howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#1
Reginald Barrington
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 17 Dec 2014
- Posts: 3,261
#2
No Id. no vote. Good to see a Tory policy doing what it is supposed to do!
Captain Haddock likes this
Arte et Marte
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
#3
So the results confirm that the two main parties are neck and neck. Labour improved by +77 councillors from an already strong base. LibDems by +75 albeit from a political nadir. The Tories lost a small amount (for a perceived mid-term) -33. Greens +8 and the others 4+ though unmeasurable in party political terms. UKIP nose-dived as many commentators predicted losing -123; leaving them with just 3 and therefore scientifically classified as extinct.
Plenty of political arguments still not convincing the swing voters, it would appear.
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#4
Not much made of the Lib Dem gains but I think it may be significant. Many voters think Labour has lurched to the left and the Tories to the right and are looking for a centre party to support. The Tories done well in the places people to leave and many previous UKIP voters went back to them.
Guest 2547- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
#5
The Lib Dems are the one UK party with a definitive unambiguous policy on Brexit.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#6
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
#7
Forgive me if I disregard anything Alistair Campbell says, he is the New Labour spin doctor that is, for some unknown reason, allowed more air time than his quality merits. Piers Morgan is cut from the same cloth.
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#8
And he was largely responsible for keeping out the Tories unlike the party of today that would prefer to be ideologically sound and in opposition.
No party can do anything if they are not in power because they don't listen the voters and prefer to be holier than thou.
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howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#9
Matthew Parris writing in the Times.
On Thursday an irresistible force gathered momentum on its trajectory towards an immovable object. First the irresistible force. Yesterday we learnt that results in England’s local elections flattered the Tories in many of the places where the Leave vote had been strongest. Theresa May and her MPs will not want to disappoint those voters who liked her party best and rescued Tories from the local government disaster they had feared. She will want to keep faith with her new friends among the electorate.
Hardline Brexiteers among her cabinet colleagues therefore gain another argument against compromise on the customs deal now threatening to blow up in the government’s face. The party (hardline Brexiteers will say) would be letting down its rescuers: former Ukip supporters in places like Derby, Basildon and Nuneaton. This must nudge our government away from a softer and more “frictionless” line in its pursuit of a customs arrangement with our former European partners. The irresistible force gained impetus on Thursday. Now to the immovable object. On the same day, EU negotiators made clear that Brussels would back the Republic of Ireland’s veto on any proposed trade deal that brings friction to the border with Northern Ireland. Even Mrs May’s compromise proposal (the fussy “customs partnership” rejected this week by the cabinet’s Brexit sub-committee) brings friction. So the veto looks as immovable an object as ever.
The collision could occur quite soon. It will be between the Brexit that Leave’s most enthusiastic supporters want, and the Brexit that Britain could reasonably get. The collision will make this weekend’s hoo-ha about local election results look like a trivial fidget in the face of an oncoming crash. Nevertheless these local government elections are the weekend’s political theatre, and we do need to talk about them. As a news event they will be quickly forgotten but they are significant straws in a prevailing breeze. The results show which parts of the geography (including the social and economic geography) of England offer the Tories the easiest pickings. These easy pickings are in the places that had previously been most attracted towards Ukip. The results are therefore bad news for Conservatives like me, anxious to resist any Tory drift to the right.
Social class, too, remains an important if submerged feature in British politics. However distasteful, it is necessary to examine election results from the perspective of class. From that perspective these results show Conservative support has been gently repositioning itself in class terms, away from leafier places like the London borough of Richmond or Trafford in Greater Manchester and towards harder-bitten parts of Essex or the former coalmining district of Amber Valley in Derbyshire; places where a restless and (often with reason) aggrieved class wants populist meat from the Tories — and, from Theresa May’s Tories, is getting it. These local elections are bad news for those Conservatives the populist right like to call the “establishment elite”. It is a fact, not a slur, to say that where they lost on Thursday, the Tories were deserted disproportionately by the better-educated and more professional classes among their former supporters. Where they won they were rescued in places where educational qualifications were thinner on the ground. This cannot be without effect on the thinking of the party’s strategists.
So don’t be distracted by crusty retired colonels or outré Brexit birds of bright plumage in these and other newspaper columns: they are window-dressing, the prisoners of war that Leave has taken among the educated classes. But the dark heart of British nativism is to be found not in castles, libraries or the Carlton Club in London’s St James’s, but in meaner streets: in harder-pressed Nuneaton, Derby or Chesterfield. Here in their millions Theresa May’s “just about managing” had been gathering in what turned out to be a waiting room for Tory affiliation, with “Ukip” on the door.
It follows that Ukip may have lost this latest election in spectacular fashion, but Farageism has done well. The more Farageist the local electorate, the better the Tories have fared. It is futile for people like me to deny it: the collapse of Ukip does not represent a collapse of the populist right, but a growing realisation by former Ukip voters that their best hopes for the kind of policies Ukip used to promise now lie with the Conservative Party.
It seems that on Thursday many liberal, Remain-leaning Conservatives reached the same — for them, mournful — conclusion: doubting, in places like Richmond, that the Tories are any longer the party for them. With Labour bogged down on the left and the Conservative Party appearing to drift right, a partial vacuum is building in the space between. This vacuum should be open country for the Lib Dems, if they are any good. In some local results they do seem to have reaped some benefit, but their advance is so far more a flicker than a surge. But Lib Dems may have some stronger arguments coming their way. Remember that the Brexit ultras, the 60 Tory MPs who make up the European Research Group, actually want the irresistible force to hit the immovable object. A smash-up is their dream; stitch-up their nightmare. If every proposal our government puts to Brussels is blocked by the threat of an Irish veto, the chance that we simply walk away without a civilised deal grows. Britain would certainly then be free to go out into the world and pursue the free-trade deals that the ultras dream of. Never, therefore, suppose that everyone in the cabinet, let alone on the Tory back benches, really wants a deal, or the kind of deal that is remotely available. Some approach the negotiations in the secret hope of failure.
These local election results have strengthened such people’s arm. They have emboldened those who will argue that our government should present Europe with a take-it-or-leave it offer, and that this would actually be popular in Basildon, Amber Valley or Peterborough. And I’m afraid that in terms of electoral strategy they may be right. A big scrap in which Britain kicks over the negotiating table and walks away might well be popular with precisely the voters Mrs May won from Ukip on Thursday. Yet it would not alleviate but deepen their difficulties. Which brings me to a concluding thought that is blasphemy to the spirit of this age. This government would help its new recruits from Ukip best by thanking them for their votes, and ignoring their views.
Guest 2547- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
#10
Andrew Rawnsley has been saying much the same thing in The Observer for weeks. Hidden behind Brexit is a destructive and insidious right wing agenda.
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Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
#11
howard mcsweeney1 wrote:And he was largely responsible for keeping out the Tories unlike the party of today that would prefer to be ideologically sound and in opposition.
No party can do anything if they are not in power because they don't listen the voters and prefer to be holier than thou.
Selling your principles is a slippery slope.
The Lib Dems were in a position of power in 2010 - they won't be seeing that for a long while due to their actions in the coalition. Similarly, the way New Labour sold itself to neo-liberal ideals cost Labour in the long run. The repercussions of those decisions are still being dealt with today...hence 172 neo-liberal-aligning Labour MPs defying their own members believing they can trample over the very people that are fundamental to the movement.
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
Button
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,109
#12
Maybe there is such an agenda - although that comes close to saying that the majority of the electorate who voted in the referendum were destructive, insidious and right wing.
An alternative analysis is that there is simply an awful lot of ignorant politicians around who have the attention-span of a gnat. Furthermore, judging from the newspaper article in post 1801 of the Brexit thread, ignorance is alive and well on both sides of the debate ('remain in EFTA' indeed - we're not chuffing well in it!)!
(Not my real name.)
Weird Granny Slater
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 7 Jun 2017
- Posts: 3,095
#13
So Labour increases its number of local councillors and produces its best local election performance in London since 1971, whereas the Tories, despite apparently picking up all the UKIP plague votes (and despite the corporate media's helpful Corbyn- and Russophobia) lose 33 seats and 2 councils, a performance that was worse than the last direct comparison in 2014 (when Cameron did 'badly' according to the Torygraph), and the embarrassment is Labour's? Only someone who could spin us into a war on Iraq could come up with such a squint-eyed opinion.
Guest 1881 likes this
'Pass the cow dung, my dropsy's killing me' - Heraclitus
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#14
Momentum were trumpeting the best results since 1971, they didn't mention that it was only in London. The reality is that we have the most inept government in living memory and the opposition should be around 20% ahead in the polls which shows the parties level pegging.
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Guest 2599- Registered: 6 May 2018
- Posts: 10
#15
Morning.
What I've enjoyed seeing is the pattern in the results across coastal districts in the south. Labour in Worthing gained 4 seats; Labour in Portsmouth gained 4 seats; Labour in Plymouth gained 4 seats and took overall control of the council; Southampton remains Labour with 25 seat to 19 (Con); Hastings remains Labour 24-8 etc etc.
I suppose you could say that given, as Howard says, we have a wholly inept government, one might have thought the national picture could have shown a greater swing to Labour. Here, in the south though, people feel forgotten. Conservative national politicians never visit; people seem to think we can just find policy to fit when the worst has already happened; the treatment of southern coastal communities by this government has been weak and short-sighted.
Have a good Sunday all - it's a sunny one!
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Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,948
#16
Charlotte
Working in the community and with them there is quite a different picture being painted.
What local people not over interested in politics are seeing is Labour MP's on the right of the party attempting to play down the leader.
Labour politicians locally not involving itself in local community associations where many valuable view points campaigns can start and be built upon.
Instead there hoping people will just turn out.
These days thankfully people question far more, and no longer are seats safe labour or tory.
As Howard says labour should be miles in front
We can take recent results as maybe labour might do better and build on what they have
negative campaigning on the tories does little to the every day person who just sees it as both being incapable of leading the country.
I don't think any of the 2 major parties can be happy with the result, but we can only wait and see if they reflect and change and engage
Like the referendum debate or not, people made a difference and feel more confident they are listened to and vote count.
Local people want a strong Govt and opposition holding them to account
people locally I speak to are not convinced of either .
Still heading fast to next general election/local elections we will see how things change(if they do)
howard mcsweeney1 likes this
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 2547- Registered: 1 Apr 2018
- Posts: 2,158
#17
Agreed Keith. I have friends who would vote Labour under other circumstances but will not do so next time round (or so they say!).
Just reflecting on previous posts, I have read that the 5 boroughs selected for the voter id trial have had no convictions for voter impersonation fraud within their boundaries. Overall, the percentage of voter impersonation in this country is minimal, almost statistically negligible. What about older people who don't travel anymore and no longer hold a driving licence? The Republicans pulled off this gerrymandering stunt in America and I sincerely hope it won't continue to infest democracy in this country. But with boundary changes on the horizon to preserve the status quo after 2020, who can be sure?
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#18
#16,#17, there we go again dosing the flames with sceptism, wont people ever learn blue is not a colour but a hard nosed right wing dictatorship who robs the poor and then gives it to the rich. bah humbug.
Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,397
#19
Here's how it's all ended up
Local govt seat totals:
CONS 9,110
LAB 6,468
LIB DEMs 1,890
SNP 430
UKIP 211
Plaid Cymru 203
Greens 202
"The world is still a weird place, despite my efforts to make clear and perfect sense of it".
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
#20
Captain Haddock wrote:Here's how it's all ended up
Local govt seat totals:
CONS 9,110
LAB 6,468
LIB DEMs 1,890
SNP 430
UKIP 211
Plaid Cymru 203
Greens 202
That's only because some councils or, in some cases, some councillors were not due for election. How about re-posting those numbers on the night of the May 2019 council elections and then we can all go and compare it when the results are finalised then?
Brian Dixon and howard mcsweeney1 like this
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.