Sensible discussion on Labour Leadership hopefuls

Grandad The Labour Party lost the last election so badly because it failed to realise that the Labour Party is no longer a party of the working class, which feels it no longer represents it and with which it doesn't connect. Something has gone very badly wrong when Bolsover, Denis Skinner's former seat, is now held by a 5,000+ majority.

The Conservatives did not hide the fact that Johnson is an Eton and Oxford educated "toff", who has nothing working class about him. Yet, "working class" people voted for him in their droves. The reason that happened is because Johnson (or at least Cummings) understood them and their values better than the Labour Party did.

The Labour Party didn't just lose the election because of Brexit, Corbyn, the Russians, Cambridge Analytica or the unrelenting press campaign. They lost because the majority of people don't want Corbyn's brand of social liberalism. It isn't Marxism, although the media used that label to frighten people. There is a massive realignment of party loyalties taking place, just as there is in many other Western democracies and Corbyn doesn't have anything to do with that. Social Democracy is in crisis.

The Labour Party needs to stop thinking in terms of social class and reinvent itself to recognise the social values which hold a majority group of people together. Many within Labour won't like the conclusions. Thatcher and Blair both "got it", which is why they were the longest serving post war PMs.

You can go on for as long as you like about right how you are, but the trade unions and certain activists within the Labour Party aren't offering people what they want. You need to start listening to people outside your comfort zone.

ilovecheese I'm a little confused. I was a single parent for most of the time Blair was PM and was unaware of any "attitude".

That should read:

You can go on for as long as you like about how right (ie correct) you are ...

growstuff, in regard to your post @15:14, if looking outside of social classes is the recipe for electoral success, why did the Liberal Democrats, the political party you stated you were supporting prior to the General Election fair even worse than the Labour Party?

Surely the only party that historically and in the present time holds out no social inducement to any particular grouping should have easily won that election if your theory is correct.

Instead, they achieved a grand total of eleven seats.

Ilovecheese the Tory 2 child policy came in 2012 , How could Blair have voted for it ?

What I meant was, Anniebach, was that I had left the Labour party before 2012, and that when the party voted for the 2 child policy, I was glad that I had left. (which I think is what I said) sorry if that was not clear. I did not mean that I left the party in 2012.

Growstuff
ilovecheese I'm a little confused. I was a single parent for most of the time Blair was PM and was unaware of any "attitude".

It was a change in the level of social security available for single parents.
That wasn't the only thing though, it was a whole move towards the right.

Blair won three consecutive elections, he got something right

Unfortunately because his policies were indistinguishable from Tory policies he can probably be blamed for the drop in the percentage of the population bothering to vote. It didn't recover until 2017.
Between 1922 and 1997, turnout at UK general elections remained above 71%, rising to over 80% in the general elections of 1950 and 1951. Turnout was only 57% in the 1918 General Election, although this was partly due to a low service (armed forces) vote and a large number of uncontested seats (107 out of a total of 707 seats).
In 2001, turnout fell to 59%, its lowest level since 1918 and down 12% points compared with 1997. Although turnout rose again in 2005 - 2010, it was still below its 1997 level. In 2017 UK turnout was 69%, higher than in the previous four General Elections but below the 1918- 2017 average for the UK (73%).
Arguably the resurgence in 2017 was the direct result of Corbyn and the left wing policies he brought back. Unless those are retained it is likely that numbers voting will drop again.

Corbyn still lost the elections

Growstuff post 15:14 is the best summing up I’ve read of how the election went and why - if Labour and LibDems don’t learn from it they’ll never appeal to the middle ground floaters, like me, who don’t have a natural home.

Growstuff post 15:14. Brilliant and well said. Totally agree.

Would some of these "middle ground" voters like to post anything about the policies they would support. I think Johnson's victory can mostly be attributed to his promise about Brexit. I don't think policies actually came into it. The Conservative party hardly had any. Its manifesto was minimal and Boris never joined in debates so didn't actually state what he was in favour of (apart from Get Brexit done).

trisher the policies didn’t win labour two elections,

But policies do actually matter to some of us, and we base our vote on policies, not personality

The Lib Dems generally did do better, Grandad, although they lost one seat.

This time they gained 11.4% of the vote compared to 7.4% in the previous GE so their share of the vote went up. It is because of the voting system that they only gained 11 seats.
The SNP got a disproportionate number of seats, totally unfair.
Labour is supposed to be one of the two main parties in this country but their share went down by 8%, losing 60 seats - a far higher loss proportionately.

I realise that you know all this so exciusemthem'womansplaining'.

However, until it is accepted, Labour will never be a party to be reckoned with for years to come.
Howefer, I think many do recognise this.

Good post growstuff.
It is no good the Labour Party staying in its comfort zone, it will achieve nothing and still keep wondering why.

Excuse typos too

ilovecheese I'm trying to remember how levels of social security changed for single parents. It didn't affect me because I was already working. From what I can remember, Blair insisted that single parents of children over five stopped receiving income support automatically and moved to Jobseekers' Allowance, which meant they had to look for work. Personally, I think that was a positive move. Even other Labour supporters didn't support single parents getting a benefit until the child was 16, especially if the were working their socks off in a dead end job.

There was a lot of support available for single parents, such as SureStart Centres and tax credits to help pay for childcare. They were certainly treated better, even under Blair, than they have been over the last few years.

If you can think of anything else related to single parents, please let me know.

It wasn’t personality or lack of personality which cost labour the election, voters didn’t trust Corbyn.

Growstuff I was a working single parent at the time as well. I didn't begrudge single parents of school age children from living on social security because most single parent families come about because the parents relationship breaks down. If children have been used to having a stay at home mum, then when their father leaves the family home, I thought it would be better for the children not to have too many changes in their lives all at once. So if their mothers thought it best to stay at home for a year or two before going out to work, that was probably best for the children.
I don't want to carry on justifying my personal decisions to leave the Labour party because I think we should stick with the main subject of the thread because it is an interesting topic, more interesting than my own particular motivations I am sure.

Fair enough! My children had a single parent as a result of a relationship breakdown when they were 8 and 3. I carried on working and did receive a little bit of help with nursery fees and before/after school care, which I wouldn't receive now with the new regime, so I was a bit puzzled.

Apart from Iraq, what I didn't like about Blair was his control freakery managerialism towards education, but I never voted for him in any of the three elections he won. As far as I'm concerned, he was infinitely better than what we've had since 2010 and likely to get for at least the next 10 years, unless Labour goes out into the seats it needs to win (back) and understands why people voted against it.

For the Labour Party, detailed policies will not and should not be paramount at present. The Tory Party has an eighty seat majority in the House of Commons, and therefore no fine words in or outside of Parliament will stop this government carrying out anything they may wish to bring forward.

Therefore I believe that the Labour Party should just maintain a firm left-wing stance without at this point in time without concerning the movement with any fresh detailed policies.

It will be at least two to three years before the electorate will be in a position to judge whether Brexit has been a success of failure for Britain, and it will be then that the Labour Party will be able to bring forward its policies based on the above.

In the intervening years, the Labour movement should and must "sort out" its political wing and whether that can be accomplished through the present Parliamentary Labour Party or by way of a fresh political start through the auspices of the TUC has to be decided

That has to be the primary function of the Labour movement at this point in time if it is to retain the support and confidence of its many activists.

Lisa Nandy and Jess Phillips will split the vote for a move from
the far left.

The Labour Party needs to get out into its lost seats and talk to people.

Grandad do you ever consider that our FPTP voting system might disadvantage anyone but Labour and Conservative? If your voter base is spread more evenly than other parties, there will be those who might want to vote for other than the "big 2", but feel their vote could/would be wasted by doing so. These people will then vote for their next best, or least worst, choice. You know the votes required to elect an MP varies greatly amongst all the parties. Only when every vote truly counts will we have a government actually wanted by more people than those who didn't want it.