Just need to whittle down that swing by a few points - the difference between a 16 and 20 point swing is about twenty seats, so if Labour can win back some of those open SNP to Labour considerers it would be the difference between a bad result and a repeat of the 1918 election in Ireland where Sinn Fein basically won every seat south of Ulster.

good to see Osbourne planning to use a Libdem policy (again) to give the Tories a last-minute pre-election tax-break for low-wage-earners surge, of course with no mention that it's not a Tory policy.

 

Hopefully, the cynical exercise will backfire a la Chicken Dave.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31790067

 

Ed Balls apparently STILL hasn't learnt that it makes no sense whatsoever for him to complain about Tory spending cuts, if in the inevitable follow-up questions he's not going to guarantee that Labour won't make the same cuts.

He did - £50bn's worth of them.

 

It only makes 'no sense whatsoever' in the same world that it makes no sense to say a totally shaven head is terrible when you want a short back and sides. Which is to say it does make sense to most people who aren't absolutists.

He did - £50bn's worth of them.

 

It only makes 'no sense whatsoever' in the same world that it makes no sense to say a totally shaven head is terrible when you want a short back and sides. Which is to say it does make sense to most people who aren't absolutists.

 

Have you been following any of his interviews? Any single thing he's asked about where the Tories are indicating cuts, and asked if Labour would do something differently, he says he can't guarantee it with his usual "difficult decisions" mantra. This £50bn figure has been plucked out of thin air.

£50bn was reported by the BBC!

The Conservatives now seem to have moved into a decisive lead. 4% up in two polls today.

The Conservatives now seem to have moved into a decisive lead. 4% up in two polls today.

Nice avoiding the previous point there.

 

http://may2015.com/featured/labour-appears...d-in-the-polls/

 

It's not a decisive lead at all. It may just about be a lead, and that's about it.

Nice avoiding the previous point there.

 

http://may2015.com/featured/labour-appears...d-in-the-polls/

 

It's not a decisive lead at all. It may just about be a lead, and that's about it.

 

I only "avoided" the point because it was going to lead to yet another circular discussion (even I have my limits!). Doesn't change that the "choice" between the parties is essentially equivalent to whether someone would prefer to die in two years, or to die in two years and one month. And the polls show how well it's working, compared to the consistent leads Labour had when they were daring to do the "un-credible" thing of defending the concept of public spending against the idea of the deficit being the top priority.

Edited March 9, 201510 yr by Danny

I think you've got a very rose-tinted memory of our economic policy in 2012-13. Someone who wanted to make the opposite point (which I don't, because I'm not Dan Hodges) would say that it was telling that we lost our lead as soon as we started talking about things like renationalising the railways.

I think you've got a very rose-tinted memory of our economic policy in 2012-13.

 

Oh, it certainly wasn't perfect even then, but atleast they were defending the basic concept of government spending. I remember when it was some big thing at the 2012 conference just when they said they wouldn't be reversing all the cuts that had already taken place; nobody seriously thought back then that they would give into the Right-wing narrative so much that they would go into the election actually promising to add on further cuts of their own and make things even worse, or be running on the critique that the government hadn't cut the deficit/spending quickly enough.

Edited March 10, 201510 yr by Danny

Someone who wanted to make the opposite point (which I don't, because I'm not Dan Hodges) would say that it was telling that we lost our lead as soon as we started talking about things like renationalising the railways.

I don't either, I just think Ed got it wrong from the very beginning and now his chickens have come home to roost. He never had a good story to tell and to explain exactly what Labour are about - it was (and still is) just positional policy-based lists, which doesn't work whether you're fighting from the left or from the right if you can't show people you share their values and have a basic bloody narrative to explain who you are and what you'll do (that ISN'T based on 'POLICY OFFERS! SPENDING!' - strange how many Obama fanboys in Labour on the left and right forget that was literally the opposite of what he did in 2008 and 2012 and act like victory is just a matter of throwing out the right policy positions.)

 

Victory at this point hinges totally on how many SNP switchers can be persuaded to give Labour another chance and how much it hurts the Tories to miss the debates. Worryingly in today's Ashcroft focus groups a few raised it as a positive that he'd miss the debates as it would 'mean he wasn't blathering about and was instead getting on with running the country'. Do people really think he's doing much of that during an election campaign?!

I don't either, I just think Ed got it wrong from the very beginning and now his chickens have come home to roost. He never had a good story to tell and to explain exactly what Labour are about - it was (and still is) just positional policy-based lists, which doesn't work whether you're fighting from the left or from the right if you can't show people you share their values and have a basic bloody narrative to explain who you are and what you'll do (that ISN'T based on 'POLICY OFFERS! SPENDING!' - strange how many Obama fanboys in Labour on the left and right forget that was literally the opposite of what he did in 2008 and 2012 and act like victory is just a matter of throwing out the right policy positions.)

 

Victory at this point hinges totally on how many SNP switchers can be persuaded to give Labour another chance and how much it hurts the Tories to miss the debates. Worryingly in today's Ashcroft focus groups a few raised it as a positive that he'd miss the debates as it would 'mean he wasn't blathering about and was instead getting on with running the country'. Do people really think he's doing much of that during an election campaign?!

 

Was this aimed at me? :lol: I actually agree with what you said in that paragraph, but I'd argue there's been obvious narratives staring them in the face all along ("it's time for rich people and big businesses to be brought into line") but they were too scared to go for it. Though admittedly Miliband would never have been very convincing at selling that message evn if he had the guts to try.

 

**

 

Who will you be voting for in the leadership contest after the election?

Edited March 10, 201510 yr by Danny

Was this aimed at me? :lol:

 

It's aimed at about 90% of the people I know in Labour!

 

I actually agree with what you said in that paragraph, but I'd argue there's been obvious narratives staring them in the face all along ("it's time for rich people and big businesses to be brought into line") but they were too scared to go for it. Though admittedly Miliband would never have been very convincing at selling that message evn if he had the guts to try.

At this stage (well, actually, I've been 'at this stage' since I did that damned essay last year) I'd not have cared whatever narrative he chose, as long as chose one and stuck to it, and made clear what his values were in the process and how his backstory related to it so the whole thing made sense (rather than mistaking taglines for narratives like he did with One Nation).

 

Who will you be voting for in the leadership contest after the election?

Theresa May :basil:

 

(IN seriousness, in the eventuality that a Labour leadership election happens, my first priority is a leader intelligent enough to never say to the media that they want to 'weaponise' an issue or explain that they're talking about an issue because it's 'salient' - keep that chat to the back rooms, if that. That narrows it down to Stella, Andy and Chuka, and my choice after that depends which one I think is better at crafting a coherent message and selling it, and ideally the message would be one that doesn't fall apart in government. I'm tempted by Liz Kendall after her speech to UNISON but I'd be surprised if she ran against Chuka.)

I thought you hated Andy Burnham? :P

I do, but I'm not averse to voting for someone I hate if I think they're a winner so long as they don't compromise too much on my basic values. My priority is getting a winner. Andy's strong suit comes through how likely he'd be to win back UKIP supporters, though if he started pissing about with basics like social liberalism then I'd have to think really hard.

 

Chuka is basically the metropolitan liberal elite writ large, but I think he could capture the zeitgeist in a similar way to Blair/Obama and I think he's good enough at politics to overcome that and make it a part of his brand. Stella has viral potential as a leader too but I think she'd be unlikely to win a leadership election this year, and she does suffer a little from operating on a totally different level intellectually to everyone else (although she's shown she can make that work with her campaigning).

Oh, it certainly wasn't perfect even then, but atleast they were defending the basic concept of government spending. I remember when it was some big thing at the 2012 conference just when they said they wouldn't be reversing all the cuts that had already taken place; nobody seriously thought back then that they would give into the Right-wing narrative so much that they would go into the election actually promising to add on further cuts of their own and make things even worse, or be running on the critique that the government hadn't cut the deficit/spending quickly enough.

Wait, you're now saying that Labour are going to make MORE cuts than the Tories? Where have you got this from?!

 

--

 

Stella, like Lisa Nandy, is one for the future. I can't imagine Burnham being allowed to tack to the right on social issues (because let's face it, if we lose now it's not because of UKIP) so I can't imagine myself not backing him if it came down to it. He was my second preference last time when he was far less impressive.

Wait, you're now saying that Labour are going to make MORE cuts than the Tories? Where have you got this from?!

 

No, I'm saying they're going to make yet more cuts on top of the cuts that have already been in place -- nobody would ever have thought they would give in to the Right so much that they'd do that.

I for one think that Andy Burham would be a fabulous Labour Party leader. Which means he'll never get it.

I for one think that Andy Burham would be a fabulous Labour Party leader. Which means he'll never get it.

 

Andy Burnham was the runaway winner the last time Labour members were asked to rank the top Labour ministers.

 

http://labourlist.org/2014/11/burnham-rema...binet-rankings/

 

His only real competition imo is Yvette Cooper, because there's a belief in some sections of the party that they need to elect a woman, just for the sake of electing a woman (even if that woman is a female version of Ed Miliband in the charisma stakes).

Edited March 10, 201510 yr by Danny