David O'Day
Well-Known Member
Standard Clive really
Do you want to discuss boring politics? (21 Viewers)
- Thread starter mrtrench
- Start date
Standard Clive really
Skybluefaz
Well-Known Member
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
COV
Well-Known Member
What’s the issue anyway, why is someone supporting the knee so offensive
Time to face facts, until the other parties fight fire with fire nothing will change
chiefdave
Well-Known Member
That's the problem. We saw that in the general election. The Conservatives doing shit like their fake fact checking site knowing perfectly well that an apology afterwards was insignificant, it had already had its desired impact.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
When will they learn that when the only thing you have to say is what bad things the other people have done people won’t vote for you because you are bankrupt of your own ideas.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
What is there really to argue for. The Tory majority will be enormous regardless
Evo1883
Well-Known Member
They also need to learn who they are trying to make vote for them .
15.9% of the constituency are Indian... what are they thinking
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Starmer on the brink - surely even he can lose a Northern seat with all the Hancock revelations
www.ft.com
Starmer braced for fresh by-election defeat
Labour leader under increasing pressure, this time in northern constituency of Batley and Spen
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Great article
The future of Keir Starmer, embattled leader of Britain’s opposition Labour party, could well lie in the hands of the voters of Batley and Spen, a parliamentary constituency in northern England. If the victor in Thursday’s by-election in Batley and Spen is not wearing a red rosette, it will heap pressure on Starmer to start notching up election wins or step down as Labour leader. Boris Johnson’s ruling Conservatives are hoping to seize the West Yorkshire constituency off Labour, in a move that would confirm the Tories’ successful wooing of the opposition party’s traditional supporters in the north. At the 2019 general election, the Conservatives snatched many so-called red wall seats from Labour in the north and the Midlands. Then last month the Tories took Hartlepool off Labour at a by-election: a constituency that had been held by Starmer’s party since its creation in 1974. Starmer came under further pressure as Labour lost hundreds of seats in local council elections on the same day. This month Labour produced its worst ever result in a by-election in Chesham & Amersham in Buckinghamshire. A phone survey in Batley and Spen conducted this month by polling organisation Survation found 47 per cent of voters would back the Conservatives, with 41 per cent supporting Labour. The survey was done before health secretary Matt Hancock resigned from the government on Saturday after breaching its social distancing guidelines by kissing his adviser in his Whitehall office. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Batley and Spen candidate Kim Leadbeater © hristopher Furlong/Getty Images Labour has sought to maximise the government’s discomfort over Hancock’s conduct by saying it showed there was one set of lockdown rules for the Tories and another for the public. One Conservative party strategist, speaking before Hancock’s resignation, said winning Batley and Spen would be a “game changer”. “It opens the door to another 20 seats we can take,” he added. “Labour’s problems in the north have the potential to get much worse.” Batley and Spen was represented by Jo Cox, a Labour MP who was murdered by a neo-Nazi in the constituency in 2016, shortly before the Brexit referendum. Her sister Kim Leadbeater, a wellbeing coach, is standing as Labour’s candidate in the by-election, when she will be defending a slim majority of 3,525. The contest was triggered by Tracy Brabin, the previous Labour MP for the constituency, winning the election to be mayor of West Yorkshire last month. One Labour campaigner admitted the by-election race was “tight, undeniably tight”, but emphasised Leadbeater’s local credentials. “She understands every inch of this constituency because she has lived here every year of her life,” he said. In the former mill town of Batley and its surrounding villages, Labour faces challenges on several fronts. One is that the Heavy Woollen District Independents, a local rightwing party which received 6,432 votes at the 2019 election, are not standing, to the likely benefit of the Conservatives. George Galloway speaking in Batley © Lorne Campbell/Guzelian Another is that George Galloway, a controversial former Labour MP, is standing with the avowed purpose of destroying Starmer. In 2012 the maverick politician, then in the Respect party, won the Bradford West by-election as a self-styled champion of Muslims. Now with the Workers Party of Britain, Galloway is running a heavily pro-Palestinian campaign in Batley, where Muslims make up 20 per cent of voters. Racial tensions in the constituency have been inflamed since a teacher at Batley grammar school went into hiding after referring to cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during lessons in March. Starmer has shifted Labour to the centre ground after the hard-left leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, and has cracked down on anti-Semitism in the party that surfaced under his predecessor. Corbyn has long been a passionate campaigner for the Palestinian cause. Starmer’s opponents, including Galloway, accuse him of failing to stand up for Muslims. Nadeem Raja of the Indian Muslim Welfare Society © Lorne Campbell/Guzelian In Batley, Starmer has lost the support of Nadeem Raja, who manages the Indian Muslim Welfare Society, a charity with 3,000 members. Galloway was a “champion of Palestine and Kashmir”, said Raja. “Jo Cox still lives in my heart . . . but Kim came to see us and I told her ‘If you’re going to lose this election, it is down to Keir Starmer’.” Ryan Stephenson, the Conservative candidate in the by-election, is running a low-octane campaign. Amanda Milling, co-chair of the Conservative party, said Stephenson was focused on jobs, tackling crime and revitalising the area. Tory party co-chair Amanda Milling © Lorne Campbell/Guzelian “Labour has been taking votes for granted . . . this seat needs a strong voice who is making the case to government for the area,” she added. One Stephenson supporter is Martin O’Neill, who runs a credit business in Batley. “I work for myself and I’m a working-class fella,” he said. “Labour are all lawyers and do-gooders with no connection with working people. I think Labour patronise people.” Amid falling opinion poll ratings for Labour and Starmer, his team is braced to lose the by-election after what one aide called a “hideous” campaign. “There have been people attacking Keir for having a Jewish wife . . . it has been deeply unpleasant,” said the aide. The Labour campaigner said Galloway was trying to “misconstrue” the party’s position on Palestinian rights. “There is no stronger voice for the rights of Palestinian people than the Labour party and that hasn’t changed one iota since Keir became leader,” he added. Martin O’Neill: ‘I think Labour patronise people’ © Lorne Campbell/Guzelian But Labour officials spoke of dwindling morale around Starmer. “There’s a feeling of circling the wagons because the number of people who still believe in ‘The project’ has fallen quite sharply,” said one aide. There are unlikely to be enough hard-left Labour MPs to meet the threshold of 40 to trigger a leadership contest under the party’s rules. But a greater threat could potentially come from Angela Rayner, Starmer’s deputy, who was angry after he sacked her as campaign co-ordinator following the defeat in the Hartlepool by-election. “A lot of what happens next depends on whether Rayner does anything,” said one hard-left Labour figure. “Relations with Keir are irretrievably broken, but she may not want to be the person who precipitates a challenge.”
The future of Keir Starmer, embattled leader of Britain’s opposition Labour party, could well lie in the hands of the voters of Batley and Spen, a parliamentary constituency in northern England. If the victor in Thursday’s by-election in Batley and Spen is not wearing a red rosette, it will heap pressure on Starmer to start notching up election wins or step down as Labour leader. Boris Johnson’s ruling Conservatives are hoping to seize the West Yorkshire constituency off Labour, in a move that would confirm the Tories’ successful wooing of the opposition party’s traditional supporters in the north. At the 2019 general election, the Conservatives snatched many so-called red wall seats from Labour in the north and the Midlands. Then last month the Tories took Hartlepool off Labour at a by-election: a constituency that had been held by Starmer’s party since its creation in 1974. Starmer came under further pressure as Labour lost hundreds of seats in local council elections on the same day. This month Labour produced its worst ever result in a by-election in Chesham & Amersham in Buckinghamshire. A phone survey in Batley and Spen conducted this month by polling organisation Survation found 47 per cent of voters would back the Conservatives, with 41 per cent supporting Labour. The survey was done before health secretary Matt Hancock resigned from the government on Saturday after breaching its social distancing guidelines by kissing his adviser in his Whitehall office. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and Batley and Spen candidate Kim Leadbeater © hristopher Furlong/Getty Images Labour has sought to maximise the government’s discomfort over Hancock’s conduct by saying it showed there was one set of lockdown rules for the Tories and another for the public. One Conservative party strategist, speaking before Hancock’s resignation, said winning Batley and Spen would be a “game changer”. “It opens the door to another 20 seats we can take,” he added. “Labour’s problems in the north have the potential to get much worse.” Batley and Spen was represented by Jo Cox, a Labour MP who was murdered by a neo-Nazi in the constituency in 2016, shortly before the Brexit referendum. Her sister Kim Leadbeater, a wellbeing coach, is standing as Labour’s candidate in the by-election, when she will be defending a slim majority of 3,525. The contest was triggered by Tracy Brabin, the previous Labour MP for the constituency, winning the election to be mayor of West Yorkshire last month. One Labour campaigner admitted the by-election race was “tight, undeniably tight”, but emphasised Leadbeater’s local credentials. “She understands every inch of this constituency because she has lived here every year of her life,” he said. In the former mill town of Batley and its surrounding villages, Labour faces challenges on several fronts. One is that the Heavy Woollen District Independents, a local rightwing party which received 6,432 votes at the 2019 election, are not standing, to the likely benefit of the Conservatives. George Galloway speaking in Batley © Lorne Campbell/Guzelian Another is that George Galloway, a controversial former Labour MP, is standing with the avowed purpose of destroying Starmer. In 2012 the maverick politician, then in the Respect party, won the Bradford West by-election as a self-styled champion of Muslims. Now with the Workers Party of Britain, Galloway is running a heavily pro-Palestinian campaign in Batley, where Muslims make up 20 per cent of voters. Racial tensions in the constituency have been inflamed since a teacher at Batley grammar school went into hiding after referring to cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during lessons in March. Starmer has shifted Labour to the centre ground after the hard-left leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, and has cracked down on anti-Semitism in the party that surfaced under his predecessor. Corbyn has long been a passionate campaigner for the Palestinian cause. Starmer’s opponents, including Galloway, accuse him of failing to stand up for Muslims. Nadeem Raja of the Indian Muslim Welfare Society © Lorne Campbell/Guzelian In Batley, Starmer has lost the support of Nadeem Raja, who manages the Indian Muslim Welfare Society, a charity with 3,000 members. Galloway was a “champion of Palestine and Kashmir”, said Raja. “Jo Cox still lives in my heart . . . but Kim came to see us and I told her ‘If you’re going to lose this election, it is down to Keir Starmer’.” Ryan Stephenson, the Conservative candidate in the by-election, is running a low-octane campaign. Amanda Milling, co-chair of the Conservative party, said Stephenson was focused on jobs, tackling crime and revitalising the area. Tory party co-chair Amanda Milling © Lorne Campbell/Guzelian “Labour has been taking votes for granted . . . this seat needs a strong voice who is making the case to government for the area,” she added. One Stephenson supporter is Martin O’Neill, who runs a credit business in Batley. “I work for myself and I’m a working-class fella,” he said. “Labour are all lawyers and do-gooders with no connection with working people. I think Labour patronise people.” Amid falling opinion poll ratings for Labour and Starmer, his team is braced to lose the by-election after what one aide called a “hideous” campaign. “There have been people attacking Keir for having a Jewish wife . . . it has been deeply unpleasant,” said the aide. The Labour campaigner said Galloway was trying to “misconstrue” the party’s position on Palestinian rights. “There is no stronger voice for the rights of Palestinian people than the Labour party and that hasn’t changed one iota since Keir became leader,” he added. Martin O’Neill: ‘I think Labour patronise people’ © Lorne Campbell/Guzelian But Labour officials spoke of dwindling morale around Starmer. “There’s a feeling of circling the wagons because the number of people who still believe in ‘The project’ has fallen quite sharply,” said one aide. There are unlikely to be enough hard-left Labour MPs to meet the threshold of 40 to trigger a leadership contest under the party’s rules. But a greater threat could potentially come from Angela Rayner, Starmer’s deputy, who was angry after he sacked her as campaign co-ordinator following the defeat in the Hartlepool by-election. “A lot of what happens next depends on whether Rayner does anything,” said one hard-left Labour figure. “Relations with Keir are irretrievably broken, but she may not want to be the person who precipitates a challenge.”
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
The Tories gonna win this by simply just holding their existing vote. It’s only Labour that have managed to drive away their core voters.
chiefdave
Well-Known Member
You seem to the only person that thinks Labour have even the slightest chance of winning the by-election!
So he can pretend to be shocked and claim it as some out of the blue, one in a million chance, win for his beloved Tories.
edit: and as if to prove my point, see below
Grendel
Well-Known Member
It should not even be a contest - this will be the first time if it happens that the main opposition have been usurped twice by the sitting government, if it happens it will be one of the most incredible moments in British Politics
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
It won’t even be the most incredible and simultaneously bewildering political moment in July knowing our government.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
It is beyond precedent for an opposition to lose two seats to the main party in opposition. Keep kidding yourself the significance of this happens
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
What the Tories winning a seat they held until 97 and have had a majority split with whatever far right flavour of the week party since 2015 pretty much?
It’s quite funny seeing you go full Corbynista though.
Starmer isn’t going anywhere. The left are impotent and the right need him to change the rule book.
COV
Well-Known Member
I’d get your hard hats on, cause grendel is gonna have a field day if/when his boys win big- it’s like he’s counting down to Christmas Day reading this
David O'Day
Well-Known Member
Labour only won it because the local right wing independent group split the Tory vote.
This isn't deepest darkest Liverpool/Leeds or Manchester
oakey
Well-Known Member
Labour party is in a mess, no doubt about it. The identity politics is eating them alive by descending into vicious in fighting. No obvious solution and still some way to fall I think. Maybe attempting to unite people will never be popular again. The winners are the Tories who are brilliant at keeping power but not at governing.
Maybe these islands are currently ungovernable. Until the majority get tired of the muddle and incompetence it's every 'man' for himself.
I'm all right Jack.
Maybe these islands are currently ungovernable. Until the majority get tired of the muddle and incompetence it's every 'man' for himself.
I'm all right Jack.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
I couldn’t care less - odd though the Lib Dem’s can overturn a huge Tory majority and you think it’s ok to not be able to defend a majority of their own as the dreadful Tories last held it in the last century
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Oh that happened in the elections post 97 has it? Wow I didn’t know the woollen milk lot stood in every election since
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
If you’d read any of my posts recently you’d know I’m not exactly playing down how shite Starmer is am I?
skybluetony176
Well-Known Member
That was sort of the opposite to the red wall though. The seat was a huge remain seat and there was lots of opposition to HS2 also. If you watched the coverage there was lots of traditional Tory voters saying the same things that traditional Labour voters have been saying. That being that the party that they’ve traditionally voted for no longer represent them.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Others are
Doesn't really matter whether it's Starmer, Corbyn or Mr Blobby in charge.
What chance do they have when the opposition are sending out fake leaflets, throwing Labour campaigners to the ground and the Labour candidate is being intimidated?
Edit: that's not to take away from the state of the Labour Party at the moment
What chance do they have when the opposition are sending out fake leaflets, throwing Labour campaigners to the ground and the Labour candidate is being intimidated?
Edit: that's not to take away from the state of the Labour Party at the moment
Last edited:
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
What are you on about? You really are showing your lack of political knowledge up if you think this, or the last one, say anything about the current leaders and aren’t just continuations of trends that have been going for ages.
You were the one pushing the (sensible) hypothesis that most voters don’t pay attention and are just happy with the status quo, now you’ve joined the Corbyn revolutionaries in claiming it’s a referendum on Starmers leadership, all while continuing your new found love of the antisemitic.
You’ll be belting out The People’s Flag and pushing loony conspiracy theories about WhatsApp messages before the year is out at this rate.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
No I’m saying the opposite - dump the hopeless dullard Starmer, break with Red Len and the rabble that control the party and persuade the now rather popular and somewhat charismatic man from the north or consign yourselves to history
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
I’m assuming here that you’re not suggesting that Red Len and the ‘rabble that control the party’ are not the same people?
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Well Union leaders and bat shit members is the point. Labour should break the hold from unions - the fact it has any say in leadership elections has already set it back with the appointment of the hopeless Milliband rather that the Blairite clone which would have created stability