Oldham West and Royton

[Merseymike]

Dec 6, 2015 22:59:00 GMT thirdchill said:

Dec 6, 2015 22:47:51 GMT Merseymike said:

Definitely not. Far too gung-ho.

The women of the Greenham Common peace camp would be too gun-ho for you

But lots of Labour party members would be reluctant to vote for him. Particularly the membership as it now stands

[carlton43]

Dec 6, 2015 23:21:19 GMT Merseymike said:

Dec 6, 2015 22:59:00 GMT thirdchill said:

The women of the Greenham Common peace camp would be too gun-ho for you

But lots of Labour party members would be reluctant to vote for him. Particularly the membership as it now stands

Bugger the Rent-A-Moron rabble you recently signed up to achieve your tendency shift: Do you want to win the GE or not?

[Sibboleth]

Jarvis is a bit of a cipher at present, so who knows?

[Davıd Boothroyd]

The theory that ex-military people voted into political office turn out to be jingoistic is unsupported by evidence. If anything the opposite is the case because they know the limits of military power and the effect of fighting wars on the people doing the fighting.

[Merseymike]

Dec 7, 2015 0:15:08 GMT carlton43 said:

Dec 6, 2015 23:21:19 GMT Merseymike said:

But lots of Labour party members would be reluctant to vote for him. Particularly the membership as it now stands

Bugger the Rent-A-Moron rabble you recently signed up to achieve your tendency shift: Do you want to win the GE or not?

I wouldn't vote for Jarvis as leader under any circumstances. I am in favour of the changes in the party because I don't think there's any point in winning the General Election if we then do much the same as the Conservatives.
And the new members in our constituency who I facilitated a session on Labour party history this morning appeared to be a good, varied bunch of people to me - aged from late teens to late seventies, many different backgrounds, but all very much supportive of the party leadership. They are the real Labour party, not Blair and his group of besuited clones spouting marketing-speak

[Merseymike]

Dec 7, 2015 0:23:53 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

The theory that ex-military people voted into political office turn out to be jingoistic is unsupported by evidence. If anything the opposite is the case because they know the limits of military power and the effect of fighting wars on the people doing the fighting.

He voted for Syrian intervention, and no-one who does that will have my vote. There are so many others I would vote for in preference.

[carlton43]

Dec 7, 2015 0:37:16 GMT Merseymike said:

Dec 7, 2015 0:15:08 GMT carlton43 said:

Bugger the Rent-A-Moron rabble you recently signed up to achieve your tendency shift: Do you want to win the GE or not?

I wouldn't vote for Jarvis as leader under any circumstances. I am in favour of the changes in the party because I don't think there's any point in winning the General Election if we then do much the same as the Conservatives.
And the new members in our constituency who I facilitated a session on Labour party history this morning appeared to be a good, varied bunch of people to me - aged from late teens to late seventies, many different backgrounds, but all very much supportive of the party leadership. They are the real Labour party, not Blair and his group of besuited clones spouting marketing-speak

Well: Again we honourably differ on this. I probably will never get this 'proper' and 'purity' streak as I see politics as messy and about getting as much as one prgmatically can and I am not hooked on too much policy. You on the other hand see Blairism and similar tendencies to be too close to Conservative rule to be worth it? I was so pleased to see the end of Blair/Brown because there really was a difference. You it seems would rather live in purity than with an actual Conservative Administration and I don't understand that at all.

Now, you may well cut back to me and say 'Look Carlton you are out of the Conservatives and into UKIP because of policy differences, and we remember you posting in the run-up to May a desire to see Cameron/Conservatives beaten even at expense of a Labour Administration. What is the difference?' That is a well made point, but the difference is that I was hung up on two crucial issues of EU and Immigration and saw no chance of resolution on either until the was a mega-shift of opinion in the Conservative Party caused by our opposition. That has largely worked so I might return. If I was in the Conservative Party I would want it to win on any terms at all so as to deny Labour............However close I thought the ideas and policies to be.........And they have been very close at times. But crucially there is a different mood/tenor/nuance in how one's own party behaves that is always worth having them in power, however much they may disappoint.

[johnsmith]

Dec 6, 2015 19:50:55 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Dec 5, 2015 18:02:59 GMT johnsmith said:

Here is my take on the outcome of the Oldham by-election

Yes, the seat has been Labour for decades, and regularly voted for an avowed left winger in Michael Meacher. So we should not be surprised by the fact that Labour won. But what we should take note of is the fact that the size of the Labour majority was so much larger. And with elements of the media openly touting this beforehand as something akin to a referendum on Corbyn, that is telling. Clearly, widespread expectations of a drop in support for Labour did not materialise. UKIP were utterly trounced, and no one else came anywhere. If this truly were the first referendum on Corbyn, he has won it. And we do have to question, in light of this, just how tuned in the media commentariat are to the pulse of the nation. After all, very few of them come from the demographics the Labour left appeals to anymore.

But it is only one byelection in a seat which always backed a left winger. The real test comes in May next year. But I have a sneaking suspicion that Labour will do better than many of it's critics hope and expect. Because no one in the commentariat is really engaging with the forgotten millions for whom Corbyn and the Labour left offer hope. No one in the commentariat is showing much engagement with their concerns. They are the silent forgotten millions. But the vote of each one of them has the same value as each of those whom the commentariat do engage with incessantly. And some of these people will suddenly show up when it comes to voting, however much the media fails to recognise them. There is a tentative but growing groundswell of potential support out there which is so far going unnoticed under the radar. 

The parallel in my mind is the Kensington & Chelsea by-election under Hague's tenure.  Safe seat, increase in share of the vote, everyone back-slapped each other.  And then within two years Labour won a crushing victory.

The silent, forgotten millions were a myth then, and they are a myth now.  Take Oldham West.  The turnout reduced from 59.6% to 40.3%, despite it being a high-profile election where it was expected to be tight.  If there are missing millions just waiting to vote for Labour, then Oldham has more of them in December than it did in May.

Three things need to be pointed out here.

Firstly, by-election turnouts generally tend to be lower than turnouts in general elections, simply because by-elections change next to nothing in terms of the governance of the land. Doesn't alter the fact that in an election which the media and UKIP and others touted as some kind of referendum on Corbyn, Labour's share of the vote went up. So clearly more non-Labour voters stayed away than Labour ones.

Secondly, the missing millions proved to be anything but a myth in Scotland once many of them were motivated to vote for what they were persuaded was real change.

And thirdly, this country has been governed in large measure from the right, within the constraints of the Thatcherite consensus, for decades. So why would there be large numbers of forgotten Tories? It is the millions left behind by the Thatcherite consensus - the primary victims of it - who are the forgotten ones. And their forgotten concerns - extortionate private rents, zero security of tenure, chronic lack of social housing, extortionate house prices, low pay, lack of employment rights, highly insecure and exploitative working contracts, high utility bills, gross inequality, lack of access to justice, arbitrary and draconian persecution from Jobcentre bigots without effective oversight or appeal - well let's just say that these missing millions are hardly in the disgruntled Tory camp, lol.

[johnsmith]

Dec 7, 2015 0:15:08 GMT carlton43 said:

Dec 6, 2015 23:21:19 GMT Merseymike said:

But lots of Labour party members would be reluctant to vote for him. Particularly the membership as it now stands

Bugger the Rent-A-Moron rabble you recently signed up to achieve your tendency shift: Do you want to win the GE or not?

Pots and kettles spring to mind here.

There is something highly and amusingly ironic about a supporter of UKIP talking about a rent-a-moron rabble, lol

[Devil Wincarnate]

But the turnout in Scotland last time was 71.1%,only 5% higher than the UK as a whole. 28.9% of the population still didn't vote. If they thought Labour weren't left-wing enough, and nor a SNP on the crest of a wave, who are these people going to vote for?

A 5% increase in the turnout does not explain a 30% swing to the SNP.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Let's also note lessons from abroad here.

At the last Dutch general election, with loads of parties to vote for who could get in, and under PR, 25.4% of the electorate did not vote.

At the last German general election, under similar circumstances but using MMP, 28.4% of the population did not vote.


At the last Belgian general election, held under compulsory voting, 10.5% did not vote.

In 1983, with a Labour Party offering the most left-wing manifesto in years in a stark ideological battle, 27.3% of the electorate did not vote.

In 1992, with the Tories achieving the record vote total, 22.3% still did not vote.


In 2015, with an apparent surge for parties to Labour's left and the Conservative Right, 33.9% still did not vote.

You are quite correct that these voters are unlikely to join the Tory camp. But unless there is polling of serial non-voters that shows otherwise, there's not much chance of more than a few percent voting for anyone at all.

[johnsmith]

Dec 7, 2015 7:54:17 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Let's also note lessons from abroad here.

At the last Dutch general election, with loads of parties to vote for who could get in, and under PR, 25.4% of the electorate did not vote.

At the last German general election, under similar circumstances but using MMP, 28.4% of the population did not vote.


At the last Belgian general election, held under compulsory voting, 10.5% did not vote.

In 1983, with a Labour Party offering the most left-wing manifesto in years in a stark ideological battle, 27.3% of the electorate did not vote.

In 1992, with the Tories achieving the record vote total, 22.3% still did not vote.


In 2015, with an apparent surge for parties to Labour's left and the Conservative Right, 33.9% still did not vote.

You are quite correct that these voters are unlikely to join the Tory camp. But unless there is polling of serial non-voters that shows otherwise, there's not much chance of more than a few percent voting for anyone at all.

All very good points, it's true. And you may well prove to be right in the end. But the fact is that significant numbers of such people WERE motivated to vote in Scotland, so it CAN happen. Amongst the millions of victims left behind by the Thatcherite consensus are substantial numbers of very angry cynics, convinced than no politicians of any party give a damn about them. The SNP has proven that if you can convince them that you'll recognise and stand up for their concerns and convince them that you want radical change in their favour to the status quo, then substantial numbers can be motivated.

And we differ from these foreign examples in ways inherent in your own post. Our voting system is very different from theirs, our political choices as a result being much more costrained. In nations with PR, people have the opportunity to vote for parties wanting real change, but see not enough others doing so to make it happen. And so nothing does really change, reinforcing the cynicism. We, however, have never really been given a viable vote for change option in the first place so are potentially more open to a genuine viable offer. 

It is also the case that the foreign nations you cite are not suffering to anything like the same extent as we are from the tenets of Thatcherism, precisely because they had PR. They by and large do not need food banks, provide secure and affordable and decent rented accommodation and offer better employment rights, with substantially lower levels of homelessness and inequality. In short, there are fewer angry citizens with less to be angry about.

So comparisons with other EU nations are very, shall we say, tangential to the situation here in many ways.

[Devil Wincarnate]

I'm afraid I cannot agree with you on the idea that they have less to be angry about. Fortuynism in the Netherlands, the AfD and Die Linke in Germany, the Sweden Democrats- this is all populist stuff from electorates who really are angry. I was in Sweden a few months ago- everyone's favourite social democratic paradise is covered in posters for a hard-right party that barely existed a few years ago. There is always a hardcore who will not be shifted, and won't ever stand themselves.

On Scotland, those were not by and large new voters. It was existing voters switching. It must be remembered that, with the SNP articulating exactly the same message, turnout was under 55% at the last Scottish Parliamentary election.

If turnout at the next Scottish election breaches 75%, with Corbyn's Labour and the SNP duking it out, I will happily send a tenner to your charity of choice, JS. Can't say fairer than that!

[johnsmith]

Dec 7, 2015 7:41:27 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

But the turnout in Scotland last time was 71.1%,only 5% higher than the UK as a whole. 28.9% of the population still didn't vote. If they thought Labour weren't left-wing enough, and nor a SNP on the crest of a wave, who are these people going to vote for?

A 5% increase in the turnout does not explain a 30% swing to the SNP.

That is of course perfectly true.

What did it was a combination of those extra disgruntled non-voters deciding to show up and make their voices heard - the 5% if you like - in combination with significant defections from Labour and Lib Dem voters over to the SNP. Added to this was the fact that a larger proportion of newer voters - ie the young - voted SNP, whilst the current older generation - who are least likely to - are gradually passing away.

Incidentally, this means that demography is not on the side of the Union in the long term unless large numbers of the Scottish young can be persuaded to buy into it. For that, a mainstream Unionist party needs to be offering the kind of credible and substantial change they are crying out for. Only Labour can really hope to do that, though in the short term the political centrifugal forces have probably gone too far. We may have to learn to live with an SNP dominated Scotland for some time, and try and save the Union by electing to Westminster south of the border Unionist politicians who nevertheless want the same changes - short of Scottish independence - that the young people of Scotland want.

In blunt simple terms it boils down to this. Which do we regard as more valuable? The preservation of the Thatcherite consensus? Or the preservation of the United Kingdom? Because we cannot have both. The Scots will simply not accept the former. If it should come to replacing Corbyn as Labour leader, this needs to be clearly understood. The Yvette Coopers, and certainly the Liz Kendall's of the party just won't cut it. We need far more radical change than that. And my party needs to understand that, from left to right.

[johnsmith]

Dec 7, 2015 8:32:10 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

I'm afraid I cannot agree with you on the idea that they have less to be angry about. Fortuynism in the Netherlands, the AfD and Die Linke in Germany, the Sweden Democrats- this is all populist stuff from electorates who really are angry. I was in Sweden a few months ago- everyone's favourite social democratic paradise is covered in posters for a hard-right party that barely existed a few years ago. There is always a hardcore who will not be shifted, and won't ever stand themselves.

On Scotland, those were not by and large new voters. It was existing voters switching. It must be remembered that, with the SNP articulating exactly the same message, turnout was under 55% at the last Scottish Parliamentary election.

If turnout at the next Scottish election breaches 75%, with Corbyn's Labour and the SNP duking it out, I will happily send a tenner to your charity of choice, JS. Can't say fairer than that!

It is too early to agree bets of any kind. So much is still up in the air. We do not know with any certainty who will be Labour leader in 2020 or with what policies. We don't know what the outcome of the EU referendum will be, or whether this or anything else will be used to trigger a second Scottish independence referendum, and what political effect this will have.

But a little closer to the election when we are not standing upon such shifting sands, I will be happy to stake money on this or that outcome, with the loser donating a tenner to the other's charity of choice. So keep that idea on hold and we'll return to it. 

[Deleted]

Dec 7, 2015 7:41:27 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

But the turnout in Scotland last time was 71.1%,only 5% higher than the UK as a whole. 28.9% of the population still didn't vote. If they thought Labour weren't left-wing enough, and nor a SNP on the crest of a wave, who are these people going to vote for?

A 5% increase in the turnout does not explain a 30% swing to the SNP.

Might have something to do with the SNP being the only organisation functioning as a Political movement throughout Scotland.

[East Anglian Lefty]

Dec 7, 2015 7:41:27 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

But the turnout in Scotland last time was 71.1%,only 5% higher than the UK as a whole. 28.9% of the population still didn't vote. If they thought Labour weren't left-wing enough, and nor a SNP on the crest of a wave, who are these people going to vote for?

A 5% increase in the turnout does not explain a 30% swing to the SNP.

It doesn't. That said, a 5% increase in turnout is not to be sniffed at.

[johnsmith]

Dec 7, 2015 10:16:30 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

Dec 7, 2015 7:41:27 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

But the turnout in Scotland last time was 71.1%,only 5% higher than the UK as a whole. 28.9% of the population still didn't vote. If they thought Labour weren't left-wing enough, and nor a SNP on the crest of a wave, who are these people going to vote for?

A 5% increase in the turnout does not explain a 30% swing to the SNP.

It doesn't. That said, a 5% increase in turnout is not to be sniffed at.

Indeed, especially if most of them have been motivated to turn out in support of one particular party.

Imagine what could be achieved if an extra 5% turned out in England, and most of them supported us? It is worth aiming for instead of writing these people off in terms of political calculations.

Other parties and their supporters would rather we dismissed them as inevitable non-voters, because they know their parties will never persuade them and the only ones who can is us. Let's not agree with their assessment and give up on them too.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Dec 7, 2015 10:57:12 GMT johnsmith said:

Dec 7, 2015 10:16:30 GMT East Anglian Lefty said:

A 5% increase in turnout is not to be sniffed at.

Indeed, especially if most of them have been motivated to turn out in support of one particular party.

Imagine what could be achieved if an extra 5% turned out in England, and most of them supported us? It is worth aiming for instead of writing these people off in terms of political calculations.

Other parties and their supporters would rather we dismissed them as inevitable non-voters, because they know their parties will never persuade them and the only ones who can is us. Let's not agree with their assessment and give up on them too.

Oh no, not the 'non-voters fallacy' again. It's been shown to be an electoral blind alley so many times and still it refuses to die, probably because it is a crutch for those who don't have any other way of arguing that their approach is electorally successful. But one more time:

1) Differential turnout does exist but can't be manipulated.
2) Campaigning to raise the turnout expends a great deal of energy for little results.
3) The idea that non-voters are to the left of voters generally is not true.
4) The one thing that does distinguish non-voters from voters is - they don't vote.

[johnsmith]

Dec 5, 2015 19:15:23 GMT finsobruce said:

Dec 5, 2015 18:02:59 GMT johnsmith said:

Here is my take on the outcome of the Oldham by-election

Yes, the seat has been Labour for decades, and regularly voted for an avowed left winger in Michael Meacher. So we should not be surprised by the fact that Labour won. But what we should take note of is the fact that the size of the Labour majority was so much larger. And with elements of the media openly touting this beforehand as something akin to a referendum on Corbyn, that is telling. Clearly, widespread expectations of a drop in support for Labour did not materialise. UKIP were utterly trounced, and no one else came anywhere. If this truly were the first referendum on Corbyn, he has won it. And we do have to question, in light of this, just how tuned in the media commentariat are to the pulse of the nation. After all, very few of them come from the demographics the Labour left appeals to anymore.

But it is only one byelection in a seat which always backed a left winger. The real test comes in May next year. But I have a sneaking suspicion that Labour will do better than many of it's critics hope and expect. Because no one in the commentariat is really engaging with the forgotten millions for whom Corbyn and the Labour left offer hope. No one in the commentariat is showing much engagement with their concerns. They are the silent forgotten millions. But the vote of each one of them has the same value as each of those whom the commentariat do engage with incessantly. And some of these people will suddenly show up when it comes to voting, however much the media fails to recognise them. There is a tentative but growing groundswell of potential support out there which is so far going unnoticed under the radar.

We will be in for a few surprises in May. And the reaction of the commentariat to that will be most amusing to behold. Unless of course the likes of Simon Danczuk succeed in destabilising the party so much that everything is gifted to the Tories. I genuinely believe people like him view a Tory government as a lesser evil than a Corbyn one. That's the only way his actions make any logical sense.

The size of the majority was so much larger than what? This is to all intents and purposes a safe Labour seat. Given that we are not in government, this is exactly how you would hope a seat like that would poll in a by election. The seat has been Labour since the Second World War and Labour won its predecessor only twice before that. Meacher's predecessor Leslie Hale was a former Liberal very involved in the campaign to abolish the death penalty (he wrote books on the subject). It was only lost (by Meacher of course) in 1968 as the Wilson government was at the nadir of its fortunes.  Given the extreme likelihood of McMahon being the candidate it was one of the easiest by elections that Labour could have faced following a general election. As Robert Waller wisely points out UKIP have been polling well below their general election and pre general election average and this wasn't a good seat for them by any stretch of the imagination and only came second because the Tories and Lib Dems have no traction here - again this might have been different were Labour in government.
It certainly shows that "traditional" Labour voters (whatever that means) aren't in open revolt against Corbyn and it also shows that it was a well run campaign, run with a pretty light touch from HQ.
I think the result bodes well for the London mayoralty for instance but it doesn't really tell you anything about how we are performing with floating voters. To take Robert's cue again, if you look at the by election results on this forum every Thursday it is the same. Not disastrous but nothing like as good as it needs to be. We will hopefully do better in the all ups next May as we usually do.
Simon Danczuk's actions don't make logical sense because Simon Danczuk doesn't make logical sense. He is a self publicist, touch me if you dare operator, this generation's Frank Field minus the child poverty expertise.

Your first question is one so laden with condescension that I have neglected to respond at all until now. But to answer it directly, the majority was so much larger than that achieved in the general election - 62% or so as opposed to about 55%. And we were not in government at the time of the general election either. This is not a gain on 2010 but on 2015.

And yes, it is a supposedly safe Labour seat, as I acknowledged. But so were many of those just lost in Scotland. And the media were openly touting the result of this election as a referendum on the new direction of Labour, almost gleeful in their anticipation of a poor Labour performance. Some on this forum were openly gloating about how UKIP were going to win it now, due to this or that statement or action by Corbyn.

As for UKIP and it's decline in support. Yes, that is very real, as both you and Robert Waller have pointed out. Yet you both tend to assume there is something inevitable about this, along with any bounce back. But I think that both you and he are missing something crucial. UKIP is suffering from what all parties of that nature suffer from when they gain enough support to attract the full glare of publicity. Eg, people are seeing where they really stand on many issues, and hearing what so many of them think, prejudice, bile, antediluvian attitudes and all. Past utterances on such things as NHS privatisations and watering down workers' rights have been coming back to haunt them. And portraying foreigners as disease carriers whom you wouldn't want for neighbours is way too redolent of the kind of racist tones that were once used against black people.

UKIP inroads into the Labour vote will never survive the full glare of publicity, because most natural Labour voters detest much of where UKIP stands on a whole range of issues. They may buy into some of the xenophobic claptrap to a certain extent as long as it doesn't get too overtly nasty. But UKIP really does struggle to appeal to the average Labour voter mindset on many wider issues. 

Farage can try and park his tanks on Labour lawns as much as he likes. But the full glare of publicity will result in them being destroyed there. 

On a relatively single issue such as the EU, they'll still do well because the public will conclude that the rest of their claptrap is relatively unimportant then. Which is why they will always do so well in the European elections. So expect a bounce at the time of the referendum for them unless  they truly shoot themselves in the foot. But as to posing much of a threat in the Labour heartlands - well that is massively overhyped.