Danny

I just can't see how winning barely 50% in one of their absolute heartland of heartlands is some spectacular result. I'm not saying it's a disaster either - I would agree the low turnout means it should be disregarded completely - but my point is that some Labour people are clinging to this as something that contradicts the raft of dire opinion polls and other indications about what a terrible situation Labour is in.

Oh God, this very mediocre result is going to be an excuse for the "ostrich faction" in Labour to go back to burying their heads in the sand isn't it. Labourlist is already filled with people exclaiming how this proves UKIP are only a threat to the Tories, and how people will flock back to Labour automatically when faced with the prospect of another Tory government (apparently oblivious to the fact that simply being "not the Tories" is a rubbish unique selling point in an era where there's a variety of other parties who are also not the Tories).

What about the point that these are generally people who stuck with the Tories during the "Omnishambles"? If they stuck with them when the Tories were making incompetent gaffes every week, doesn't that suggest that they're going to stick with them forever? I completely fail to understand the thought process that it's easier to win over people who haven't voted Labour in years and years (if ever), than it is to win back people who said they were going to vote Labour up until 6 months or a year ago.

But the reasons they would presumably like the idea of a Labour government are INEVITABLY being ruled out as result of the pledge to "balance the books". Like I've said before, I've never said that pledging to keep running deficits in itself is going to get people to vote for them, my point is that it's needed to get to the only things that will get people to vote Labour - "we'll protect public services", "we'll stop more cuts devastating your towns", "we'll help poor people and people in the middle and stop them falling even further behind the rich". What Labour have never understood is that, even if one accepts the "economic incompetence" thing as a big weakness, they can't tackle it without surrendering all their strengths at the same time -- and it's certainly much better to have big strengths and weaknesses, than to be seen as nothing at all like Labour currently are, with no-one having a clue what they stand for, having nothing of interest to say, and being irrelevant to all the big debates on the future of the country (things like Newsnight often just invite Tory and UKIP people on for debates these days, because Labour would have nothing of interest to contribute due to their complete lack of any strong stances on anything fundamental). And I just can't understand how you think it's going to be easier to win over "fiscally conservative" people than left-wing/working-class people. Look at how dismal the Tories' poll ratings are -- they're made up of people who stuck with the Tories even in their worst ever election defeats, and stuck with them in the "Omnishambles". If these people didn't desert the Tories in their dog days, how do you think Labour could EVER win them over whatever they said? How could they be easier to win over than people who even stuck with Labour in 2010, or Lib Dem defectors who were rock-solid for Labour until very recently? And I don't think you can keep blithely dismissing Green voters as pie-in-the-sky loony lefties since they're now at 5-8% in the polls (and in my view likely to grow more if Labour carry on as they are).

I'm just still bemused at the fact you seem to be canvassing in some parallel universe where everyone is constantly talking about the deficit, where no-one is angry about spending cuts, and where no-one thinks Labour and the Tories are essentially the same party pushing the same policies. Even though your experiences are contradicted by most opinion polls, and countless anecdotes and "vox pops" (just tonight on the news they did a piece in Scotland where Labour voters were saying how Labour had abandoned the people it was set up to fight for, how they'd "betrayed Keir Hardie" or something, and how they were in bed with the Tories).

Apparently, even people in constituencies that vote for Tory MPs are all closet "TUSCites": http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/colu...icle4253113.ece

Do you still think Labour will get more seats than the SNP?

New Scottish poll puts the SNP 29% ahead of Labour(!!). Would result in the SNP holding 54 seats, Labour 4 and the Lib Dems just the one in Orkney & Shetland.

Virtually every single report on the Scottish independence campaign found countless former lifelong Labour voters saying they were voting for independence because they thought Labour had become too much like the Tories and they needed to get out of the UK to have any chance of a government that was for them. I mean, that's accepted by EVERYONE in the commentariat (even though most go with the angle of "Scotland is a separate political system so what works there for Labour wouldn't work elsewhere", whereas I think you get the exact same comments across the north of England and Wales but it's just not showing up in Labour's election results as much because their opponents elsewhere are not as talented as the SNP). At this point, I'm wondering if you're being disingenuous.

?!?!?!? The most notable part of her leadership was when she attacked the SNP for being too generous with public services, and then took part in an independence campaign which lifted tricks straight out of the classic right-wing playbook. Just because someone is endorsed by the unions that doesn't by any stretch of the imagination mean they have left-wing policies, with Ed Miliband being exhibit A. I thought even you accepted that working-class Scottish Labour voters think the party is too much like the Tories, even though you seem to think it's just confined to Scotland rather than across the UK.

Based on what? The only people I've ever seen praising him are Tory media commentators. Not only are his "policies" the exact type of thing that has pushed Scottish Labour voters away (and Labour voters across all their heartlands everywhere in the UK, come to that), but he's always seemed incredibly dull and uncharismatic to me, he has one of the most soporific voices I've ever heard. He'd probably be even worse than Johann Lamont, who atleast seemed slightly normal and down-to-earth compared to most politicians (she actually had fairly respectable personal ratings when she was first elected, although they were then ruined by her policies or lack thereof). Eh?

LOL at Cheryl giving it away with her "Only The Young haven't found their potential yet".

Erm....I legitimately think Jake's sing-off was better than this.

OK, starting to believe the conspiracy theories about Jake being stitched up by the producers now after those comments...

Ardently hoping for a Jay and Lauren bottom 2.

The hype for Jay James baffles me. He just seems so....average.

He is? Do even people in Scotland know anything about him apart from perhaps that he got egged once? (*paging Silas*) I come back to the point that, sooner rather than later, Labour are going to have to ask themselves whether they're just so extraordinarily unlucky to be constantly electing fundamentally bad leaders (both for the Scottish party and the whole UK party), or if the policies that they keep adopting are enough to ruin even leaders who would be perfectly fine and competent in other circumstances. It's not like Nicola Sturgeon is going to be winning any personality contests anytime soon either, but because she actually has clear ideas and clear arguments, she's able to speak in a clear way that people without politics degrees can understand.

The fact Labour people seem to think Jim Murphy of all people is the answer to the question shows how little they understand.

I kind of agree with this. I'm starting to come round to the argument that mass immigration of "low-skilled" workers only works in the favour of big businesses who get to maximise their profits by playing so many workers off against eachother and letting wages race to the bottom. But it's this bullshit about "culture" or "immigrants destroying the British/English way of life" that really makes me uneasy.

Poll for the Rochester & Strood by-election in Kent shows UKIP on course for a win: 43% to the Tories' 30%. Labour are humiliatingly on 21%, down even on their miserable 2010 score. What's interesting is the Labour candidate is some dire Progress Tendency robot who wanted Labour to prioritise the deficit and witter on about the "tough spending decisions they'll take", which is in stark contrast to the Labour MP who previously won this constituency 3 times in a row between 1997 and 2010 who was a loony-left member of the Socialist Campaign Group. It seems even people in the fabled south-east have not got the memo that they're supposed to prefer "centre-ground", "credible", "pro-business" Labour candidates over ones who actually stand for something.

It was minor in terms of what it represented. Labour were deluding themselves if they thought people were going to think "ooh, I'll save a few quid on the gas, that's all I need to know to vote Labour!" It could've worked as part of a general theme of tackling "Rip-Off Britain" where a bunch of big companies are outrageously fleecing customers for essentials just to line their own pockets. An energy price freeze could've been a good illustration to back up a wider point, but it was never going to be enough in and of itself.

You're right that tax revenues are the big problem, but it's not even like big tax hikes are needed. All that's needed are for the rich and big businesses to actually pay their taxes at the rates that are currently in force, rather than squirrelling all their money away in tax havens. Yet supposedly left-wing politicians are too scared to even SAY that the rich are the ones to blame, let alone do something about cracking down on them. I do think it's inevitable over the next 10-20 years that all the major economies will club together and raise their tax rates to similar levels, and then refuse to trade with any country that doesn't do the same. The option of the global rich being able to hold their countries to ransom, and allow the living standards of the poor and middle class to collapse (even though the poor and the middle class are the ones who made such a huge contribution to those rich people getting so rich in the first place), has to be taken off the table.

That's not backed up by the polls. UKIP supporters as a whole are very anti-austerity (though admittedly the Tory activists who've defected to UKIP are probably a different story). Imo, the ToryKippers were generally people who voted Tory in 2010 because of immigration and because they thought generally it was "time for a change", rather than approving of the Tories' economic policies.

Probably a "cap" on European immigration and an end to austerity.

Sorry, but pinning it all on Ed Miliband is just too easy. This goes back to something we talked about a while ago, but at this point, there's been two Labour leaders in a row who were utterly uninspiring, and then throw in Scotland with Johann Lamont and her predecessor. Don't you think it's time to ask whether the party has just been unfortunate to have a whole sequence of fundamentally bad leaders, or if the reason they're all seen as bad/uninspiring/boring leaders is a result of the political choices they've made (namely to be as uncontroversial/uninteresting/"un-ideological" as possible)? On the point about people saying they hate Ed but would've voted for David. In my view, that's just people projecting whatever they want from Labour onto an empty vessel, in the same way people used to do with the Lib Dems irrespective of what their actual policies were. When I was canvassing round here (these anecdotes are a couple of years out of date now admittedly), the MANY people who complained about how Labour/Ed were just Tories in disguise and how nothing would be different if Labour got in, were often the very people who said they would've preferred David to be leader. And the smaller group of people who said they were worried that Labour would overspend (yes, even I admit there were SOME :P ) would also say they preferred David. Agreed! But then that begs the question of why Labour have become too scared to suggest that rich people and big businesses (do you atleast agree there's HUGE anger towards them?) should not be taking any hits.