Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

Should that read Labour's Kerfuffle?;)

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

Or Labour’s lambasting? There are any number of ways to describe the utter mess Labour is in after last night. Hartlepool wasn’t just a loss, it was an absolute evisceration.

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

Interesting comment in the Times today.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/h...tion-cddx0m9z5 The Conservatives have also gained Northumberland County Council and Dudley County Council from NOC.

---------- Post added at 12:39 ---------- Previous post was at 11:59 ----------

I thought this comment on Twitter was quite apposite.

And a good reply

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

It's just Labour that has had it's day. They tried going further to the Left and failed, they tried to bring it back to the centre and are failing.

The Tories are winning in the exLabour heartlands because they're not talking politics, they're talking economy, regeneration and Labour are talking curtains.

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

I’ve been pondering the extent to which UKIP/Brexit Party has acted as a sort of gateway drug for traditional Labour voters. Once the Labour voting habit is broken, and the reason for the Brexit vote is dealt with, many of them have perhaps taken a pragmatic look at which party best aligns with their views in a way that would have been difficult just 10 years ago.

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

Yet going further to the left appears more popular than wallowing in the centre. However rather than stay in and water it down Blairite after Blairite undermined the message and week after week the Observer got someone to write about anti-Semitism.

Biden won because he managed to hold together the left and the centre. And wasn't Trump. Labour have made no effort to coalesce around some point left of centre and further left than a Blairite position.

You are right though in that they don't have a message for their former voters. We are only seeing now in England what has happened in Glasgow and Central Scotland over the past ten years.

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

Very sage, I think their failure to respond to their decline in Scotland has indeed just spread throughout England,

One option out of it is to somehow double down on of the woke, youth, metropolitan left and see if they can reinvent themselves more along a newer Green/Lib-dem path, but they've lost the working class.

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

Well if the Hartlepool result wasn't a bad enough result for Labour, it appears I've now got a new Conservative councillor.

Wakefield East is one of those council wards where you usually wonder why the other parties even bother, well yesterday things changed. At the last election in 2019 it was a poor showing for Labour winning with only 56.9% of the votes when normally it's well over 60%. Yesterday the Labour candidate managed only 44.5% losing by 48 votes. The remaining 2 Labour councillors in the ward are probably worrying what the future holds for them.

I don't know what the answer is but I know what it isn't and that is letting this country drift in to a one party state (extreme words - but you know what I mean!). Keir comes across as a nice honest chap with good intentions, which is a plus, but his get up and go seems to have got up and gone and he's just got nothing about him. As competence doesn't seem to be a prerequisite for the top job any more, Labour need to find someone who appeals to the masses and makes them laugh and is brazen enough to not feel they're suffering from imposter syndrome.

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

Sir Keir's policy was to have few policies and to focus on the government's handling of the pandemic. Unfortunately for him, after a poor start, the government delivered on solving the pandemic crisis and he didn't have much of a leg to stand on.

His only consolation must be that incumbent parties in the three British nations have performed well, perhaps reflecting the public's satisfaction with the vaccines roll-out even if this success is due more to Kate Bingham's team than anything in the devolved nations.

Overall, I still think "Mind the values gap" nails it - the average British voter is left of centre economically and right of centre socially and the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson is successfully occupying this territory.

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

You complain about Wakefield East usually being "one of those council wards where you usually wonder why the other parties even bother" and now changing, but then complain about a possible "one-party state. :confused: So for you, a "one-party state" is perfectly ok, as long as it's a party you support.:rolleyes: You were happy with your local council constantly being ruled by a particular party, and are now unhappy at any suggestion that may no longer be the case.

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

I think you’re extrapolating meaning from his post that isn’t there.

One can reasonably hold up a seat (in Parliament or council) as one of those places we wonder why the opposition even bother. We all know these “safe” seats exist - there’s no purpose in denying they do. Maybe the media froth about them too much but they undoubtedly exist.

Drifting to a “one party” state is unhealthy regardless of the party. Or is that just Scotland....

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

You couldn't be further from the mark :rolleyes: :rolleyes:. I don't recall saying if I approved of the Labour monopoly or not in our ward :confused:, as is the case in many local council wards the individual councillors are pretty ineffective and I can't see that changing with the new mix of political parties 'representing' the area. I certainly didn't say I was happy with my local council constantly being ruled by one party. One party constantly being in control in my opinion will only lead to laziness and complacency and on a national level would be nothing but bad :nono:.

I will say however, that I DO TAKE EXCEPTION with being told what does and doesn't make me happy and what I do and don't like :mad:,

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

You said "I don't know what the answer is but I know what it isn't and that is letting this country drift in to a one party state". Answer to what? Labour losing seats. Drifting implies a change, a change from Labour winning seats to Labour losing them. So from your own post, you are unhappy with Labour losing seats, and want an answer to that "problem". For the "problem" to go away would mean Labour winning seats. Asking "I don't know how Labour think they are going to stop losing seats", might be considered not to be taking sides.

If you consider that your local council is lazy and complacent, then shouldn't you be welcoming Labour losing council seats, although it won't make any difference.
Wakefield Express

If I've got things right, then before the vote, Labour already had a majority with 33 seats. They couldn't be voted out.

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

Well that's assumption for you :rolleyes:. The 'I don't know what the answer is' comment was referring to the thread's (new) title. I don't know what the answer is to stop the issues Labour are having but I do know carry on as they are doing isn't. I'm really not that bothered either way who wins or loses because with the political mediocrity we have I've not felt in my adult lifetime that there's been a government that has completely represented my views.

I don't necessarily think our local council is lazy or complacent - that's just you telling me what I think again. At the moment we have a system where central government can and does step in when a local authority is deemed to be failing. Would they do it to a local council controlled by the same party as the government? Maybe we'll find out the way we're going.

Re: Sir Keir’s Kerfuffle
 

Must be nice to live in a town where the council does change hands from time to time. It must keep local politicians on their toes. Never happened in Gosport since it’s inception as a political ward.