But that still points, doesn’t it, to the fact that Labour can’t give anyone a reason to vote Labour?

donpaskini: This discussion thread is an excellent example of how this site has too many articles which are biased towards Labour and should be re-named ‘Labour Conspiracy’.

heh!

Whether or not there are more folks around who think this way is another kettle of cheese all together. But by george it was surprising and heartening to hear such enlightened, liberal opinions – all the more so in a “multi-cultural” Northern ex-mill town – coming from the mouths of people who couldn’t possibly be described as the “chattering classes” in a thousand years.

I think you’ll find that the Alliance was polling ahead of Labour at one point because although the Tories were unpopular, Labour under Foot were seen as a bunch of fruit cakes.

“Every one of the forces that fuelled Thatcherism is discredited and only fucking gobshite libertarians fail to realise this”

You are evidently unaware that many libertarians are critical of Thatcherite neo-liberalism for its adoption of monetarism and Chicago School economics instead of more pure libertarian policies such as abolition of the central bank and introduction of a gold standard (which would have gone a long way to shutting down the business cycle and saved us from this mess).

By the way, using the f-word a lot doesn’t make you big or clever, you just sound like an 14 year old.

I campaigned for Blair in 97 – I truly believed back then that he would do as he said – and yes, New Labour have done a few things that the Tories wouldn’t do.

Now it is a matter that they have ridden down the road on a Tory horse and become what they are against, or at least should be. The avocation of Tory policy, whether red-Tory or not is by the by – they have and that is all I can judge them on.

They are called Socialists, as if that is supposed to be an insult – yet have done little (12 years in government). They have abandoned the poor to Thatcherites such as Purnell – why that man is even in New Labour is beyond me.

They(New Labour) have abandoned the principles of freedom to Thatcherite policy of policing the public rather than freeing them – I could go on but I thing you get the message.

A couple of years ago, I fell into conversation with the 20 year old bar man, a building labourer in the day, at my local. He didn’t have many strong political opinions and was a typical target Labour voter. But he would never vote for them because of National ID. There wasn’t a big debate about National ID at the time (is there ever?) but he knew about it, and instinctively understood what it is about.

Don’t make assumptions about the average voter: person on the street will kick against things you never thought about, but is also open to debate. In the early 2000s, the LibDems achieved some good parliamentary by-election results against opponents who played the immigration card. When open debate is conducted, the average voter becomes more open to liberal ideas.

Blair knew this. He couldn’t persuade Brown and Prescott. Now they’re going to lose. However, to the actual subject of the post…

Sunny? I think your psephology is a little off. You say:

This doesn’t point to the party failing to attract swing voters – it points to the fact that it can’t even manage to energise its own constituencies

Labour, in winning and retaining office, did so by mobilising its core vote and the swing voters. Those voters that voted Labour last time but might not now? They’re the swing voters.

As to the stuff about ‘natural’ voters being less likely to vote, that’s always been the case for Labour and to a lesser extent Lib Dem voters. There’s reams of psephology on this and, um, that post I started writing last week on this very subject.

A lot of core Labour voters live in safe Labour seats. Why bother voting? The party won’t be wasting resources campaigning there, they’ll be putting it into the marginals.

A lot of core Lib Dem voters live in no-hope seats (because of the 500-odd English seats, about 200 have the Lib Dems in with a chance if you look at it realistically at this stage). If you live in a Labour/Tory marginal and you’re a committed partisan Lib Dem voter, what’s the point? That’s not how many people think, not even how most think, but it represents a significant chunk of actual observable voter behaviour.

So this poll indicates that Labour has lost the swing voters, and that those that voted Tory last time are, unsurprisingly, partisan Tories who’ll be doing so again. The big question really is will those that voted Tory in 1992 but haven’t voted since turn out again? That’s the real swing.

Psephology would be a fun little hobby, if it wasn’t so serious.

Re 50% – depends how long the Tories are in and what levels of growth the economy gets as to whether they’ll cut it or not. I could see them doing it towards the end of a 4-year term although I agree Cameron doesn’t want the signals cutting it straightaway would send.

The difference of 3m in unemployment you highlight is a good enough reason on its own to vote, nay campaign for, a Labour government, I’d say. And there are heaps of other stuff Labour has done that the Tories wouldn’t – signing up to the social chapter, (finally) giving agency workers better rights, compensation for asbestosis & white trigger finger, minimum wage, Surestart, BSF, huge rises in nurses’ pay just off the top of my head. If the Tories get in we can expect to see public sector wages taking large real terms cuts, huge cuts in grants to the voluntary sector, a scaleback of BSF etc

Just because Cameron wants to position himself as the heir to Blair doesn’t mean he is (apart from in the style over substance spin-happy sense). Of course I’m no fan of Blair, but since when did we take the Tories at their word?

I’m not expecting to convince you to vote Labour or anything – or suggest I’m not angry at New Labour’s acceptance of the economic framework they were presented with on arrival. I’m just trying to show how the spectre of a Tory government is not just a bogeyman* – there are real meaningful, qualitative differences between a Labour & Tory government.

* apologies for the terrible mixed metaphor; I’m typing/thinking quickly as I have to pop out to the shops before the game starts & I’m never going to make it.

Fuck that- Labour lost in the 80s because of the myth that Thatcherism was good, which has now been exposed as one fucking giant lie built on nothing.

People exercised their right to buy with joy- now their inheritance is going down the tubes as house prices crash and their kids can neither get a council house nor buy into a market distorted by buy to let scum.

People thought we’d all get rich by selling each other double glazing and borrowing money off each other- you can fuck that off now the lies of banker filth have been exposed.

There was also this unbelievable shite about how letting people like me, on less than £20,000 a year, pay all the fucking taxes through VAT while tax evader vermin got off scot-free would make us all rich- now even twats like Brown realise what bollocks this is.

Every one of the forces that fuelled Thatcherism is discredited and only fucking gobshite libertarians fail to realise this.

Unfortunately Brown’s allegiance to his shameful years of betrayal prevent him from fully taking action as a response to this.

Cameron advocating he is the rightful hair to Tony Blair speaks more to me than a 50p hike in tax for those who are in the top 1 or 2% of the earnings bracket. Which the Tories won’t repeal BTW. The only real, significant difference between New Labour and the Tories is 3 million more unemployed – the Tories, this lot coming into power will be worse than Thatcher – and that is saying something.

All for the benefit of the economy, of course.

Whichever way we look at it, Tim – New Labour and the real boss, Mandelson, are more Tory than many would wish to see. I want a Labour party – not a Tory-lite. Jesus, even the Tories are fighting to grab New Labour policies and make them their own – will the odd ultra-Tory policy thrown in.

Blair was actually created by the right wing press. After years of them heaping vitriol and ridicule and scorn at various labour leaders, Labour basically gave up, and said if you can’t beat them join them. So they came up with a candidate that nullified all the right wing hatred. He was young, married, no ex wives all over the place, a Christian right winger. He got rid of clause 4, promised not reinstate all the Thatcher anti union laws, and promised not to raise the top rate of income tax. Which is what he did, and won 3 elections.

Trouble is the Labour party became just another bunch of sleazy Tories.

Funding by a small group of wealthy businessmen in exchange for honours, the Tory way.
A total belief in market forces and deregulated businessman. The Tory way.
Let the rich get richer and richer and richer. The Tory way.
Foreign wars for profit for large Anglo corporations. The Tory way.
The surveillance society and turning a blind eye to the police misbehaviour. The Tory way.

Tories will always turn out and vote Tory because they don’t believe anyone else should govern. It is deep rooted in their soul, dam it , Many of them don’t even think non Tories are even British.

Now put your head back in the sand…all will be well.

By all means argue. By all means argue that the Lib Dems are more left-wing (though I think that’s absurd, too). But arguing that Labour & the Tories are the same thing makes no sense except on an ultra-leftist level where you’re arguing capitalism has to be overthrown tomorrow and therefore both Labour & the Tories are obstacles.

The difference between Labour and the Tories may not be as great as you or I would like, but in the real world even small differences are important.

er, hello?

You were the one claiming that their concerns were manufactured!

As I said, if you want to ignore the evidence, that’s up to you.
But don’t expect to get very far.

Both these Tory parties, in fact, should join at the hip – it is like seeing a marriage in the middle of a dirty divorce.

I have said this before and I will say it again – the Tories would vote Tory if Gordon Brown crossed over and became the leader of the Conservative party – they always vote, they always will vote.

New Labour have let down the people because, as others have said here and I have said since 2001 – New Labour is Tory, why other still feel it is any different is beyond me – why can’t people see that for themselves? Is it that you really want a Labour party? If you do then you have to advocate one.

If you want a left-wing government the closest thing there is at the moment is the LibDems – and they are more a tad left of centre at the moment.

What the LibDems should be doing is highlighting the piss-poorness of both New Labour and Conservative policy – because whichever of these shit parties get into government, either New Labour or Conservative – you are going to get exactly the same as has been for the last 30 years.

Who is to blame for that?

Those who vote for Conservative and Conservative-lite.

Coming from a teenage single-parent low-income background myself, I wonder why you don’t give “the proles” credit for coming to their own conclusions. Also worth pointing out is that push-polling can give you any answer you want, so I don’t trust any poll that has a newspaper involved, not even the Grauniad.

no wonder you guys aren’t going to make any headway if you insist on addressing the concerns which *you* believe that people *should* have, rather than the ones they actually have!

The main problem with Labour swinging back to the left would be the withdrawal of support by the Murdoch press and the Blair-friendly oligarchs that made their 1997 bid possible. That, unfortunately, is a function of the times we live in. As much as I’d love the kind of Labour Party that Cheesy @23 describes, the fact is that the global business interests that make the decisions woudl never allow a party like that to govern a Western nation state.