major or standoffish as Thatcher. He wanted to be a rock musician, how cool is that?! But he moved the party right and up, so that people used to voting right and up could vote red without voting left and down. Corbyn's moved it back where it should be... but still gets 10-12m votes (numbers Brown, Miliband, and Kinnock would have killed for; Blair wanted to lose his sole sub-10m election), and 40% share in 2017 was impressive in the four-party (Con, Lab, SNP, Lib) era.

I suspect that his biggest issue is really that he's a Eurosceptic so can't promise to rip up A50, but also can't be seen to campaign for Brexit because that's what the Tories want. That and the lingering odour of anti-British military sympathies - his friendships with Hamas and IRA operatives in particular.

 

[baldgye]

Corbyn comes up pretty well on the vote share stakes too

Fair enough!

...still better than Miliband or Brown...

He could have that on his headstone!

 

[PeterJB]

Corbyn delivered the fifth largest number of votes for a post-war Labour leader in a General Election,the second largest since 1966, and the largest for a Labour leader that won neither the popular vote nor a plurality of seats:

Attlee 1951 - 13.95m (L)*
Blair 1997 - 13.52m (W)
Attlee 1950 - 13.23m (W)
Wilson 1966 - 13.10m (W)
Corbyn 2017 - 12.88m (L)
Attlee 1955 - 12.41m (L)
Gaitskell 1959 - 12.22m (L)
Wilson 1970 - 12.21m (L)
Wilson 1964 - 12.21m (W)
Attlee 1945 - 11.97m (W)
Wilson 1974 - 11.65m (W)
Kinnock 1992 - 11.56m (L)
Callaghan 1979 - 11.53m (L)
Wilson 1974 - 11.46m (W)*
Blair 2001 - 10.72m (W)
Corbyn 2019 - 10.27m (L)
Kinnock 1987 - 10.03m (L)
Blair 2005 - 9.55m (W)
Miliband 2015 - 9.35m (L)
Brown 2010 - 8.61m (L)
Foot 1983 - 8.46m (L)

*Indicates that the party with the highest popular vote did not win the largest number of seats

Averaged out across their elections, the leaders rank as follows:
1. Attlee - 12.89m
2. Wilson - 12.55m
3. Gaitskell - 12.22m*
4. Callaghan - 11.53m*
5. Corbyn - 11.58m
6. Blair - 11.26m
7. Kinnock - 10.80m
8. Miliband - 9.35m*
9. Brown - 8.61m*
10. Foot - 8.46m*

*Indicates only a single election contested

Unless you were born in 1979 or earlier, Corbyn is actually the most popular Labour leader in your lifetime (I'm 1977, so aside from Callaghan's one-and-done, he is in mine).

I'd also argue he's the best, because he is actually Labour leader - he is left-of-centre and slightly liberal, which is contradictory but core Labour (it's no less contradictory than the majority of other parties; Labour mixes fiscal control with social freedom, Conservative mixes fiscal freedom with social control. Regional nationalist parties are usually control on both axes, and the Lib Dems wander around the centre like an asteroid captured in an eccentric orbit).

Miliband wasn't actually that far off, but Brown and Blair were very crony capitalists of the worst kind, in red ties. Kinnock's makes it across the centre too, and so did Foot - but fighting an election based on disarmament shortly after the UK had defended the Falklands was insane.

EDIT: Nevermind, you got there first!

 

[Famine]

Alternatively - and this is the one you're going to need a stiff drink for - he'll ride the no deal train, team up with Farage heading into a GE in September, deliver an absolute slaughter of Labour still vacillating on deal or no deal or new deal or referendum (to the point that they will cease existing as a political party) smash through 50% of votes cast, Hard Brexit, welcome BXP/UKIP back into the Conservative fold, be lauded as the saviour of the Tories from the low ebb of May, quit after three years with a peerage/knighthood and pass the reins on to Farage.

Trending on Twitter this morning: "Sir Nigel".

Not bad as predictions go - a few not quite on the mark (December, election pact, slaughter but still existing, 43.6%, legislation on Brexit, some talk of honours), but reasonable. If awful.

 

[baldgye]

Trending on Twitter this morning: "Sir Nigel".

Not bad as predictions go - a few not quite on the mark (December, election pact, slaughter but still existing, 43.6%, legislation on Brexit, some talk of honours), but reasonable. If awful.

You forgot racist

 

[Famine]

You forgot racist

That's pretty standard across the board now though.

 

[baldgye]

That's pretty standard across the board now though.

Maybe, but I feel it still needs stating

 

[ryzno]

Anyone here know about this and have any updated information about it?

https://www.wsbradio.com/business/t...er-prison-labor-claim/CTvlkfByKTvVbGDsfM61oN/

 

[UKMikey]

Anyone here know about this and have any updated information about it?

https://www.wsbradio.com/business/t...er-prison-labor-claim/CTvlkfByKTvVbGDsfM61oN/

Sounds legit to me (no sarcasm).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50883161

I hope Tesco aren't telling lies about not knowing some of their workers wore striped/arrowed uniforms. Santa is watching at this time of year.

 

[PzR Slim]

Anyone here know about this and have any updated information about it?

https://www.wsbradio.com/business/t...er-prison-labor-claim/CTvlkfByKTvVbGDsfM61oN/

It also happened with Sainsbury's (another supermarket chain) Christmas Cards a few years ago. Tesco are of course horrified to discover this....

 

[MatskiMonk]

I don't think it's that sinister personally, as far as I'm aware Tesco, like most big retail companies have guidelines and standards that have to be met in terms of ethical supply, and these can be pretty detailed. I've been through the audit process on behalf of Walmart before and it is in principle fairly rigorous, however - like most audits - things can be hidden, or missed. In my experience the audit is done by a third party, even if the guidance is given by the retail company. So, I'd imagine that, if anything, the (Chinese?) company that's audited the supplier has done a bad job, and Tesco have probably acted in good faith based on duff information.

Just my two cents, I could well be wrong.

 

[UKMikey]

https://newsthump.com/2019/12/23/mo...-to-blairite-ideas-such-as-winning-elections/

 

[Touring Mars]

As members in the UK will no doubt have seen, three members of the same family were tragically killed at a Spanish holiday resort after they all drowned in the same swimming pool. Initial reports have been confusing and contradictory, but the owners of the resort have insisted that there was nothing wrong with the pool and the media have seized upon the hypothesis that the three family members couldn't swim and drowned attempting to save the little girl who fell into the pool accidentally. But frankly, this story beggars belief... there's no way that two men (aged 16 and 52) could not escape from a pool like that... or at the very least, the chances of both men not being physically capable of reaching the side of the pool are virtually zero.

I strongly suspect that the little girl was swimming and got trapped underwater by the suction of a drain, and that the others also got trapped while trying to free her. But yet, the Spanish authorities, hotel owners and sections of the media seem to have already concluded that it was essentially just bad luck and due to the family's inability to swim...

In the meantime, it seems a tad premature to have already re-opened the pool...

 

[TenEightyOne]

But frankly, this story beggars belief...

Agreed, I hope there's further investigation. Unfortunately it sounds like the Spanish police have reached their conclusions in a "diligent" (their words) manner.