howard mcsweeney1 wrote:Was it the manifesto or just people turned off by the strong and stable PM who just expected everyone to vote Tory despite her refusal to debate on any issues? Even if was the manifesto it was not enough to defeat the Tories.
Imagine what it would be like if the Labour leadership hadn't have been undermined by its own elected representatives. Go back and look at your own comments in this Forum regarding the outcome of GE2017 and I seem to recall that you (although not quite in the style of Paddy Ashdown eating his own hat) conceded that Labour had pulled off a significant result.
The worst of the whole thing with those 172 Labour "no confidence" MPs is that they are disrespecting the membership and the leader that the membership has unequivocally elected and backed. They have shafted the very people that work for them to get elected and do a lot of the grassroots work, campaigning, volunteering, petitioning, case-work and more.
To my mind they should do the honourable thing and go, like Tristram Hunt. Failing that, give the constituency members the right to meaningfully challenge and deselect Labour MPs that do not represent their collective views. This is not a radical view, that was always on the table until Neil Kinnock withdrew it in the 1990s.
In short, any party united in one authoritative voice would appeal to the electorate couple that with the 2017 manifesto and you've got a formula for electoral success. Without presuming your age, Mr McSweeney1, a precedent was set for this in the 1945 GE when a united Labour Party with a radical manifesto swept to a landslide election victory from a comparatively meagre amount of MPs prior to it (1935=154 Lab; 1945=393).
