Local By -elections, November 30th, 2017

[Deleted]

Nov 30, 2017 23:54:36 GMT Khunanup said:

Nov 30, 2017 23:45:49 GMT @barnabymarder said:

You mean, general elections which the Lib Dems don't win don't matter, and local by-elections which the Lib Dems sometimes do win do. Fair dos. Personally I don't like losing seats at any level, but I'd swap a landslide defeat in a local by-election in Gosport for a narrow gain of a Tory seat in a general election any day. That doesn't make me cynical, it just means that I have a set of priorities. Congratulations to the LDs on their wins tonight - is Torrington counting tonight?

My comments were aimed squarely at Mike who has expressed almost Stalin levels of cynicism (I'm not comparing his politics to Stalin, just the attitude) in terms of political expediencies on here recently.

I've said on here many times before that our long hard path back is built on the back of rebuilding our local government base so it's a question of priorities, values and strategy. That's why these things matter to us but appear to be semi-relevant to you. I happen to think that you're storing up enormous problems for the future by prioritising what you are but that's your look out.

"Stalin levels of cynicism"

Says a spokesman from a party that is soft anti-Tory in the South and hard anti-Labour in the north. Mike is no cynic, he tells it as it is, this may make some uncomfortable but there you are.....

[Adam in Stroud]

Dec 1, 2017 7:09:31 GMT @williamhone1780 said:

Nov 30, 2017 23:54:36 GMT Khunanup said:

My comments were aimed squarely at Mike who has expressed almost Stalin levels of cynicism (I'm not comparing his politics to Stalin, just the attitude) in terms of political expediencies on here recently.

I've said on here many times before that our long hard path back is built on the back of rebuilding our local government base so it's a question of priorities, values and strategy. That's why these things matter to us but appear to be semi-relevant to you. I happen to think that you're storing up enormous problems for the future by prioritising what you are but that's your look out.

"Stalin levels of cynicism"

Says a spokesman from a party that is soft anti-Tory in the South and hard anti-Labour in the north. Mike is no cynic, he tells it as it is, this may make some uncomfortable but there you are.....

We're anti-Tory and anti-Labour because we think both of them were wrong.  We think both of them miss the point through their origins as class warfare parties and their respective allegiances to either unfettered free market or state interventionist dogma as a solution to not only the economy but everything else too.  That may come as a shock to people who think that our job is to act as a Trojan Horse for Labour, taking the Tories on in places Labour is weak: well, tough shit. The latter approach would be a sight more cynical.

We face different ways in north v south because that is the nature of the strengths of the bigger parties - we don't shape the battleground, sadly. Incidentally, the reason we are traditionally strong in the West Country and "Celtic fringes" because as this north v south shorthand shows, the big two barely acknowledge they exist let alone have a clue as to what is needed there or even what the rest of the country could learn from them. (Same is to seem extent true of the SNP.)

[Adam in Stroud]

I don't discount all Merseymike says btw, the lack of real power for local government is a disgrace, real power is at Westminster and we're nowhere near it, and it is a problem producing a national programme that knits together different local responses. I'm tempted to "like" several of his posts on this thread.

But apart from the basic point that in our position we fight to win wherever we can, its classic guerrilla warfare, I totally disagree on his approach re casework. Much of the problem in this country is the lack of variation off response, of failure to recognise that national policies that work for London don't work for Birmingham or vice versa, that we can have a houses no-one can afford in the south and ones no-one will buy in Stoke. That would be more obvious to policy-makers if they engaged with the public more. We've had Brexit because we didn't listen to populism enough

[yellowperil]

On the issue of Brexit in relation to local election results, I certainly do not believe 4 Lib Dem wins in a week indicates a massive shift in public opinion on Europe and it would be stupid to suggest otherwise. After all, last week there were no Lib Dem wins at all out of 10, so this week was in a sense just an averaging up. However 4 good wins are significant especially when some were in strongly Leave territory, which suggests to me at local level at least the Europe issue is no longer toxic for Lib Dems even in such areas. The scale of the collapse of UKIP and the weak performance of Tories seems to say that the pro-Brexit lobby is now on the back foot, but that may just mean the public at large are thoroughly bored with the whole thing.

[Adam in Stroud]

Sorry for typos, doing this on the run: Micro vs macro: in the 90s and noughties I worked in advice and casework; anyone who did debt work was predicting a credit crunch from about 1992 onwards, the big surprise was that it didn't happen sooner. (People I know who still do are getting pretty worried now too, btw. In the 90s rampant debt-selling as a major part of the economy - aka financial services - was a big problem, now I think it is more that people just can't pay their regular bills without borrowing). Failure to spot the micro gave us the mother of all macro problems.

Also obvious "micro" problems were lack of job security, the low wages resulting, that work was no longer an automatic escape from poverty, the end of council housing as a realistic aspiration for anyone other than those hit by a catastrophe, and the pain in the arse that is private renting. Plenty of the victims said all this was down to (a) single mothers (b) asylum seekers (c) malingerers, who were the hate targets of the tabloids before EU expansion and FoM came in. Does any of this start to ring any bells?

[beastofbedfordshire]

Dec 1, 2017 0:58:16 GMT Khunanup said:

The response to these results are as ever beautifully illuminating.

Any sign of jigger by the way?

His account is very strange, looks like its been deleted.

[Deleted]

Dec 1, 2017 8:50:57 GMT beastofbedfordshire said:

Dec 1, 2017 0:58:16 GMT Khunanup said:

The response to these results are as ever beautifully illuminating.

Any sign of jigger by the way?

His account is very strange, looks like its been deleted.

No it hasn't, though he hasn't posted for a while.

[finsobruce]

Dec 1, 2017 1:28:05 GMT nigelashton said:

Dec 1, 2017 0:40:59 GMT middleenglander said:

Gosport, Bridgemary North - Liberal Democrat gain from Labour
Maidstone, Maidstone North - Liberal Democrat gain from Conservative
Tandridge, Westway - Liberal Democrat hold
Torridge, Torrington - Liberal Democrat gain from UKIP

Nicely ecumenical!

That would be a psephological matter.....

[finsobruce]

Dec 1, 2017 0:58:16 GMT Khunanup said:

The response to these results are as ever beautifully illuminating.

Any sign of jigger by the way?

I'm 86.1% certain i haven't seen him recently.

[markf]

is Maidstone North in the PMs constituency?

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Dec 1, 2017 9:34:23 GMT markf said:

is Maidstone North in the PMs constituency?

No because she represents Maidenhead.

[yellowperil]

Nov 30, 2017 23:47:22 GMT Merseymike said:

Nov 30, 2017 23:39:06 GMT Khunanup said:

I'm afraid this says more about you than about local politics Mike. 

I think the sham is the stuff you peddle, frankly.
I tend to think there are far too many councillors anyway, and the cabinet system has essentially given them nothing to do other than this sort of stuff, which certainly doesn't require elected people and the bureaucracy which surrounds them.
The way the LibDem vote regularly disappears, moving to just about every other party, displays that its nothing but localist populism, which has done no good for politics at all. Keep the non-political out of elected politics, keep councillors as policy makers, and look for ways of enabling local residents to deal with some of these practical matters, but bringing it into the party political arena does very little to empower communities and has just created another layer of amateur know-alls who take credit for just about everything.

Unlike some I will not dismiss this as cynicism but I do think its a mixture of truth  and misunderstanding I find quite sad. The criticism of Lib Dems you make here and I hear it all the time, mainly from the left but sometimes from the right, is not totally unfounded, tbh. There are people in the party who are undoubtedly opportunistic and prepared to say anything to get a vote. Every party has them. On the whole I would say there are more of them in the big two parties , because it's easier to get votes from inside the big two without putting in so much effort yourself. But such people are ultimately found out, and with the more slender fabric of the Lib Dems that can lead to total collapses locally, often when good people move on and those clinging to their shirttails  are left behind. This happens. It is not though the general story.

Then ,moving on to the subject of local government v national government. I was one of those who opposed the introduction of cabinet government into local politics and got out shortly after its introduction. I would like to keep policy making as widely based, indeed community based, as possible. I favour community forums, often at ward level, and the use of select committees for policy review, the absolute opposite of  the all powerful individual policy making councillor. Councillors should be very much part of their community not a remote all-knowing cabal. So often now back bench councillors have nothing to do except plot mischief- its all wrong.  To some extent the same applies to some backbenchers in Parliament as well and it used to be more the case, but the greater use of select committees has done a lot to improve that ( more to be done there). The idea of scrutiny committees in local government has I think been allowed to fail when I believe it had great potential - early in the days of cabinet government I chaired a scrutiny committee and started some interesting work bringing in the community, but we were then reined in by the executive and told we were exceeding our powers, even though I had all-party support for what we were doing. A great shame, I think

[markf]

Yes of course sorry David,

[Merseymike]

I agree with a lot of that yellowperil

If we are honest, too, and this isn't a party political point, I think the hope that the cream would rise to the top in terms of the cabinet system, has not happened, and its far more a case of jobs for the cronies. Ability has nothing to do with it.

Community forums can work, but more often than not, they end up dominated by the self-appointed and the professional meeting attender.

My own view is that if we want effective local government, we have to give them responsibility, but to do that means they will and should be under much closer scrutiny.

The localist populism is something I dislike heartily, and I know all parties can be guilty of it, but in my experience the LibDems are by far the worst, because there seems to be nothing much knitting them together except 'localism' - and localism without a firm bed of ideology is populist and dangerous. Localism has for many of them become the ideology.

[ricmk]

What a set of results! Well done to all Lib Dem teams involved. Really looking forward to reading the ConservativeHome by-election review thread later

[Merseymike]

Dec 1, 2017 8:46:34 GMT Adam in Stroud said:

Sorry for typos, doing this on the run: Micro vs macro: in the 90s and noughties I worked in advice and casework; anyone who did debt work was predicting a credit crunch from about 1992 onwards, the big surprise was that it didn't happen sooner. (People I know who still do are getting pretty worried now too, btw. In the 90s rampant debt-selling as a major part of the economy - aka financial services - was a big problem, now I think it is more that people just can't pay their regular bills without borrowing). Failure to spot the micro gave us the mother of all macro problems.

Also obvious "micro" problems were lack of job security, the low wages resulting, that work was no longer an automatic escape from poverty, the end of council housing as a realistic aspiration for anyone other than those hit by a catastrophe, and the pain in the arse that is private renting. Plenty of the victims said all this was down to (a) single mothers (b) asylum seekers (c) malingerers, who were the hate targets of the tabloids before EU expansion and FoM came in. Does any of this start to ring any bells?

But they weren't really 'micro' problems, but a direct result of the macro - loss of the value of benefits, low wages, the way that the banks allowed people to build up credit without the ability to pay it back.
I was a CAB deputy manager at the time so remember what you say very well

I'd also add that the culture of debt and wanting everything now has got far worse. Debt is now viewed as acceptable and not something to be concerned about.

[Merseymike]

Dec 1, 2017 8:09:11 GMT Adam in Stroud said:

Dec 1, 2017 7:09:31 GMT @williamhone1780 said:

"Stalin levels of cynicism"

Says a spokesman from a party that is soft anti-Tory in the South and hard anti-Labour in the north. Mike is no cynic, he tells it as it is, this may make some uncomfortable but there you are.....

We're anti-Tory and anti-Labour because we think both of them were wrong.  We think both of them miss the point through their origins as class warfare parties and their respective allegiances to either unfettered free market or state interventionist dogma as a solution to not only the economy but everything else too.  That may come as a shock to people who think that our job is to act as a Trojan Horse for Labour, taking the Tories on in places Labour is weak: well, tough shit. The latter approach would be a sight more cynical.

We face different ways in north v south because that is the nature of the strengths of the bigger parties - we don't shape the battleground, sadly. Incidentally, the reason we are traditionally strong in the West Country and "Celtic fringes" because as this north v south shorthand shows, the big two barely acknowledge they exist let alone have a clue as to what is needed there or even what the rest of the country could learn from them. (Same is to seem extent true of the SNP.)

In other words, we are an opportunistic principle-free zone

[Merseymike]

Dec 1, 2017 8:38:33 GMT yellowperil said:

On the issue of Brexit in relation to local election results, I certainly do not believe 4 Lib Dem wins in a week indicates a massive shift in public opinion on Europe and it would be stupid to suggest otherwise. After all, last week there were no Lib Dem wins at all out of 10, so this week was in a sense just an averaging up. However 4 good wins are significant especially when some were in strongly Leave territory, which suggests to me at local level at least the Europe issue is no longer toxic for Lib Dems even in such areas. The scale of the collapse of UKIP and the weak performance of Tories seems to say that the pro-Brexit lobby is now on the back foot, but that may just mean the public at large are thoroughly bored with the whole thing.

It never was.....

[iain]

Dec 1, 2017 10:08:57 GMT Merseymike said:

Dec 1, 2017 8:38:33 GMT yellowperil said:

On the issue of Brexit in relation to local election results, I certainly do not believe 4 Lib Dem wins in a week indicates a massive shift in public opinion on Europe and it would be stupid to suggest otherwise. After all, last week there were no Lib Dem wins at all out of 10, so this week was in a sense just an averaging up. However 4 good wins are significant especially when some were in strongly Leave territory, which suggests to me at local level at least the Europe issue is no longer toxic for Lib Dems even in such areas. The scale of the collapse of UKIP and the weak performance of Tories seems to say that the pro-Brexit lobby is now on the back foot, but that may just mean the public at large are thoroughly bored with the whole thing.

It never was.....

Incorrect

[iain]

Dec 1, 2017 10:07:45 GMT Merseymike said:

Dec 1, 2017 8:09:11 GMT Adam in Stroud said:

We're anti-Tory and anti-Labour because we think both of them were wrong.  We think both of them miss the point through their origins as class warfare parties and their respective allegiances to either unfettered free market or state interventionist dogma as a solution to not only the economy but everything else too.  That may come as a shock to people who think that our job is to act as a Trojan Horse for Labour, taking the Tories on in places Labour is weak: well, tough shit. The latter approach would be a sight more cynical.

We face different ways in north v south because that is the nature of the strengths of the bigger parties - we don't shape the battleground, sadly. Incidentally, the reason we are traditionally strong in the West Country and "Celtic fringes" because as this north v south shorthand shows, the big two barely acknowledge they exist let alone have a clue as to what is needed there or even what the rest of the country could learn from them. (Same is to seem extent true of the SNP.)

In other words, we are an opportunistic principle-free zone

Just because our principles aren’t extreme doesn’t mean we don’t have any. Similarly, the likes of Davıd Boothroyd aren’t unprincipled just because they don’t agree with you.