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What do Labour need to do to win again?


Park Life
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What you want is a party that is really committed to the free market to such an extent that they loosen the regulations on taxis to allow the dramatic levels of market penetration shown by Uber in the US, Paris, London etc

 

I see Uber opened in Newcastle recently. Good luck.

Ubers a city centre firm. If it ever gets to the sticks I'll sign up. :)

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The big debate in Labour is going to be whether to head back to the centre and leave behind the unions. The moderates and New Labourites are already blaming Ed's left wing unaspirational agenda for their disaster.

 

Plainly they need to win back middle england to stand a chance and they wont do that with the unions visibly calling the shots. Their biggest handicap imo is the lack of a strong charismatic leader who projects well on TV. Ed was a fuck up with his nerdy diction, gimmicks and weird looking mouth.

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To be perfectly honest it's about time the Unions started to disaffiliate anyway. It's been years in the making and it's more fraught than ever. Might aswell make the break.

 

There are the Greens which a few of them support. And of course, the STUC. Both would make far more sense than the Labour Party, and there's probably a few parties I'm forgetting.

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Do you really think the union link is still a problem?

 

I get the idea that people think they're anti aspiration whatever the fuck that means but I honestly don't think that's union based.

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Do you really think the union link is still a problem?

 

I get the idea that people think they're anti aspiration whatever the fuck that means but I honestly don't think that's union based.

 

Its not like Ed was hamstrung by the unions...UNITE and UNISON basically got him in but his relationship with them was a bit fraught after that. The tories benefitted from it hugely by the wrong man being chosed though. The problem is with the Labour Party rules, not the UK electorate in general. In any case the rules changed last year due to the Falkirk carry on:

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/how-will-labour-leadership-election-work

 

http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~tquinn/leadership_election_rules.htm

 

As a UNITE member myself I dont pay a contribution to Labour but I think I get the offer to become an affiliated member for the purposes of the leadership election. Burnham for me :good:

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One of the main problems for Labour is their internal promotion policy. For the purpose f explanation I will use two former MPs to highlight my point.

 

In my constituency we used to have Adam Ingram as MP. He was nicknamed Adam "ten jobs" Ingram as whilst being the armed forces minister he also had ten directorates all with companies in the arms trade. This caused an initial schism between grass roots members in East kilbride and the ruling executive made up of councillors and Adam. The man chosen to take over and duly elected in 2010 was Michael McCann. This man is an out and out crook and well known as one of the biggest backhander takers in Scotland the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12559916 and the Herald both ran stories about his relationship (undeclared) with a local property developer while on council planning commitees http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/scottish-politics/new-question-over-labour-mps-support-for-property-developer.25881850 . The man aslo was a huge bully at hustings and just shouted peole down at every opportunity.

 

The Labour party's job is to find the best candidates for eac seat they contest Michael McCann shows they just run on internal power structures and top level influence.

 

And Jim Murphy as the Scottish leader. The man is an absolute horror show. Ken Livingston and Tony Benn both hated him, he was accused of being anti democratic when running NSU and rolled over on tuition fees when NSU president in return for entry nto the upper echelons of the Labour party. But he was sent to Scotland to "srt out the election". He made gaff after gaffe and was shown to be un intelligent and again just a loud bully. Oh and the constant butt of jokes due to him going to uni for 9 years and still not getting any qualifications.

 

To me the Labour party needs to perform interna surgery and get rid of a lot of useless self promoting candidates and go looking for talented intelligent passionate people not just in it for the cash.

 

Oh and a few less nonces would go down well too.

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Choosing the right leader is the only thing they need to do. The right leader will know what needs to be done to actually win in 2020, and crucially they will be able to get it done. One glimmer of hope is that Ed actually changed the way Labour leaders are elected, so the mistakes that saw him get the role, will not be repeated this time around.

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What better reflects Ed's failings btw than the fact one of the very first things the Tories plan to do, is bring in their union mandate law.....you now won't be able to strike unless 50% of members vote and 40% say yes. Of all the things that you could probably say would never be done by a Labour government, no matter far right it shifted, is to make it harder to call a strike than to elect a government. This is the result of a Labour leader campaigning on behalf of the ordinary workers. What a spanner. Hence why choosing the right leader is crucial.

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I wonder actually, given the dearth of suitable candidates right now, if it wouldn't have made more sense for Ed to continue as leader, until say 1 year before the election, or whenever it is Cameron will step down and the new Tory leader (Boris?) who will fight the 2020 election is known. As long as he didn't come up with any new policies himself, the time could be used to shuffle the shadow cabinet around multiple times as a sort of extended audition, so the party could see who has what it takes to win power. The once installed they could announce their platform, and as they're a new leader it wouldn't much matter if they weren't consistent with what went beforehand.

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When Ed was appointed, the party were supposed to actually have had a big discussion and drafted a sweeping policy mandate a few years ago. Does anyone remember what the conclusions were? Because I sure as hell can't. I hope the same mistake isn't repeated this time around.

 

There's absolutely no point even announcing any policies until a year before the election, because frankly, the swing voters simply aren't listening. All it does is provide ammunition for the Westminster bubble should whatever you say prove to be a mistake given later developments. It's not like you ever get credit for coming up with the right policy in opposition, is it?

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I wonder actually, given the dearth of suitable candidates right now, if it wouldn't have made more sense for Ed to continue as leader, until say 1 year before the election, or whenever it is Cameron will step down and the new Tory leader (Boris?) who will fight the 2020 election is known. As long as he didn't come up with any new policies himself, the time could be used to shuffle the shadow cabinet around multiple times as a sort of extended audition, so the party could see who has what it takes to win power. The once installed they could announce their platform, and as they're a new leader it wouldn't much matter if they weren't consistent with what went beforehand.

 

I do think that he should have remained on - I think that was a key mistake last time in the leadership change, that Brown left immediately and the Tories were subsequently allowed to solidify their narrative on the economic collapse.

 

Maybe you're right and that the right leaders will rise up, but I'm not getting a sense of any of them currently, save perhaps Yvette Cooper - and I don't know enough about her to state with any certainty that she's actually capable.

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